And when the work was over, dead night was beginning to fail:
Then spake the white-hand Signy: "Now shalt thou tell the tale
Of the death of the Volsung brethren ere the wood thy wrath shall hide,
Ere I wend me back sick-hearted in the dwelling of kings to abide."

He said: "We sat on the tree, and well ye may wot indeed
That we had some hope from thy good-will amidst that bitter need.
Now none had 'scaped the sword-edge in the battle utterly,
And so hurt were Agnar and Helgi, that, unhelped, they were like to
die;
Though for that we deemed them happier: but now when the moon shone
bright,
And when by a doomed man's deeming 'twas the midmost of the night,
Lo, forth from yonder thicket were two mighty wood-wolves come,
Far huger wrought to my deeming than the beasts I knew at home:
Forthright on Gylfi and Geirmund those dogs of the forest fell,
And what of men so hoppled should be the tale to tell?
They tore them midst the irons, and slew them then and there,
And long we heard them snarling o'er that abundant cheer.
Night after night, O my sister, the story was the same,
And still from the dark and the thicket the wild-wood were-wolves came
And slew two men of the Volsungs whom the sword edge might not end.
And every day in the dawning did the King's own woodmen wend
To behold those craftsmen's carving and rejoice King Siggeir's heart.
And so was come last midnight, when I must play my part:
Forsooth when those first were murdered my heart was as blood and fire;
And I deemed that my bonds must burst with my uttermost desire
To free my naked hands, that the vengeance might be wrought;
But now was I wroth with the Gods, that had made the Volsungs for
nought