Complete Works of William Morris, page 488
Will ye have this sun of the ocean, and reap the fruitful field,
And garner up the harvest that earth therefrom shall yield.’
“So he spake; but a little season nought answered Reidmar the wise,
But turned his face from the Treasure, and peered with eager eyes
Endlong the hall and athwart it, as a man may chase about
A ray of the sun of the morning that a naked sword throws out;
And lo from Loki’s right-hand came the flash of the fruitful ring,
And at last spake Reidmar scowling:
‘Ye wait for my yea-saying
That your feet may go free on the earth, and the fear of my toils may be
done;
That then ye may say in your laughter: The fools of the time agone!
The purblind eyes of the Dwarf-kind! they have gotten the garnered sheaf
And have let their Masters depart with the Seed of Gold and of Grief:
O Loki, friend of Allfather, cast down Andvari’s ring,
Or the world shall yet turn backward and the high heavens lack a king.’
“Then Loki drew off the Elf-ring and cast it down on the heap,
And forth as the gold met gold did the light of its glory leap:
But he spake: ‘It rejoiceth my heart that no whit of all ye shall lack.
Lest the curse of the Elf-king cleave not, and ye ‘scape the utter wrack.’
Then Regin loosed the shackles of the gods and they departed into the
night, but Odin stayed in the doorway and thus he spake: “Why do ye
thus desire treasure and take sorrow to yourselves? Know ye not that
I was before your fathers’ fathers, and that I can foresee your fate,
and the end of the gold ye covet? I am the Wise One who ordereth all.”
Then they went, but Regin afterwards often recalled Odin’s words and
the evening filled with the gleam of the gold, but little cared he
then, so well he loved the gold. And he prayed his father to keep the
treasure, but give a little unto him and Fafnir for the help they had
given him that day.
His father in no wise heeded his words, but sat ever on his ivory
throne, staring moodily at the gold. But Fafnir grew fierce and grim
as he watched him.
“The night waned into the morning, and still above the Hoard
Sat Reidmar clad in purple; but Fafnir took his sword,
And I took my smithying-hammer, and apart in the world we went;
But I came aback in the even, and my heart was heavy and spent;
And I longed, but fear was upon me and I durst not go to the Gold;
So I lay in the house of my toil mid the things I had fashioned of old;
And methought as I lay in my bed ‘twixt waking and slumber of night
That I heard the tinkling metal and beheld the hall alight,
But I slept and dreamed of the Gods, and the things that never have slept,
Till I woke to a cry and a clashing and forth from the bed I leapt,
And there by the heaped-up Elf-gold my brother Fafnir stood,
And there at his feet lay Reidmar and reddened the Treasure with blood;
And e’en as I looked on his eyen they glazed and whitened with death,
And forth on the torch-litten hall he shed his latest breath.
“But I looked on Fafnir and trembled for he wore the Helm of Dread,
And his sword was bare in his hand, and the sword and the hand were red
With the blood of our father Reidmar, and his body was wrapped in gold,
With the ruddy-gleaming mailcoat of whose fellow hath nought been told,
And it seemed as I looked upon him that he grew beneath mine eyes:
And then in the mid-hall’s silence did his dreadful voice arise:
“‘I have slain my father Reidmar, that I alone might keep
The Gold of the darksome places, the Candle of the Deep.
I am such as the Gods have made me, lest the Dwarf-kind people the earth,
Or mingle their ancient wisdom with its short-lived latest birth.
I shall dwell alone henceforward, and the Gold and its waxing curse,
I shall brood on them both together, let my life grow better or worse.
And I am a King henceforward and long shall be my life,
And the Gold shall grow with my longing, for I shall hide it from strife,’
And hoard up the Ring of Andvari in the house thine hand hath built.
O thou, wilt thou tarry and tarry, till I cast thy blood on the guilt?
Lo, I am a King for ever, and alone on the Gold shall I dwell
And do no deed to repent of and leave no tale to tell.’
“More awful grew his visage as he spake the word of dread,
And no more durst I behold him, but with heart a-cold I fled;
I fled from the glorious house my hands had made so fair,
As poor as the new-born baby with nought of raiment or gear:
I fled from the heaps of gold, and my goods were the eager will,
And the heart that remembereth all, and the hand that may never be still.
“Then unto this land I came, and that was long ago.
As men-folk count the years; and I taught them to reap and to sow,
* * * * *
“And I grew the master of masters — Think thou how strange it is
That the sword in the hands of a stripling shall one day end all this!
“Yet oft mid all my wisdom did I long for my brother’s part,
And Fafnir’s mighty kingship weighed heavy on my heart
When the Kings of the earthly kingdoms would give me golden gifts
From out of their scanty treasures, due pay for my cunning shifts.
And once — didst thou number the years thou wouldst think it long ago —
I wandered away to the country from whence our stem did grow.
* * * * *
“Then I went to the pillared hall-stead, and lo, huge heaps of gold,
And to and fro amidst them a mighty Serpent rolled:
Then my heart grew chill with terror, for I thought on the wont of our race,
And I, who had lost their cunning, was a man in a deadly place,
A feeble man and a swordless in the lone destroyer’s fold;
For I knew that the Worm was Fafnir, the Wallower on the Gold.
“So I gathered my strength and fled, and hid my shame again
Mid the foolish sons of men-folk; and the more my hope was vain,
The more I longed for the Treasure, and deliv’rance from the yoke:
And yet passed the generations, and I dwelt with the short-lived folk.
