Volsungs

“ The whole middle portion of the saga is a transprosing of the poems which relate to the Volsungs, and the opening chapters are also clearly based on very ancient songs, which are now lost, while the last chapters are unmistakably a later addition to the original cycle of poems. The Volsunga Saga is of great importance on account of the connected narration of all the parts of the Volsung story. ”

“ The warriors raised the hero upon their shoulders and bore him up the rocks. After a while the moon rose, and the pale light touched the helmets of the men and Siegfried’s armor as the procession passed up through the shadows. A mist was rising from the Rhine, and it was very still.
Siegfried was dead, the last of his race—the noble race of Volsungs. He was the bravest of them all, this son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, who had so loved each other. He had done many great deeds with his good sword Nothung. ”

“ With guile the great one Would they beguile, On the wailing thrall Laid they hand unwares, And cut the heart From out of Hjalli, Laid it bleeding on trencher And bare it to Gunnar. "Here have I the heart Of Hjalli the trembler, Little like the heart Of Hogni the hardy: As much as it trembleth Laid on the trencher By the half more it trembled In the breast of him hidden." ”

“ Then spake Volsung the king, "All people and nations shall tell of the word I spake, yet being unborn, wherein I vowed a vow that I would flee in fear from neither fire nor the sword; even so have I done hitherto, and shall I depart therefrom now I am old? Yea withal never shall the maidens mock these my sons at the games, and cry out at them that they fear death; once alone must all men need die, and from that season shall none escape; so my rede is that we flee nowhither, but do the work of our hands in as manly wise as we may ”

“ For wrong and hatred Shall rest them never, Nay, nor sore sorrow. Both wit and weapons Well must the king have Who is fain to be the foremost. The last rede and eleventh: Until all ill look thou. And watch thy friends' ways ever Scarce durst I look For long life for thee, king: Strong trouble ariseth now already. ENDNOTES: (1) This continues the first part of the lay given in Chapter XX of the Saga; and is, in fact, the original verse of Chapter XXI.
THE LAY CALLED THE SHORT LAY OF SIGURD. Sigurd of yore, Sought the dwelling of Giuki, As he fared, the young Volsung, After fight won ”

“ So a long while the battle lasted, and many a man was slain, and furious was the onset; till at last it befell, even as seldom comes to hand, when a land army falls on, that, do whatso they might, naught was brought about; but so many men fell of the sons of Hunding that the tale of them may not be told ”

“ Only a free will, independent of the gods, and able to take upon itself the fault, could make reparation for the deed. At last he yields to despair. His will is broken, and instead of fearing the inevitable doom he courts it. In this sore emergency the hero appears. He belongs to an heroic race of men, the Volsungs. The unnatural union of the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, born of this race, produces the real hero, Siegfried. The parents pay the penalty of incest with their lives; but Siegfried remains, and Wotan watches his growth and magnificent development with eager interest. ”

“ Helgakviða Hiörvarðs Sonar, the Song of Helgi, the Son of Hiörvarð, which is largely in prose, celebrates the wooing by Helgi of Svava, who, like Atalanta, ends by loving the man with whom she has fought in battle. Two Songs of Helgi the Hunding's Bane, Helgakviða Hundingsbana, open the long and very important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the Völsungs and the Niblungs. Including the poems just mentioned, there are about twenty distinct pieces in the poetic Edda which deal more or less directly with this chain of stories. ”

“ The tale tells that great fires were made endlong the hall, and the great tree aforesaid stood midmost thereof; withal folk say that, whenas men sat by the fires in the evening, a certain man came into the hall unknown of aspect to all men; and suchlike array he had, that over him was a spotted cloak, and he was bare-foot, and had linen-breeches knit tight even unto the bone, and he had a sword in his hand as he went up to the Branstock, and a slouched hat upon his head: huge he was, and seeming-ancient, and one-eyed. ”

“ Then answered Siggeir—
‘‘Surely thou art mad and witless, praying thus for more bale for thy brothers than their present slaying; yet this will I grant thee, for the better it likes me the more they must bear, and the longer their pain is or ever death come to them. ”

