Sigrun

“ Sigrun stood full in the light from the lamp, and Lotta was astonished at the change in her. In a moment she seemed to have regained all her former beauty, more. There was a splendour of majesty and power about her now. Lotta could not help feeling that Sigrun was something higher than others; that she must be loved and protected more than all others.
"Lotta," said Sigrun, "you see now that it was for this you were sent here from Stenbroträsk—to help me with this?" ”

“ And at the same time, she was so full of anxiety at what Sigrun was about to do that she began to weep.
"God was willing to help me," said Sigrun, "but Lotta Hedman would not."
"But, Sigrun," cried Lotta, dashing away a tear with the back of her hand, "will you force me to help you ruin yourself? You ask me to help you in something so dreadful that I tremble at the very thought. You will no longer have a name among the living. You will go out into the world without friends, or parents, without even being able to say where you come from. ”

“ Sigmund's offspring From the halls of Odin. O me the hope waneth Of Helgi's coming; For high on the ash-boughs Are the ernes abiding, And all folk drift Toward the Thing of the dreamland. BONDMAID: Be not foolish of heart, And fare all alone To the house of the dead, O Hero's daughter! For more strong and dreadful In the night season Are all dead warriors Than in the daylight.
But a little while lived Sigrun, because of her sorrow and trouble. But in old time folk trowed that men should be born again, though their troth be now deemed but an old wife's dotting. ”

“ Sigrun rose hurriedly and went into the house. Sven Elversson walked the opposite way, through the trees, and past the gatepost, down to a little quiet pool, where he stood, looking down into the water. He had passed within a few steps of the listener, but without noticing him.
And Rhånge felt that this man who loved Sigrun must die.
It would be easy enough. Just creep up behind him and throw him into the water. He felt, too, that this man would not even attempt to defend himself. He would greet death as a welcome friend. ”

“ Lotta Hedman remembered her travelling companion's gentle voice and the feeling of confidence with which he had inspired her.
"Be sure God has some purpose in view with that man," she said. "If only I had known of this when I met him."
"I wish I knew where he is to be found," said Sigrun. "All who are miserable and in trouble turn to him. There has been so little news of him since he left Applum. He must have hidden himself away in some place where no one knows his story."
That evening, when they spoke of Sven Elversson, Sigrun was up and dressed again. ”

“ Then looking, he saw the helm-bright Valkyrs coursing the air, keeping pace with the horsemen below. They met in a crash by the Wolf rock; the swords flamed, the spears were like flying stars. Over the dead Hodbrord Sigrun the Valkyr cried in triumph, "Never for your arms is Sigrun of Sevafell," and as she spoke the arm of Helgi the hero held her fast.
Their love was fierce, but it was short. Helgi is dead of countless wounds, and laid in his barrow with his weapons beside him. Sigrun of Sevafell keeps the house; she sits by the fire; her eyes are hard. ”

“ It is dangerous, perhaps, for a mortal to make an ally of Death. For Death may take it in earnest.
And Sigrun seemed really to feel a change taking place in herself. All the links that bound her to her former life were being loosened one by one.
Love of her husband, the sorrow and misery of her married life, had filled all her thoughts before. But now, all this faded and disappeared. A great void was where it had been, but no regrets, no bitterness.
"The dead must feel like this," she thought. "Thus it must be to be freed from all earthly things. Love and sorrow disappear." ”

“ Sigrun was of another sort than ordinary people; she was from another world." The man, still sitting with his head resting on his hand, nodded involuntarily. That was the very word. From another world—a bird of passage that had lost its way, separated from its fellows, and somehow come among another flock not of its kind.
"For there are other worlds," said Lotta Hedman. "Many worlds besides the one we live in. And Sigrun was from one of them. ”

“ It is a story like all the others in which there is a conflict of duties, between friendship and the duty of vengeance, a plot of the same kind as that of Froda and Ingeld. Sigrun's brother is tried in the same way as Ingeld in the story told by Saxo and mentioned in Beowulf. But it does not end with the death of Helgi. Sigrun looks for Helgi to come back in the hour of the "Assembly of Dreams," and Helgi comes and calls her, and she follows him:—
"Thy hair is thick with rime, thou art wet with the dew of death, thy hands are cold and dank." ”

