The Story of Sigurd the Volsung Part 8

Again on the morrow morning doth Sigurd the Volsung ride, And Regin, the Master of Masters, is faring by his side, And they leave the dwelling of kings and ride the summer land, Until at the eve of the day the hills are on either hand; Then they wend up higher and higher, and over the heaths they fare Till the moon s.h.i.+nes broad on the midnight, and they sleep 'neath the heavens bare; And they waken and look behind them, and lo, the dawning of day And the little land of the Helper and its valleys far away; But the mountains rise before them, a wall exceeding great.

Then spake the Master of Masters: "We have come to the garth and the gate; There is youth and rest behind thee and many a thing to do, There is many a fond desire, and each day born anew; And the land of the Volsungs to conquer, and many a people's praise: And for me there is rest it may be, and the peaceful end of days.

We have come to the garth and the gate; to the hall-door now shall we win, Shall we go to look on the high-seat and see what sitteth therein?"

"Yea, and what else?" said Sigurd, "was thy tale but mockeries, And have I been drifted hither on a wind of empty lies?"

"It was sooth, it was sooth," said Regin, "and more might I have told Had I heart and s.p.a.ce to remember the deeds of the days of old."

Day-long they fared through the mountains, and that highway's fas.h.i.+oner, Forsooth, was a fearful craftsman, and his hands the waters were, And the heaped-up ice was his mattock, and the fire-blast was his man, And never a whit he heeded though his walls were waste and wan, And the guest-halls of that wayside great heaps of the ashes spent.

But, each as a man alone, through the sun-bright day they went, And they rode till the moon rose upward, and the stars were small and fair, Then they slept on the long-slaked ashes beneath the heavens bare; And the cold dawn came and they wakened, and the King of the Dwarf-kind seemed As a thing of that wan land fas.h.i.+oned; but Sigurd glowed and gleamed Amid a shadowless twilight by Greyfell's cloudy flank, As a little s.p.a.ce they abided while the latest star-world shrank; On the backward road looked Regin and heard how Sigurd drew The girths of Greyfell's saddle, and the voice of his sword he knew,

And his war-gear clanged and tinkled as he leapt to the saddle-stead: And the sun rose up at their backs and the grey world changed to red, And away to the west went Sigurd by the glory wreathed about, But little and black was Regin as a fire that dieth out.

Day-long they rode the mountains by the crags exceeding old, And the ash that the first of the Dwarf-kind found dull and quenched and cold.

Then the moon in the mid-sky swam, and the stars were fair and pale, And beneath the naked heaven they slept in an ash-grey dale; And again at the dawn-dusk's ending they stood upon their feet, And Sigurd donned his war-gear nor his eyes would Regin meet.

A clear streak widened in heaven low down above the earth; And above it lay the cloud-flecks, and the sun, anigh its birth, Unseen, their hosts was staining with the very hue of blood, And ruddy by Greyfell's shoulder the Son of Sigmund stood.

Then spake the Master of Masters: "What is thine hope this morn That thou dightest thee, O Sigurd, to ride this world forlorn?"

"What needeth hope," said Sigurd, "when the heart of the Volsungs turns To the light of the Glittering Heath, and the house where the Waster burns?

I shall slay the Foe of the G.o.ds, as thou badst me a while agone, And then with the Gold and its wisdom shalt thou be left alone."

"O Child," said the King of the Dwarf-kind, "when the day at last comes round For the dread and the Dusk of the G.o.ds, and the kin of the Wolf is unbound, When thy sword shall hew the fire, and the wildfire beateth thy s.h.i.+eld, Shalt thou praise the wages of hope and the G.o.ds that pitched the field?"

"O Foe of the G.o.ds," said Sigurd, "wouldst thou hide the evil thing, And the curse that is greater than thou, lest death end thy labouring, Lest the night should come upon thee amidst thy toil for nought?

It is me, it is me that thou fearest, if indeed I know thy thought; Yea me, who would utterly light the face of all good and ill, If not with the fruitful beams that the summer shall fulfill, Then at least with the world a-blazing, and the glare of the grinded sword.

