University of Virginia Library


375

CHAP. XXXIII. GUDRUN WEDDED TO ATLI.

[Songs extracted from the prose narrative.]


377

[Song.]

Byrnies short cut,
Strong helms hammered,
Girt with good swords,
Red hair gleaming.

[Song.]

On the horn's face were there
All the kin of letters
Cut aright and reddened,
How should I rede them rightly?
The ling-fish long
Of the land of Hadding,
Wheat-ears unshorn,
And wild things' inwards.
In that beer were mingled
Many ills together,
Blood of all the wood
And brown-burnt acorns,
The black dew of the hearth,
The God-doomed dead beast's inwards,
And the swine's liver sodden
Because all wrongs that deadens.