“Long years, and long years after, the tale of men-folk told
How up on the Glittering Heath was the house and the dwelling of gold,
And within that house was the Serpent, and the Lord of the Fearful Face:
Then I wondered sore of the desert; for I thought of the golden place
My hands of old had builded; for I knew by many a sign
That the Fearful Face was my brother, that the blood of the Worm was mine.
This was ages long ago, and yet in that desert he dwells,
Betwixt him and men death lieth, and no man of his semblance tells;
But the tale of the great Gold-wallower is never the more outworn.
Then came thy kin, O Sigurd, and thy father’s father was born,
And I fell to the dreaming of dreams, and I saw thine eyes therein,
And I looked and beheld thy glory and all that thy sword should win;
And I thought that thou shouldst be he, who should bring my heart its rest,
That of all the gifts of the Kings thy sword should give me the best.
“Ah, I fell to the dreaming of dreams; and oft the gold I saw,
And the golden-fashioned Hauberk, clean-wrought without a flaw,
And the Helm that aweth the world; and I knew of Fafnir’s heart
That his wisdom was greater than mine, because he had held him apart,
Nor spilt on the sons of men-folk our knowledge of ancient days,
Nor bartered one whit for their love, nor craved for the people’s praise.
“And some day I shall have it all, his gold and his craft and his heart
And the gathered and garnered wisdom he guards in the mountains apart.”
* * * * *
And he spake: “Hast thou hearkened, Sigurd, wilt thou help a man that is old
To avenge him for his father? Wilt thou win that Treasure of Gold
And be more than the Kings of the earth? Wilt thou rid the earth of a wrong
And heal the woe and the sorrow my heart hath endured o’erlong?”
Then Sigurd looked upon him with steadfast eyes and clear,
And Regin drooped and trembled as he stood the doom to hear:
But the bright child spake as aforetime, and answered the Master and said:
“Thou shalt have thy will, and the Treasure, and take the curse on thine
head.”
Of the forging of the Sword that is called The Wrath of Sigurd.
* * * * *
But when the morrow was come he went to his mother and spake:
“The shards, the shards of the sword, that thou gleanedst for my sake
In the night on the field of slaughter, in the tide when my father fell,
Hast thou kept them through sorrow and joyance? hast thou warded them trusty
and well?
Where hast thou laid them, my mother?”
Then she looked upon him and said:
“Art thou wroth, O Sigurd my son, that such eyes are in thine head?
And wilt thou be wroth with thy mother? do I withstand thee at all?”
“Nay,” said he, “nought am I wrathful, but the days rise up like a wall
Betwixt my soul and the deeds, and I strive to rend them through.
* * * * *
“Now give me the sword, my mother, that Sigmund gave thee to keep.”
She said: “I shall give it thee gladly, for fain shall I be of thy praise
When thou knowest my careful keeping of that hope of the earlier days.”
So she took his hand in her hand, and they went their ways, they twain;
Till they came to the treasure of queen-folk, the guarded chamber of gain:
They were all alone with its riches, and she turned the key in the gold,
And lifted the sea-born purple, and the silken web unrolled,
And lo, ‘twixt her hands and her bosom the shards of Sigmund’s sword;
No rust-fleck stained its edges, and the gems of the ocean’s hoard
Were as bright in the hilts and glorious, as when in the Volsungs’ hall
It shone in the eyes of the earl-folk and flashed from the shielded wall.
But Sigurd smiled upon it, and he said: “O Mother of Kings,
Well hast thou warded the war-glaive for a mirror of many things,
And a hope of much fulfilment: well hast thou given to me
The message of my fathers, and the word of thing to be:
Trusty hath been thy warding, but its hour is over now:
These shards shall be knit together, and shall hear the war-wind blow.”
* * * * *
Then she felt his hands about her as he took the fateful sword,
And he kissed her soft and sweetly; but she answered never a word:
* * * * *
But swift on his ways went Sigurd, and to Regin’s house he came,
Where the Master stood in the doorway and behind him leapt the flame,
And dark he looked and little: no more his speech was sweet,
No words on his lip were gathered the Volsung child to greet,
Till he took the sword from Sigurd and the shards of the days of old;
Then he spake:
“Will nothing serve thee save this blue steel and cold,
The bane of thy father’s father, the fate of all his kin,
The baleful blade I fashioned, the Wrath that the Gods would win?”
Then answered the eye-bright Sigurd: “If thou thy craft wilt do,
Nought save these battle-gleanings shall be my helper true:”
So Regin welded together the shards of Sigmund’s sword, and wrought
the Wrath of Sigurd, whose hilts were great and along whose edge ran a
living flame so that men thought it like sunlight and lightning
mingled. Then on Greyfell, with the Wrath girt by his side, Sigurd
rode to the hall of Gripir, who told him of deeds to be and of the
fate that would befall him. In no wise was Sigurd troubled, but smiled
as a happy child, and together they talked of the deeds of the kings
of the Earth, of the wonders of Heaven, and of the Queen of the Sea.
And Sigurd told Gripir that he indeed was wise above all men, but for
himself had the Wrath been fashioned, and he was ready to ride to the
Glittering Heath. So they took leave of one another, and as the sky grew
blood-red in the West, and the birds were flying homeward, Sigurd drew
near to Regin’s dwelling.
Sigurd rideth to the Glittering Heath.
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 shines 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 space to remember the deeds of the days of old.”
* * * * *
Day-long they fared through the mountains, and that highway’s fashioner,
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 fashioned; but Sigurd glowed and gleamed
Amid a shadowless twilight by Greyfell’s cloudy flank,
As a little space 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 Gods, 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 Gods, and the kin of the Wolf is unbound,
When thy sword shall hew the fire, and the wildfire beateth thy shield,
Shalt thou praise the wages of hope and the Gods that pitched the field?”