“ Therewith out went the old man from the hall, and none knew who he was or whither he went.
Now men stand up, and none would fain be the last to lay hand to the sword, for they deemed that he would have the best of it who might first touch it ”

“ Surtr sits on the border to guard the land; at the end of the world he will fare forth, and harry and overcome all the gods and burn the world with fire. Ere the races were yet mingled, or the folk of men grew, Yawning-gap, which looked towards the north parts, was filled with thick and heavy ice and rime, and everywhere within were fog and gusts ”

“ Thou shalt hear the wolves howling Over thine husband. "How hast thou, Hogni, The heart to tell me, Me of joy made empty, Of such misery? Thy wretched heart May the ravens tear Wide over the world, With no men mayst thou wend." One thing Hogni Had for answer, Fallen from his high heart, Full of all trouble: "More greeting yet, O Gudrun, for thee, If my heart the ravens Should rend asunder!" Thence I turned From the talk and the trouble To go a leasing (1) What the wolves had left me; No sigh I made No smote hands together, Nor did I wail As other women When I sat over My Sigurd slain. ”

“ So she sees that the game goeth sorely against her brethren, and she gathers to her great stoutness of heart, and does on her a mail-coat and takes to her a sword, and fights by her brethren, and goes as far forward as the bravest of man-folk; and all spoke in one wise that never saw any fairer defence than in her.
Now the men fell thick, and far before all others was the fighting of those brethren, and the battle endured a long while unto midday ”

“ And on our approaching the locality, we beheld literally an army of vultures settled down on the blood-stained plains on which we had fought so often, and so fat and unwieldy had they become on the flesh of rebels, that not one among their countless numbers seemed disposed to quit the scene of their festivities, or move out of our way as we positively rode through them, amidst shocking sights which, in compassion to the feelings of my readers, I pass over in silence. ”

“ The reports of the firearms became rapid, whole volleys rising from the plain, as flocks of more than ordinary numbers darted over the opening, shadowing the field like a cloud; and then the light smoke of a single piece would issue from among the leafless bushes on the mountain, as death was hurled on the retreat of the affrighted birds, who were rising from a volley, in a vain effort to escape. ”

“ The firing ceased, but the droning noises continued louder than ever. The German aeroplanes seemed to be above us like a swarm of angry wasps, and above us they seemed to remain, hovering and circling. We awaited the downward rush and the deafening thunder-clap that would destroy us all. One man was groaning loudly. Another shivered. I could hear the chattering of many teeth. My neighbour trembled violently and cowered beneath his blankets. But his fear grew so strong that he could not bear it any longer. ”

“ It is Volpatte, and he says, "I'm going with you to the foot of the hill." As he is off duty, he is wielding a magnificent twisted walking-stick, and he shakes in his hand like castanets the precious pair of scissors that never leaves him.
All three of us come out of the communication trench when the slope of the land allows us to do it without danger of bullets—the guns are not firing. As soon as we are outside we stumble upon a gathering of men. It is raining. Between the heavy legs planted there like little trees on the gray plain in the mist we see a dead man. ”

“ Sauve qui peut became the order of the day. The Thirty-third, which was close on the front line when it broke, halted, and discharged volley after volley upon the gray-backs, as they scampered over the plain. The other regiments now joined them, and for several moments a most murderous fire was poured upon the panic stricken fugitives, who never stopped until they reached their entrenchments. Many tumbled over on their backs and feigned death, while others ran towards us with uplifted hands, imploring that we would spare their lives. ”

“ The men are filling their cartridge-boxes; new regiments are gliding into the gaps where death has cut the widest swath. From the woods, cries, groans, commands, clashing steel as the men hustle against each other in the rush into line, prelude the Vulcan clamor soon to begin. Men, bent, sometimes crawling, with stretchers on their shoulders, glide through the maimed and shrieking fragments of bodies, picking out here and there those seeming capable of carriage. Other men, prone on their faces, hold canteens of tepid, muddy water—but ah! ”

