The vessel we let float past the forest,[97] until I saw all Atli's
courts.
32. Then came Atli's miserable mother crawling forth:--may she
perish!--she Gunnar pierced to the heart; so that the hero I could not
save.
33. Oftentimes I wonder, woman gold-adorned![98] how I after can
life retain; for I seemed the formidable sword-dispenser as myself to
love:
34. Thou sitst and listenest, while I recount to thee many an evil
fate, my own and theirs." Each one lives as he best may. Now is ended
_Oddrun's lament_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 93: For Brynhild's death.]
[Footnote 94: Gunnar.]
[Footnote 95: From here the narrative appears to be very fragmentary.]
[Footnote 96: Gunnar while in the serpent-pen.]
[Footnote 97: For "lund" (_forest, wood_), which is the reading of the
MSS., the Copenhagen editor favors the correction to sund (a _sound_
or _strait, the Sound_)?]
[Footnote 98: Borgny.]
THE LAY OF ATLI.
Gudrun, Giuki's daughter, avenged her brothers, as is well known. She
first killed Atli's sons, and afterwards Atli himself, and burnt the
palace with all the household. On these events was this lay composed.
1. Atli sent riding a messenger to Gunnar, a crafty man, Knefrud was
his name. To Giuki's courts he came, and to Gunnar's hall, to the
seats of state,[99] and the glad potation:
2.
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