Scene 1

HELGI has beached his ships.

SIGRUN enters.

SIGRUN Who has brought these ships to anchor by the steep shore,

Where, warriors, do you come from?

What are you waiting for in Bruna-bay,

Which way do you set your course?

HELGI Hamal has brought these ships to anchor by the steep shore,

We come from Hlesey,

We’re waiting for a breeze in Bruna-bay,

To the east we wish to set our course.

SIGRUN Where have you, prince, stirred up war

Or fed the goslings of Gunn’s sisters?

Why is your corslet spattered with blood,

Why are you eating raw meat, still wearing your helmets?

HELGI The descendant of the Ylfings fought most recently

West of the sea, if you wish to know,

Where I was hunting bears in Bragalund

And gave food with sword-points to the eagle’s race.

Now I’ve told you, girl, why the battle came about;

And so on the ship we were eating meat scarcely roasted.

SIGRUN War you’re describing; King Hunding

Fell on the field, before Helgi;

It came to battle, in revenge for kinsmen,

Blood streamed along the edges of the swords.

HELGI How did you know, wise lady,

That we are those avengers?

There are many keen prince’s sons,

Who look like us kinsmen.

SIGRUN I was not far away, leader of the battle,

Yesterday morning, when the prince lost his life;

Though I see that the clever son of Sigmund

Is giving news of the battle in secret slaughter-runes.

I glimpsed you once before on the longships,

When you fought in the bloody bow of the ship

And cold and wet the waves were playing.

Now the prince wants to conceal himself from me

But Hogni’s girl recognizes Helgi.

I have been betrothed to Hodbrodd among the fighters,

But, Helgi Hundingsbani, I call Hodbrodd

A king as bold as the kitten of a cat.

The prince will come in a few nights

Unless you challenge him to battle

Or seize the girl from the warrior.

Though, lord, I fear the anger of kinsmen,

I have broken my father’s lovingly given word.

HELGI Don’t worry about Hogni’s anger, 

Nor the wrath of your kinsmen.

Young girl, you will live with me;

I’ve no fear, good lady, of your family.

Don’t be afraid of the slayer of Isung!

There’ll be noise of battle unless I am dead.

Scene 2

SINFIOTLI and GUDMUND have beached their ships.

GUDMUND Who is the prince who steers the ships,

And has the golden war banners at his prow?

Peace, it seems to me, is not at the forefront of your vessels;

A red battle-glow hangs over the vikings.

SINFIOTLI Say this evening, when you’re giving

Pigs and bitches their feed to chew,

That these are the Ylfings come from the east,

Eager for fighting to Gnipalund.

Hodbrodd will find Helgi Hundingsbani there,

The prince who never flees, aboard his ship,

A man who’s often given food to the eagles,

While you were kissing slave-women at the grindstone.

GUDMUND Little must you recall, lord, the old stories,

When you taunt the princes with untruths;

You have eaten the leavings of wolves

And been the slayer of your brother,

Often you’ve sucked wounds with a cold snout;

Hated everywhere, you’ve crept into a stone-tip.

SINFIOTLI You were a sorceress on Varin-island,

A deceitful woman, you made up slander;

You said that you did not want to have

Any warrior in his armour except Sinfiotli.

You were, you harmful creature,

a witch, horrible, unnatural,

Among Odin’s valkyries,

All the einheriar had to fight,

Headstrong woman, on your account.

Nine wolves on Saga’s headland

We engendered;

I alone was their father.

GUDMUND You were not the father of any ferocious wolf,

Though you were older than them all, as far as I remember,

After the giant girls castrated you

On Thorsness by Gnipalund.

You were Siggeir’s stepson, you lay under the home haystacks,

Used to wolves’ howling, out in the woods;

Every kind of shameful thing has happened to you,

When the breast of your brother you tore.

You made yourself infamous for abominable deeds.

You were a mare for Grani on Bravoll plain,

A gold bit in your mouth, you were ready to leap;

I’ve ridden you to exhaustion over many a stretch of road,

Under my saddle, a jaded hack, down the mountain path.

SINFIOTLI You seemed to be a youth devoid of morals,

When you milked Gullnir’s goats,

And another time as Imd’s daughter

In tattered clothes. Do you want to keep talking?

GUDMUND Rather I should like to make ravens sate themselves

On your corpse, at Frekastein,

Than give your bitches dog-food to devour

Or be feeding your pigs; may ill-luck befall you!

SINFIOTLI Rather, Gudmund, you’ll be herding goats

And clambering down the rocky clefts,

In your hand you’ll have a hazel switch;

You prefer that to the judgement of swords.

HELGI enters.

HELGI For you, Sinfiotli, it would be more fitting

To draw up for battle and make the eagles glad,

Than to be bandying useless words.

Let the bridled horses gallop to the battle,

Spurwolf ride to Sparins-heath,

Melnir and Mylnir to Mirkwood,

Let no man linger behind,

Those who know how to brandish wound-flames.

Scene 3

SIGRUN finds Hodbrodd dying on the battlefield.

SIGRUN Sigrun from Sefafell

Will not sink into your arms, King Hodbrodd;

Ebbing is the life—often the grey stud-horse of the troll-woman

Gets the corpses—of Granmar’s sons.

HELGI enters.

SIGRUN Unscathed, prince, you’ll rule over men,

Upholder of Yngvi’s line, and enjoy your life,

Since you have brought low the king who scorns flight,

The one who dealt death to the sea-king.

