University of Virginia Library

Men say that about that midnight King Sigmund wakened and heard
The voice of a soft-speeched woman, shrill-sweet as a dawning bird:
So he rose, and a woman indeed he saw by the door of the cave
With her raiment wet to her midmost, as though with the river-wave:
And he cried: “What wiltthou, what wilt thou? be thou womankind or fay,
Here is no good abiding, wend forth upon thy way!”