“ Hogni and Sigrun: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 17 and note; the annotator’s notion of Sigrun as the reincarnated Svava (cf. Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar, concluding prose note) represents a naive form of scholarship. There is nothing in stanzas 5–12 which clearly identifies Sigrun as a Valkyrie, or which, except for the last line of stanza 12, identifies the speaker as Sigrun. Some editors, therefore, call her simply “the Valkyrie,” while [314] Vigfusson, who thinks this section is also a remnant of the Karuljoth, calls her Kara.
6. The manuscript does not indicate the speakers. ”

“ Rather shalt thou, Gudmund! tend goats, and steep mountain-tops shalt climb, have in thy hand a hazel staff, that will better please thee than judgments of the sword.
Gudmund rode home with intelligence of the hostile armament; whereupon the sons of Granmar collected a host, and many kings came thither. Among them were Hogni, the father of Sigrun, with his sons, Bragi and Dag. There was a great battle, and all the sons of Hogni, and all their chiefs were slain, except Dag, who obtained peace, and swore oaths to the Volsungs. Sigrun, going among the slain, found Hodbrodd at the point of death. ”

“ Then he would visit his grave-mound, and he and his alter ego, the haugbúi, would become one. This was the case with Helge Hundingsbane (Helge Hund., ii. 40, &c.) . The sorrow of Sigrun, his beloved, caused him to return from Valhal to earth and to ride to his grave, where Sigrun came to him and wanted to rest in his arms during the night. ”

“ On the earth lie the greater number of thy kinsmen, to corpses turned. Thou hast not fought the battle, yet 'twas decreed, that thou, potent maiden! shouldst cause the strife.
Sigrun then wept. Helgi said:
27. Sigrun! console thyself; a Hild thou hast been to us. Kings cannot conquer fate: gladly would I have them living who are departed, if I might clasp thee to my breast.
Helgi obtained Sigrun, and they had sons. Helgi lived not to be old. Dag, the son of Hogni, sacrificed to Odin, for vengeance for his father. Odin lent Dag his spear. ”

“ But still the women feel most; the men strike, or are struck. Hard and cold grey, with hidden fire, was the temper of these people. Their love was not over-tender, and yet stronger than death: cries Brynhild’s ghost riding hellward, “Men and women will always be born to live in woe. We two, Sigurd and I, shall never part again.” And the power of such love speaks in the deed and word of Sigrun, who answers the ghostly call of slain Helgi from his barrow, and enters it to cast her arms about him there: “I am as glad to meet thee as are the greedy hawks of Odin when they scent the slain. ”

“ Ordinary people never come this way, but all sorts of tramps and vagabonds and poor folk, they go to him."
Sigrun drove down a hill toward the house. And her despair passed from her almost at once. Again the same numbness came over her, and something whispered that there was no need to fear; all would go well. ”

“ And well, too, that you need not now suspect her of deceit or fickleness. You see what it was: she was made of the same stuff as that soldier we have just read of, who came home from the wars. And so you see," Sigrun went on, "it was she who taught me how to love. How love can pass all understanding, how it can fill one's soul to such a degree that it lets its own body be destroyed."
She rose up, and stood behind Sven Elversson's chair. And in so doing, she turned so that her husband, from where he was, could see her face. ”

“ If it had been harder to fulfil than that of the mad demands of those wild forefathers of his? Can one human being demand of another such utter and complete surrender of self? Not only in love, but in all else?
Pastor Rhånge remembered how he had often thought Sigrun was a being of a different sort, unlike all others ”

“ When the doctor came, late in the afternoon, he said much the same about Sigrun as Lotta had done: she was not suffering from any actual disease, but would get well if only she were left in peace. Her nerves had been upset, and a sort of crisis had occurred.
They would have to be careful with her. She must not be contradicted, nor allowed to exert herself. She must not be persuaded to do anything but what she wished. ”