“ Already had she thrown in several shells and shot, when the signal, for her recal was observed flying most provokingly from the mast-head of the Wellesley, and being enforced by more than one signal gun, the firing ceased. Just as the exciting moment had arrived, and every man was calculating in his own mind how soon the forts would be reduced, the stillness, not of breathless anxiety, but of bitter disappointment, prevailed in every man's bosom. ”

“ Frenchman had given up defending himself and lost all hope of escape. Shortly before he fell, he made a motion with his hand, as if to say: let us go; we are conquered; we surrender. But what can you do in such a case, in the air? Then he started to volplane; I followed. My observer fired thirty or forty more shots at him; then suddenly he disappeared. In order not to lose him, I planed down, my machine almost vertical. Suddenly my observer cried, “He is falling; he is falling,” and he clapped me on the back joyously. ”

“ The firing continued with unabated fury. The enemy, repulsed with great loss in every attack, was unsuccessful on every point save that bastion, the possession of which they still retained—when I heard a groaning roll and shake of the earth, and instantly the bastion, bodies of men, timber, guns, earth and stones, were blown up in the air like a volcano, [118] making every thing in the glare as clear as noon-day. A descending timber dashed one of my artillerymen to pieces within a foot of my shoulder. Profound darkness and silence followed. ”

“ After they were all stripped completely naked, and while some were attempting to put on the old clothing, all their uniforms having been removed a short distance from them, at a certain signal the rebels fired a deadly volley into them. Then followed one of the most desperate scenes ever witnessed by the eye of man. The men saw their doom, and those who were not killed by the first volley rushed at the rebels, caught them, tried to wrest their arms from them, and a desperate struggle took place; men wrestling, as it were, for their very lives. ”

“ On strike! On strike!"
"We want air!" one of them started the cry. And "We want air, we want air, we want air!" began to echo and reverberate throughout the whole great hall. And the guards, surging forward in an angry mass, lost all semblance of military order, but swung their pikes furiously in a chaos of rushing, pushing, scuffling, shouting forms.
For a moment, Thuno Flâtum was too thunderstricken for words. Then, as his attendants crowded about him protectively, I thought I heard his voice lifted during a momentary lull in the storm. ”

“ The hardy vulture seeks its nest: the strength of the war-horse is broken. Clothes are of no avail; hands frost-bitten, flesh cracked. Even nature lends her aid to the Tartars, contributing a deadly blast, the better to complete the work of slaughter begun. Ambulance waggons block the way: our men succumb to flank attacks. Their officers have surrendered: their general is dead. The river is choked with corpses to its topmost banks: the fosses of the Great Wall are swimming over with blood. ”

“ Young Volgá ordered five strong young men out of his brave body-guard to pull the plough out of the ground, to shake the earth from the ploughshare, and throw the plough behind the broom bush. The five strong young men rode up to the plough of maple wood, they turned the plough about by the shaft, but could not pull the plough out of the ground, or shake the earth from the ploughshare, and throw the plough behind the broom bush. ”

“ Nothing occurred to interrupt their progress, until the van had reached within a few yards of the ravines before mentioned, when the appalling truth of a tremendous ambuscade of the savages suddenly became known, by the pouring therefrom, into their ranks, a terrible volley, which carried with it death, terror and confusion. Never were soldiers taken more by surprise, and at greater disadvantage to themselves, both as to numbers and position. They had relied upon the report of the scouts, who had themselves been deceived by the quiet of everything about the ravines ”

“ But is the voltigeur less bold Who meets his enemy on his feet? “The cuirassier is clad in steel; His massive sword is straight and strong: But the voltigeur can charge and wheel With a step,—his bayonet is just as long. “The artillery-driver must halt his team If the current be fast or the water deep: But the voltigeur can swim the stream, And climb the bank, be it e'er so steep. “The voltigeur needs no trumpet sound,— No bugle has he to cheer him on: Where the fire is hottest, that 's his ground,— Hurrah for the Faubourg of St. ”