And waded back to his dwelling across the rushing ford:But the youngling fell a prattling, and asked of this and that,
As above the rattle of waters on Sigmund's shoulder he sat!
And Sigmund deemed in his heart that the boy would be bold enough.
So he fostered him there in the woodland in life full hard and rough
For the space of three months' wearing; and the lad was deft and strong,
Yet his sight was a grief to Sigmund because of his father's wrong.
On a morn to the son of King Siggeir Sigmund the Volsung said:
"I go to the hunting of deer, bide thou and bake our bread
Against I bring the venison."
So forth he fared on his way,
And came again with the quarry about the noon of day;
Quoth he: "Is the morn's work done?" But the boy said nought for a space,
And all white he was and quaking as he looked on Sigmund's face.
"Tell me, O Son of the Goth-king," quoth Sigmund, "how thou hast fared?
Forsooth, is the baking of bread so mighty a thing to be dared?"
Quoth the lad: "I went to the meal-sack, and therein was something quick,
And it moved, and I feared for the serpent, like a winter ashen stick
That I saw on the stone last even: so I durst not deal with the thing."
Loud Sigmund laughed, and answered: "I have heard of that son of a king,
Who might not be scared from his bread for all the worms of the land."
And therewith he went to the meal-sack and thrust therein his hand,
And drew forth an ash-grey adder, and a deadly worm it was:
Then he went to the door of the cave and set it down in the grass,
While the King's son quaked and quivered: then he drew forth his sword from the sheath,
And said:
"Now fearest thou this, that men call the serpent of death?"
Then said the son of King Siggeir: "I am young as yet for the war,
Yet e'en such a blade shall I carry ere many a month be o'er."
Then abroad went the King in the wind, and leaned on his naked sword
And stood there many an hour, and mused on Signy's word.
But at last when the moon was arisen, and the undark night begun,
He sheathed the sword and cried: "Come forth, King Siggeir's son,
Thou shalt wend from out of the wild-wood and no more will I foster thee."
Forth came the son of Siggeir, and quaked his face to see,
But thereof nought Sigmund noted, but bade him wend with him.
So they went through the summer night-tide by many a wood-way dim,
Till they came to a certain wood-lawn, and Sigmund lingered there,
And spake as his feet brushed o'er it: "The June flowers blossom fair."
So they came to the skirts of the forest, and the meadows of the neat,
And the earliest wind of dawning blew over them soft and sweet:
There stayed Sigmund the Volsung, and said:
"King Siggeir's son,
Bide here till the birds are singing, and the day is well begun;
Then go to the house of the Goth-king, and find thou Signy the Queen,
And tell unto no man else the things thou hast heard and seen:
But to her shalt thou tell what thou wilt, and say this word withal:
'Mother, I come from the wild-wood, and he saith, whatever befal
Alone will I abide there, nor have such fosterlings;
For the sons of the Gods may help me, but never the sons of Kings.'
Go, then, with this word in thy mouth—or do thou after thy fate,
And, if thou wilt, betray me!—and repent it early and late."
Then he turned his back on the acres, and away to the woodland strode;
But the boy scarce bided the sunrise ere he went the homeward road;
So he came to the house of the Goth-kings, and spake with Signy the Queen,
Nor told he to any other the things he had heard and seen,
For the heart of a king's son had he.
But Signy hearkened his word;
And long she pondered and said: "What is it my heart hath feared?
And how shall it be with earth's people if the kin of the Volsungs die,
And King Volsung unavenged in his mound by the sea-strand lie?
I have given my best and bravest, as my heart's blood I would give,
And my heart and my fame and my body, that the name of Volsung might live.
Lo the first gift cast aback: and how shall it be with the last—
—If I find out the gift for the giving before the hour be passed?"
Long while she mused and pondered while day was thrust on day,
Till the king and the earls of the strangers seemed shades of the dreamtide grey
And gone seemed all earth's people, save that woman mid the gold
And that man in the depths of the forest in the cave of the Dwarfs of old.
And once in the dark she murmured: "Where then was the ancient song
That the Gods were but twin-born once, and deemed it nothing wrong
To mingle for the world's sake, whence had the Æsir birth,
And the Vanir and the Dwarf-kind, and all the folk of earth?"
Now amidst those days that she pondered came a wife of the witch-folk there,
A woman young and lovesome, and shaped exceeding fair,
And she spake with Signy the Queen, and told her of deeds of her craft,
And how the
