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Poetic Edda

At Gotthorm flew  the glittering steel
Of Gram full hard  from the hand of the king.

23.[1] The foeman cleft  asunder fell,
Forward hands  and head did sink,
And legs and feet  did backward fall.

24.[2] Guthrun soft  in her bed had slept,
Safe from care  at Sigurth's side;
She woke to find  her joy had fled,
In the blood of the friend  of Freyr she lay.

25.[3] So hard she smote  her hands together
That the hero rose up,  iron-hearted:
"Weep not, Guthrun,  grievous tears,
Bride so young,  for thy brothers live.

26.[4] "Too young, methinks,  is my son as yet,
He cannot flee  from the home of his foes;

    Sigurth's sword (cf. Reginsmol, prose after stanza 14); the word here, however, may not be a proper name, but may mean "the hero."

  1. ↑ A line may well have been lost from this stanza.
  2. ↑ Freyr: if the phrase "the friend of Freyr" means anything more than "king" (cf. Rigsthula, 46 etc.), which I doubt, it has reference to the late tradition that Freyr, and not Othin, was the ancestor of the Volsungs (cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 57 and note).
  3. ↑ Müllenhoff thinks this stanza, or at any rate lines 1-2, a later addition based on stanza 29.
  4. ↑ My son: Sigmund; cf. stanza 12 and note, and also Brot, 9 and note.

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