And it’s fitting, lord, that you should have

Both red-gold rings and the powerful girl;

Unscathed, lord, you’ll enjoy both

Hogni’s daughter and Hringstadir,

Lands and victory now the battle is over.

HELGI It was not all good fortune for you, foreign woman,

Though I think the norns had some part in it;

This morning at Frekastein,

Bragi and Hogni were killed, I was their slayer.

And at Styr-cleft King Starkad,

And at Hlebiorg the sons of Hrollaug;

I saw that fiercest-minded of kings

Defending his trunk—his head was gone.

All the rest of your kinsmen

Were lying on the ground, corpses they’d become;

You could not stop the battle, it was fated for you

That you’d be cause of strife among powerful men.

Be comforted, Sigrun! You’ve been our battle-goddess;

The princes could not struggle against fate.

SIGRUN I’d choose now that those who are gone might live again

And that I could still hold you in my arms.

Scene 4

HELGI and DAG are in the forest.

DAG kills HELGI with a spear, sacrificing him to Odin.

Scene 5

SIGRUN is at home.

DAG enters.

DAG Sister, I am reluctant to tell you of grief,

For I have been forced to make my sister weep:

There fell this morning below Fetter-grove

The lord who was the best in the world,

And who stood on the necks of chieftains.

SIGRUN May all the oaths which you swore

To Helgi rebound upon you,

By the bright water of Leift

And the cool and watery stone of Unn

May the ship you sail on not go forward,

Though the wind you need has sprung up behind;

May the horse you ride on not go forward,

Though your enemies are about to catch you.

May the sword that you wield never bite for you,

Unless it’s whistling above your own head.

The death of Helgi would be avenged on you,

If you were a wolf out in the forest

With nothing of your own and deprived of happiness,

If you had no food except when you glutted yourself on corpses.

DAG Sister, you are mad, you are out of your wits,

That you should wish this evil on your brother;

Odin alone caused all the misfortune,

For he cast hostile runes between the kinsmen.

Your brother offers you red-gold rings,

All Vandilsve and Vigdal;

Take half of our homeland to pay for your loss,

Ring-adorned woman and your sons.

SIGRUN I shall not sit so happily at Sefafell,

Neither early nor at night-time will I desire to live,

Unless light should shine on the company of the prince,

Unless Vigblaer were to gallop here under the prince,

Tamed to his gold bridle, and I could welcome the warrior.

Helgi so terrified

All his enemies and their kin,

Just as panicking goats run before the wolf

Down from the mountain filled with fear.

So was Helgi beside the chieftains

Like the bright-growing ash beside the thorn-bush

And the young stag, drenched in dew,

Who surpasses all other animals

And whose horns glow against the sky itself.

Scene 6

SIGRUN is at home.

MAID enters.

MAID Go outside, Sigrun, out from Sefafell,

If you want to meet the leader of the army;

The mound has opened up, Helgi has come;

His wounds are bleeding, the prince asks you

to staunch his injuries.

Scene 7

HELGI is inside his burial mound.

SIGRUN enters.

SIGRUN Is this some kind of delusion, that I think I can see

Dead men riding, or is it Ragnarok?

Are you spurring your horses onward,

Or have the fighters been allowed to come home?

HELGI It is not a delusion that you think you see,

Nor the end of mankind, though you gaze upon us,

Though we spur our horses onwards,

Nor are the fighters allowed to come home.

SIGRUN Now I am so glad, at our meeting,

As are the greedy hawks of Odin

When they know of slaughter, steaming food,

Or, dew-drenched, they see the dawn.

First I want to kiss the lifeless king,

Before you throw off your bloody mail-coat;

Your hair, Helgi, is thick with hoar-frost,

The prince is all soaked in slaughter-dew,

Hogni’s son-in-law has clammy hands.

How, lord, can I find a remedy for this?

HELGI You alone, Sigrun, from Sefafell,

Cause Helgi to be soaked in sorrow-dew;

You weep, gold-adorned lady, bitter tears,

Sun-bright southern girl, before you go to sleep;

Each falls bloody on the breast of the prince,

Cold as dew, burning hot, thick with grief.

We ought to drink this precious liquid,

Though we have lost our love and our lands;

No man should sing a lament for me,

Though on my breast wounds can be seen

Now the lady is enclosed in the mound,

A human woman with us, the departed.

SIGRUN Here I’ve made you, Helgi, a bed all ready;

Descendent of the Ylfings, now free from care

In your arms, lord, I’ll sleep,

As I would with the prince, when he was living.

HELGI I say that nothing could be less expected,

Neither early nor late at Sefafell,

That you should sleep in the arms of a dead man,

White lady, in the tomb, Hogni’s daughter,

And you alive, and royally born.

It is time for me to ride along the blood-red roads,

To see the pale horse to tread the path in the sky;

I must cross the bridge in the sky-vault,

Before Salgofnir awakens the victorious people.

HELGI exits.

Scene 8

The following night, SIGRUN and MAID are waiting for Helgi outside the burial mound.

SIGRUN He would have come by now, if he meant to come,

The son of Sigmund, from Odin’s falls;

Hopes of seeing the prince come here are fading,

Now the eagles roost on the ash-branches

And all the household head for the dream-assembly.

MAID Do not be so mad as to go alone,

High-born lady, into the home of ghosts;

They are all much more powerful at night, lady,

The dead creatures, than when day dawns.