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Brot af Sigurtharkvithu

18.[1] "Thou hast, Gunnar,  the deed forgot,
When blood in your footprints  both ye mingled;
All to him  hast repaid with ill
Who fain had made thee  the foremost of kings.

19. "Well did he prove,  when proud he rode
To win me then  thy wife to be,
How true the host-slayer  ever had held
The oaths he had made  with the monarch young.

20.[2] "The wound-staff then,  all wound with gold,
The hero let  between us lie;
With fire the edge  was forged full keen,
And with drops of venom  the blade was damp."

Here it is told in this poem about the death of Sigurth, and the story goes here that they slew him out of doors, but some say that they slew him in the house, on his bed

[3]

  1. ↑ Footprints: the actual mingling of blood in one another's footprints was a part of the ceremony of swearing blood-brotherhood, the oath which Gunnar and Sigurth had taken. The fourth line refers to the fact that Sigurth had won many battles for Gunnar.
  2. ↑ Regarding the sword episode cf. Gripisspo, 41 and note. Wound-staff: sword.
  3. ↑ Prose. This prose passage has in the manuscript, written in red, the phrase "Of Sigurth's Death" as a heading; there is no break between it and the prose introducing Guthrunarkvitha I, the heading for that poem coming just before stanza 1. This note is of special interest as an effort at real criticism. The annotator, troubled by the two versions of the story of Sigurth's death, feels it incumbent on him not only to point the fact out, but to cite the authority of "German men" for the form which appears

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