Part 16 (1/2)

”O who art thou, and wherefore, and why art thou in the path?”

Then he turned to the ash-grey Serpent, and grovelled low on the ground, And he drank of that pool of the blood where the stones of the wild were drowned, And long he lapped as a dog; but when he arose again, Lo, a flock of the mountain-eagles that drew to the feastful plain; And he turned and looked on Sigurd, as bright in the sun he stood, A stripling fair and slender, and wiped the Wrath of the blood.

But Regin cried: ”O Dwarf-kind, O many-s.h.i.+fting folk, O shapes of might and wonder, am I too freed from the yoke, That binds my soul to my body a withered thing forlorn, While the short-lived fools of man-folk so fair and oft are born?

Now swift in the air shall I be, and young in the concourse of kings, If my heart shall come to desire the gain of earthly things.”

And he looked and saw how Sigurd was sheathing the Flame of War, And the eagles screamed in the wind, but their voice came faint from afar: Then he scowled, and crouched and darkened, and came to Sigurd and spake: ”O child, thou hast slain my brother, and the Wrath is alive and awake.”

”Thou sayest sooth,” said Sigurd, ”thy deed and mine is done: But now our ways shall sunder, for here, meseemeth, the sun Hath but little of deeds to do, and no love to win aback.”

Then Regin crouched before him, and he spake: ”Fare on to the wrack!

Fare on to the murder of men, and the deeds of thy kindred of old!

And surely of thee as of them shall the tale be speedily told.

Thou hast slain thy Master's brother, and what wouldst thou say thereto, Were the judges met for the judging and the doom-ring hallowed due?”

Then Sigurd spake as aforetime: ”Thy deed and mine it was, And now our ways shall sunder, and into the world will I pa.s.s.”

But Regin darkened before him, and exceeding grim was he grown, And he spake: ”Thou hast slain my brother, and wherewith wilt thou atone?”

”Stand up, O Master,” said Sigurd, ”O Singer of ancient days, And take the wealth I have won thee, ere we wend on the sundering ways.

I have toiled and thou hast desired, and the Treasure is surely anear, And thou hast wisdom to find it, and I have slain thy fear.”

But Regin crouched and darkened: ”Thou hast slain my brother,” he said.

”Take thou the Gold,” quoth Sigurd, ”for the ransom of my head!”

Then Regin crouched and darkened, and over the earth he hung; And he said: ”Thou hast slain my brother, and the G.o.ds are yet but young.”

Bright Sigurd towered above him, and the Wrath cried out in the sheath, And Regin writhed against it as the adder turns on death; And he spake: ”Thou hast slain my brother, and today shalt thou be my thrall: Yea a King shall be my cook-boy and this heath my cooking-hall.”

Then he crept to the ash-grey coils where the life of his brother had lain.

And he drew a glaive from his side and smote the smitten and slain, And tore the heart from Fafnir, while the eagles cried o'erhead.

And sharp and shrill was their voice o'er the entrails of the dead.

Then Regin spake to Sigurd: ”Of this slaying wilt thou be free?

Then gather thou fire together and roast the heart for me, That I may eat it and live, and be thy master and more; For therein was might and wisdom, and the grudged and h.o.a.rded lore:-- --Or else, depart on thy ways afraid from the Glittering Heath.”

Then he fell abackward and slept, nor set his sword in the sheath, But his hand was red on the hilts and blue were the edges bared, Ash-grey was his visage waxen, and with open eyes he stared On the height of heaven above him, and a fearful thing he seemed, As his soul went wide in the world, and of rule and kings.h.i.+p he dreamed.

But Sigurd took the Heart, and wood on the waste he found, The wood that grew and died, as it crept on the n.i.g.g.ard ground, And grew and died again, and lay like whitened bones; And the ernes cried over his head, as he builded his hearth of stones, And kindled the fire for cooking, and sat and sang o'er the roast The song of his fathers of old, and the Wolflings' gathering host: So there on the Glittering Heath rose up the little flame, And the dry sticks crackled amidst it, and alow the eagles came, And seven they were by tale, and they pitched all round about The cooking-fire of Sigurd, and sent their song-speech out: But nought he knoweth its wisdom, or the word that they would speak: And hot grew the Heart of Fafnir and sang amid the reek.

Then Sigurd looketh on Regin, and he deemeth it overlong That he dighteth the dear-bought morsel, and the might for the Master of wrong, So he reacheth his hand to the roast to see if the cooking be o'er; But the blood and the fat seethed from it and scalded his finger sore, And he set his hand to his mouth to quench the fleshly smart, And he tasted the flesh of the Serpent and the blood of Fafnir's Heart: Then there came a change upon him, for the speech of fowl he knew, And wise in the ways of the beast-kind as the Dwarfs of old he grew; And he knitted his brows and hearkened, and wrath in his heart arose; For he felt beset of evil in a world of many foes.

But the hilts of the Wrath he handled, and Regin's heart he saw, And how that the Foe of the G.o.ds the net of death would draw; And his bright eyes flashed and sparkled, and his mouth grew set and stern As he hearkened the voice of the eagles, and their song began to learn.

For the first cried out in the desert: ”O mighty Sigmund's son, How long wilt thou sit and tarry now the dear-bought roast is done?”

And the second: ”Volsung, arise! for the horns blow up to the hall, And dight are the purple hangings, and the King to the feasting should fall.”

And the third: ”How great is the feast if the eater eat aright The Heart of the wisdom of old and the after-world's delight!”

And the fourth: ”Yea, what of Regin? shall he scatter wrack o'er the world?

Shall the father be slain by the son, and the brother 'gainst brother be hurled?”

And the fifth: ”He hath taught a stripling the gifts of a G.o.d to give: He hath reared up a King for the slaying, that he alone might live.”