From his hand then draweth Sigurd Andvari’s ancient Gold;
  There is nought but the sky above them as the ring together they hold,
  The shapen ancient token, that hath no change nor end,
  No change, and no beginning, no flaw for God to mend: 
  Then Sigurd cries:  “O Brynhild, now hearken while I swear,
  That the sun shall die in the heavens and the day no more be fair,
  If I seek not love in Lymdale and the house that fostered thee,
  And the land where thou awakedst ’twixt the woodland and the sea!”

  And she cried:  “O Sigurd, Sigurd, now hearken while I swear
  That the day shall die for ever and the sun to blackness wear,
  Ere I forget thee, Sigurd, as I lie ’twixt wood and sea
  In the little land of Lymdale and the house that fostered me!”

  Then he set the ring on her finger and once, if ne’er again,
  They kissed and clung together, and their hearts were full and fain.

* * * * *

BOOK III.

BRYNHILD.

Of Sigurd’s riding to the Niblungs.

Now Brynhild and Sigurd left Hindfell, and Brynhild went to dwell in her sister’s house, but Sigurd abode not long in the land of Lymdale, for his love urged him to great adventures wherein he might win glory befitting the man who should wed so noble a woman as Brynhild.

So it befell one day in summer that he dight himself in the Helm of Aweing and the Mail-coat all of gold, and girded the Wrath to his side to ride forth again.  And on his saddle he bound the red rings of Fafnir’s Treasure.

Then he kissed the ancient King Heimir, and hailed the folk of the land who came to give him god-speed.

  And he gathered the reins together, and set his face to the road,
  And the glad steed neighed beneath him as they fared from the King’s abode. 
  And out past the dewy closes; but the shouts went up to the sky,
  Though some for very sorrow forbore the farewell cry,
  Nor was any man but heavy that the godlike guest should go;
  And they craved for that glad heart guileless, and that face without a foe.

* * * * *

  But forth by dale and lealand doth the Son of Sigmund wend,
  Till far away lies Lymdale and the folk of the forest’s end;
  And he rides a heath unpeopled and holds the westward way,
  Till a long way off before him come up the mountains grey;
  Grey, huge beyond all telling, and the host of the heaped clouds,
  The black and the white together, on that rock-wall’s coping crowds.

* * * * *