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But no long while with Sigmund dwelt remembrance of that night;

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Amid his kingly longings and his many deeds of might
It fled like the dove in the forest or the down upon the blast:
Yet heavy and sad were the years, that even in suchwise passed,
As here it is written aforetime.
Thence were ten years worn by
When unto that hidden river a man-child drew anigh,
And he looked and beheld how Sigmund wrought on a helm of gold
By the crag and the stony dwelling where the Dwarf-kin wrought of old.
Then the boy cried: “Thou art the wood-wight of whom my mother spake;
Now will I come to thy dwelling.”
So the rough stream did he take,
And the welter of the waters rose up to his chin and more;
But so stark and strong he waded that he won the further shore:
And he came and gazed on Sigmund: but the Volsung laughed, and said:
“As fast thou runnest toward me as others in their dread
Run over the land and the water: what wilt thou, son of a king?”