“ The horse had had no rest all night, and they were going very slowly. They had to halt for some hours at a peasant's hut to give the animal food and rest. At last, however, they came in sight of a village where there was an inn.
As they were thus approaching the end of their journey, the knife-grinder turned to Sigrun.
"A man like me," he said, "going about the country all ways, sees many strange things in his time. But I will say, this business to-night's the strangest I've ever had a hand in."
"You think so?" Sigrun turned to the little dark man with a friendly smile. ”

“ And Lotta understood that Sigrun was weeping for joy that she had come.
And she herself was very happy; this was surely the greatest thing that had ever happened in her life. But at the same time she thought to herself: "Sigrun must be unhappy, indeed, if she weeps for joy at seeing one so poor as I."
THE VICARAGE IT WAS an evening in November, when the days were short and the nights seemed as if they would never end. ”

“ Sigrun.
8. To a battle thou alludest. Before Helgi has King Hunding been doomed to fall. In conflict ye have engaged, when your kindred ye avenged, and stained with blood the falchion's edge.
Helgi.
9. Why dost thou suppose, sagacious maiden! that it was they, who their kin avenged? Many a warrior's bold sons there are, and hostile to our kindred.
Sigrun.
10. I was not far, leader of people! eager, at many a chieftain's end: yet crafty I account Sigmund's son, when in val-runes [3] the slaughter he announces. ”

“ O Hilda, it is so beautiful. It must be so blissful to be loved! And it is also happiness to love unto death. Oh, happy Gibamund's Hilda! Oh, happy Helgi's Sigrun! How this song makes the heart ache and yet rejoice! How beautiful and, alas, how true it is, that love conquers all things, and draws the loving woman to her beloved, even to his grave! They are united in death, if no longer in life. That thought possesses stronger power than spell or magnet. ”

“ She was Svava regenerated. Sigrun rode to Helgi, and said:—
4. What men cause a ship along the coasts to float? where do ye warriors a home possess? what await ye in Brunavagar? whither desire ye to explore a way?
[Pg 146] Helgi.
5. Hamal causes a ship along the coasts to float; we have home in Hlesey; a fair wind we await in Brunavagar; eastward we desire to explore a way.
Sigrun.
6. Where, O prince! hast thou wakened war, or fed the birds of conflict's sisters? [55] Why is thy corslet sprinkled with blood? Why beneath the helm eat ye raw flesh? ”

“ It is a hard fate for a warrior to grind the barley; the sword-hilt is better fitted for those hands than the mill-handle."
Sigrun is present at the battle, in which, as in the English and Scottish ballads, Helgi slays all her kindred except one brother. He tells her the fortunes of the fight, and she chooses between lover and kinsmen:
_Helgi_. "Good luck is not granted thee, maid, in all things, though the Norns are partly to blame. Bragi and Högni fell to-day at Frekastein, and I was their slayer;... most of thy kindred lie low. ”

“ In the evening a maid-servant came running to Sigrun, saying: 'Hasten forth, if you wish to have your husband again. Look! the mound has opened; a light is streaming from it; your longing has brought the hero from the heaven of the god of victory; he is sitting in the mound and beseeches you to stanch his bleeding wounds.'"
Eugenia, in a low, trembling voice, repeated: "The longing of the true widow will even break the power of death."
"Sigrun went in to Helgi, kissed him, stanched his wounds, and said: 'Your locks are drenched with moisture; you are covered with blood ”

“ They are not the sort to tell more than they should. And then we will try not to make this more hard and serious than we need. Just think that it will all come right again in time."
Sigrun felt as if he were playing with her. At any other time his manner would have annoyed her, but now it was indescribably soothing and comforting. She felt as if this man had taken all her burden, all her trouble and misfortune, on himself, to bear it in her stead.
BOOK III
THE BEREAVED IT WAS Sigrun's mother, the old Dean's wife from Stenbroträsk. ”

“ The end comes, as in the Norse Sigmund tale, through Odin's interference: he lends his spear to Dag, who stabs Helgi in a grove, and rides home to tell his sister. Sigrun is inconsolable, and curses the murderer with a rare power and directness: Page 35
“May the oaths pierce thee that thou hast sworn to Helgi.... May the ship sail not that sails under thee, though a fair wind lie behind. May the horse run not that runs under thee, though thou art fleeing from thy foes. May the sword bite not that thou drawest, unless it sing round thine own head. ”