FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 63: I.e., Sigurd; a transition from the 3d person to the
2nd.]
[Footnote 64: Another periphrasis for gold.]
[Footnote 65: A periphrasis for fire.]
[Footnote 66: Of Skioldungs.]
THE LAY OF SIGRDRIFA.
Sigurd rode up the Hindarfiall, and directed his course southwards
towards Frankland. In the fell he saw a great light, as if a fire were
burning, which blazed up to the sky. On approaching it, there stood a
"skialdborg," and over it a banner. Sigurd went into the skialdborg,
and saw a warrior lying within it asleep, completely armed. He first
took the helmet off the warrior's head, and saw that it was a woman.
Her corslet was as fast as if it had grown to her body. With his sword
Gram he ripped the corslet from the upper opening downwards, and then
through both sleeves. He then took the corslet off from her, when she
awoke, sat up and, on seeing Sigurd, said:
1. What has my corslet cut? why from sleep have I started? who has
cast from me the fallow bands?
_Sigurd_.
Sigmund's son has just now ript the raven's perch,[67] with Sigurd's
sword.
_She_.
2. Long have I slept, long been with sleep oppressed, long are
mortals' sufferings! Odin is the cause that I have been unable to cast
off torpor.
Sigurd sat down and asked her name. She then took a horn filled with
mead, and gave him the _minnis-cup_.
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