The Story of Sigurd the Volsung. William Morris

King Volsung, and the valour of his folk!

       Three times the wood of battle before their edges broke;

       And the shield-wall, sorely dwindled and reft of the ruddy gold,

       Against the drift of the war-blast for the fourth time yet did hold.

       But men's shields were waxen heavy with the weight of shafts they bore,

       And the fifth time many a champion cast earthward Odin's door

       And gripped the sword two-handed; and in sheaves the spears came on.

       And at last the host of the Goth-folk within the shield-wall won,

       And wild was the work within it, and oft and o'er again

       Forth brake the sons of Volsung, and drave the foe in vain;

       For the driven throng still thickened, till it might not give aback.

       But fast abode King Volsung amid the shifting wrack

       In the place where once was the forefront: for he said: "My feet are old,

       And if I wend on further there is nought more to behold

       Than this that I see about me."—Whiles drew his foes away

       And stared across the corpses that before his sword-edge lay.

       But nought he followed after: then needs must they in front

       Thrust on by the thickening spear-throng come up to bear the brunt,

       Till all his limbs were weary and his body rent and torn:

       Then he cried: "Lo now, Allfather, is not the swathe well shorn?

       Wouldst thou have me toil for ever, nor win the wages due?"

      And mid the hedge of foemen his blunted sword he threw,

       And, laid like the oars of a longship the level war-shafts pressed

       On 'gainst the unshielded elder, and clashed amidst his breast;

       And dead he fell, thrust backward, and rang on the dead men's gear:

       But still for a certain season durst no man draw anear,

       For 'twas e'en as a great God's slaying, and they feared the wrath of the sky;

       And they deemed their hearts might harden if awhile they should let him lie.

      Of the ending of all Volsung's Sons save Sigmund only, and of how he abideth in the wild wood.

      They joined battle again, but the fight grew feeble after Volsung fell, and his earls were struck down one by one. Last of all, his sons were borne to earth and carried captive to the hall, where Siggeir awaited them, for he himself had feared to face the Volsung swords.

      Then he would have slain them at once without torture, but Signy besought him that they might breathe the earthly air a day or two before their death, and he listened to her, for he saw how he might thus give them greater pain. He bade his men lead them to a glade in the forest and fetter them to the mightiest tree that grew there. So the ten Volsungs were fettered with iron to a great oak, and on the morrow Siggeir's woodmen told him sweet tidings, for beasts of the wood had devoured two and left their bones in the fetters. So it befell every night till the woodmen brought word that nothing remained of the king's foemen save their bones in the fetters that had bound them.

      Now a watch had been set on Signy lest she should send help to her brethren, but henceforth no man hindered her from going out to the wood. So that night she came to the glade in the forest, and saw in the midst of it a mighty man who was toiling to dig a grave in the greensward.