daughter, protected him, and challenged him to fight Hödbrodd to whom
her father had plighted her. She protected his ships in the storm which
overtook them as they sailed to meet Hödbrodd, and watched over him in
the battle, in which he slew his rival and was greeted as victor by
Sigrun: "Hail, hero of Yngvi's race ... thou shalt have both the red
rings and the mighty maid: thine are Högni's daughter and Hringstad,
the victory and the land."

_Helgi Hundingsbane II_., besides giving additional details of the
hero's early life, completes the story. In the battle with Hödbrodd,
Helgi killed all Sigrun's kinsmen except one brother, Dag, who slew
him later in vengeance. But Helgi returned from the grave, awakened by
Sigrun's weeping, and she went into the howe with him. The collector
again adds a note: "Helgi and Sigrun are said to have been born again:
he was then called Helgi Haddingjaskati, and she Kara Halfdan's
daughter, as it is told in the Kara-ljod, and she was a Valkyrie."

This third Helgi legend does not survive in verse, the _Kara-ljod_
having perished. It is told in prose in the late saga of Hromund
Gripsson, according to which Kara was a Valkyrie and swan-maid: while
she was hovering over Helgi, he killed her accidentally in swinging
his sword.

There can be little doubt that these three are merely variants of the
same story; the foundation is the same, though incidents and names
differ. The three Helgis are one hero, and the three versions of his
legend probably come from different localities. The collector could
not but feel their identity, and the similarity was too fundamental
to be overlooked; he therefore accounted for it by the old idea of
re-birth, and thus linked the three together. In each Helgi has an