The Story of the Volsungs

CHAPTER XLII. Gudrun sends her Sons to avenge 5wanhild.

Now Gu­drun heard of the slay­ing of Swan­hild, and spake to her sons, “Why sit ye here in peace amid many words, where­as Jor­munrek hath slain your sis­ter, and trod­den her un­der foot of hors­es in shame­ful wise? No heart ye have in you like to Gun­nar or Hog­ni; ver­ily they would have avenged their kinswom­an!”

Hamdir an­swered, “Lit­tle didst thou praise Gun­nar and Hog­ni, where­as they slew Sig­urd, and thou wert red­dened in the blood of him, and ill were thy brethren avenged by the slay­ing of thine own sons: yet not so ill a deed were it for us to slay King Jor­munrek, and so hard thou push­est on to this that we may naught abide thy hard words.”

Gu­drun went about laugh­ing now, and gave them to drink from mighty beakers, and there­after she got for them great byrnies and good, and all oth­er weed (1) of war.

Then spake Hamdir, “Lo now, this is our last part­ing, for thou shalt hear tid­ings of us, and drink one grave-​ale (2) over us and over Swan­hild.”

So there­with they went their ways.

But Gu­drun went un­to her bow­er, with heart swollen with sor­row, and spake –

“To three men was I wed­ded, and first to Sig­urd Fafnir’s-​bane, and he was be­wrayed and slain, and of all griefs was that the great­est grief. Then was I giv­en to King Atli, and so fell was my heart to­ward him that I slew in the fury of my grief his chil­dren and mine. Then gave I my­self to the sea, but the bil­lows there­of cast me out aland, and to this king then was I giv­en; then gave I Swan­hild away out of the land with mighty wealth; and lo, my next great­est sor­row af­ter Sig­urd, for un­der hors­es feet was she trod­den and slain; but the grimmest and ugli­est of woes was the cast­ing of Gun­nar in­to the Worm-​close, and the hard­est was the cut­ting of Hog­ni’s heart from him.

“Ah, bet­ter would it be if Sig­urd came to meet me, and I went my ways with him, for here bideth now be­hind with me nei­ther son nor daugh­ter to com­fort me. Oh, min­dest thou not, Sig­urd, the words we spoke when we went in­to one bed to­geth­er, that thou wouldst come and look on me; yea, even from thine abid­ing place among the dead?

And thus had the words of her sor­row an end.

END­NOTE: (1) Weed (A.S. “weo­do”), cloth­ing. (2) Grave-​ale, buri­al-​feast.