"I have hearkened not nor heeded the words of thy fear and thy ruth: Thou hast told thy tale and thy longing, and thereto I hearkened well:-- Let it lead thee up to heaven, let it lead thee down to h.e.l.l, The deed shall be done tomorrow: thou shalt have that measureless Gold, And devour the garnered wisdom that blessed thy realm of old, That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the very heart of hate: With the blood and the might of thy brother thine hunger shalt thou sate; And this deed shall be mine and thine; but take heed for what followeth then!

Let each do after his kind! I shall do the deeds of men; I shall harvest the field of their sowing, in the bed of their strewing shall sleep; To them shall I give my life-days, to the G.o.ds my glory to keep.

But them with the wealth and the wisdom that the best of the G.o.ds might praise, If thou shall indeed excel them and become the hope of the days, Then me in turn hast thou conquered, and I shall be in turn Thy fas.h.i.+oned brand of the battle through good and evil to burn, Or the flame that sleeps in thy st.i.thy for the gathered winds to blow, When thou listest to do and undo and thine uttermost cunning to show.

But indeed I wot full surely that thou shalt follow thy kind; And for all that cometh after, the Norns shall loose and bind."

Then his bridle-reins rang sweetly, and the warding-walls of death, And Regin drew up to him, and the Wrath sang loud in the sheath, And forth from that trench in the mountains by the westward way they ride; And little and black goes Regin by the golden Volsung's side;

So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er, And the stars grew pale and paler, and failed from the heaven's floor, And the moon was a long while dead, but where was the promise of day?

No change came over the darkness, no streak of the dawning grey; No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran: It was blind as the Gaping Gulf ere the first of the worlds began.

Then athwart and athwart rode Sigurd and sought the walls of the pa.s.s, But found no wall before him; and the road rang hard as bra.s.s Beneath the hoofs of Greyfell, as up and up he trod: --Was it the daylight of h.e.l.l, or the night of the doorway of G.o.d?

But lo, at the last a glimmer, and a light from the west there came, And another and another, like points of far-off flame; And they grew and brightened and gathered; and whiles together they ran Like the moonwake over the waters; and whiles they were scant and wan, Some greater and some lesser, like the boats of fishers laid About the sea of midnight; and a dusky dawn they made, A faint and glimmering twilight: So Sigurd strains his eyes, And he sees how a land deserted all round about him lies More changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor: Then the heart leaps up within him, for he knows that his journey is o'er, And there he draweth bridle on the first of the Glittering Heath: And the Wrath is waxen merry and sings in the golden sheath As he leaps adown from Greyfell, and stands upon his feet, And wends his ways through the twilight the Foe of the G.o.ds to meet.

_Sigurd slayeth Fafnir the Serpent._

Nought Sigurd seeth of Regin, and nought he heeds of him, As in watchful might and glory he strides the desert dim, And behind him paceth Greyfell; but he deems the time o'erlong Till he meet the great gold-warden, the over-lord of wrong.

So he wendeth midst the silence through the measureless desert place, And beholds the countless glitter with wise and steadfast face, Till him-seems in a little season that the flames grown somewhat wan, And a grey thing glimmers before him, and becomes a mighty man, One-eyed and ancient-seeming, in cloud-grey raiment clad; A friendly man and glorious, and of visage smiling-glad: Then content in Sigurd groweth because of his majesty, And he heareth him speak in the desert as the wind of the winter sea:

"Hail Sigurd! Give me thy greeting ere thy ways alone thou wend!"

Said Sigurd: "Hail! I greet thee, my friend and my fathers' friend."

"Now whither away," said the elder, "with the Steed and the ancient Sword?"

"To the greedy house," said Sigurd, "and the King of the Heavy h.o.a.rd."

"Wilt thou smite, O Sigurd, Sigurd?" said the ancient mighty-one.

"Yea, yea, I shall smite," said the Volsung, "save the G.o.ds have slain the sun."

"What wise wilt thou smite," said the elder, "lest the dark devour thy day?"

"Thou hast praised the sword," said the child, "and the sword shall find a way."

"Be learned of me," said the Wise-one, "for I was the first of thy folk."

