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Poetic Edda

Thought he would give,  and the ravens gladden,
There is ever a wolf  where his ears I spy."

  A fifth spake:
36.[1] "Less wise must be  the tree of battle
Than to me would seem  the leader of men,
If forth he lets  one brother fare,
When he of the other  the slayer is."

  A sixth spake:
37.[2] "Most foolish he seems  if he shall spare
 His foe, the bane of the folk;
There Regin lies,  who hath wronged him so,
 Yet falsehood knows he not."

  A seventh spake:
38.[3] "Let the head from the frost-cold  giant be hewed,
 And let him of rings be robbed;
Then all the wealth  which Fafnir's was
 Shall belong to thee alone."

  Sigurth spake:
39. "Not so rich a fate  shall Regin have

    Wolf, etc.: the phrase is nearly equivalent to "there must be fire where there is smoke." The proverb appears elsewhere in Old Norse.

  1. ↑ Tree of battle: warrior.
  2. ↑ Here, as in stanza 34, some editions turn the speech from the third person into the second.
  3. ↑ Giant: Regin was certainly not a frost-giant, and the whole stanza looks like some copyist's blundering reproduction of stanza 34.

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