son was hight Sigmund, and their daughter Signy; and these two
were twins, and in all wise the foremost and the fairest of the
children of Volsung the king, and mighty, as all his seed was;
even as has been long told from ancient days, and in tales of
long ago, with the greatest fame of all men, how that the
Volsungs have been great men and high-minded and far above the
most of men both in cunning and in prowess and all things high
and mighty.

So says the story that king Volsung let build a noble hall in
such a wise, that a big oak-tree stood therein, and that the
limbs of the tree blossomed fair out over the roof of the hall,
while below stood the trunk within it, and the said trunk did men
call Branstock.


ENDNOTES:
(1) May (A.S. "maeg"), a maid.



CHAPTER III.
Of the Sword that Sigmund, Volsung's son, drew from the
Branstock.

There was a king called Siggeir, who ruled over Gothland, a
mighty king and of many folk; he went to meet Volsung, the king,
and prayed him for Signy his daughter to wife; and the king took
his talk well, and his sons withal, but she was loth thereto, yet
she bade her father rule in this as in all other things that