Said the child: "I shall do thy bidding, and for thee shall I strike the stroke."

Spake the Wise-one: "Thus shalt thou do when thou wendest hence alone: Thou shalt find a path in the desert, and a road in the world of stone; It is smooth and deep and hollow, but the rain hath riven it not, And the wild wind hath not worn it, for it is but Fafnir's slot, Whereby he wends to the water and the fathomless pool of old, When his heart in the dawn is weary, and he loathes the ancient Gold: There think of the great and the fathers, and bare the whetted Wrath, And dig a pit in the highway, and a grave in the Serpent's path: Lie thou therein, O Sigurd, and thine hope from the glooming hide, And be as the dead for a season, and the living light abide!

And so shall thine heart avail thee, and thy mighty fateful hand, And the Light that lay in the Branstock, the well-beloved brand."

Said the child: "I shall do thy bidding, and for thee shall I strike the stroke; For I love thee, friend of my fathers, Wise Heart of the holy folk."

So spake the Son of Sigmund, and beheld no man anear, And again was the night the midnight, and the twinkling flame shone clear In the hush of the Glittering Heath; and alone went Sigmund's son Till he came to the road of Fafnir, and the highway worn by one, By the drift of the rain unfurrowed, by the windy years unrent, And forth from the dark it came, and into the dark it went.

Great then was the heart of Sigurd, for there in the midmost he stayed, And thought of the ancient fathers, and bared the bright blue blade, That shone as a fleck of the day-light, and the night was all around.

Fair then was the Son of Sigmund as he toiled and laboured the ground; Great, mighty he was in his working, and the Glittering Heath he clave, And the sword shone blue before him as he dug the pit and the grave: There he hid his hope from the night-tide and lay like one of the dead, And wise and wary he bided; and the heavens hung over his head.

Now the night wanes over Sigurd, and the ruddy rings he sees, And his war-gear's fair adornment, and the G.o.d-folk's images; But a voice in the desert ariseth, a sound in the waste has birth, A changing tinkle and clatter, as of gold dragged over the earth: O'er Sigurd widens the day-light, and the sound is drawing close, And speedier than the trample of speedy feet it goes; But ever deemeth Sigurd that the sun brings back the day, For the grave grows lighter and lighter and heaven o'erhead is grey.

But now, how the rattling waxeth till he may not heed nor hark!

And the day and the heavens are hidden, and o'er Sigurd rolls the dark, As the flood of a pitchy river, and heavy-thick is the air With the venom of hate long h.o.a.rded, and lies once fas.h.i.+oned fair: Then a wan face comes from the darkness, and is wrought in man-like wise, And the lips are writhed with laughter and bleared are the blinded eyes; And it wandereth hither and thither, and searcheth through the grave And departeth, leaving nothing, save the dark, rolled wave on wave O'er the golden head of Sigurd and the edges of the sword, And the world weighs heavy on Sigurd, and the weary curse of the h.o.a.rd; Him-seemed the grave grew straiter, and his hope of life grew chill, And his heart by the Worm was enfolded, and the bonds of the Ancient Ill.

Then was Sigurd stirred by his glory, and he strove with the swaddling of Death; He turned in the pit on the highway, and the grave of the Glittering Heath; He laughed and smote with the laughter and thrust up over his head.

And smote the venom asunder and clave the heart of Dread; Then he leapt from the pit and the grave, and the rus.h.i.+ng river of blood, And fulfilled with the joy of the War-G.o.d on the face of earth he stood With red sword high uplifted, with wrathful glittering eyes; And he laughed at the heavens above him for he saw the sun arise, And Sigurd gleamed on the desert, and shone in the new-born light, And the wind in his raiment wavered, and all the world was bright.

But there was the ancient Fafnir, and the Face of Terror lay On the huddled folds of the Serpent, that were black and ashen-grey In the desert lit by the sun; and those twain looked each on each, And forth from the Face of Terror went a sound of dreadful speech:

"Child, child, who art thou that hast smitten? bright child, of whence is thy birth?"

"I am called the Wild-thing Glorious, and alone I wend on the earth."