The Hell-Ride of Brynhild

  AFTER the death of Brynhild were made two bales, one for Sigurd, and that was first burned; but Brynhild was burned on the other, and she was in a chariot hung about with goodly hangings.   1
  And so folk say that Brynhild drave in her chariot down along the way to Hell, and passed by an abode where dwelt a certain giantess, and the giantess spake: —
      “Nay, with my goodwill
 Never goest thou
 Through this stone-pillared
 Stead of mine!
 More seemly for thee
 To sit sewing the cloth,
 Than to go look on
 The love of another.

 “What dost thou, going
 From the land of the Gauls,
 O restless head,
 To this mine house?
 Golden girl, hast thou not,
 If thou listest to hearken,
 In sweet wise from thy hands
 The blood of men washen?”

 BRYNHILD

“Nay, blame me naught,
 Bride of the rock-hall,
 Though I roved a warring
 In the days that were;
 The higher of us twain
 Shall I ever be holden
 When of our kind
 Men make account.”

 THE GIANT-WOMAN

 “Thou, O Brynhild,
 Budli’s daughter,
 Wert the worst ever born
 Into the world:
 For Giuki’s children
 Death hast thou gotten,
 And turned to destruction
 Their goodly dwelling.”

 BRYNHILD

“I shall tell thee
 True tale from my chariot,
 O thou who naught wottest,
 If thou listest to wot;
 How for me they have gotten
 Those heirs of Giuki,
 A loveless life,
 A life of lies.

 “Hild under helm,
 The Hlymdale people,
 E’en those who knew me,
 Ever would call me.

 “The changeful shapes
 Of us eight sisters,
 The wise king bade
 Under oak-tree to bear:
 Of twelve winters was I,
 If thou listest to wot,
 When I sware to the young lord
 Oaths of love.

 “Thereafter gat I
 Mid the folk of the Goths,
 For Helmgunnar the old,
 Swift journey to Hell,
 And gave to Aud’s brother
 The young, gain and glory;
 Whereof overwrath
 Waxed Odin with me.

 “So he shut me in shield-wall
 In Skata grove,
 Red shields and white
 Close set around me;
 And bade him alone
 My slumber to brake
 Who in no land
 Knew how to fear.

 “He set round my hall,
 Toward the south quarter,
 The Bane of all trees
 Burning aloft;
 And ruled that he only
 Thereover should ride
 Who should bring me the gold
 O’er which Fafnir brooded.

 “Then upon Grani rode
 The goodly gold-strewer
 To where my fosterer
 Ruled his fair dwelling.
 He who alone there
 Was deemed best of all,
 The War-lord of the Danes,
 Well worthy of men.

 “In peace did we sleep
 Soft in one bed,
 As though he had been
 Naught but my brother:
 There as we lay
 Through eight nights wearing,
 No hand in love
 On each other we laid.

 “Yet thence blamed me, Gudrun,
 Giuki’s daughter,
 That I had slept
 In the arms of Sigurd;
 And then I wotted
 As I fain had not wotted,
 That they had bewrayed me
 In my betrothals.

 “Ah! for unrest
 All too long
 Are men and women
 Made alive!
 Yet we twain together
 Shall wear through the ages,
 Sigurd and I —
 — Sink adown, O giant-wife!”