Yet wend we ashore to behold it and to wot of the deeds late done."

So they turned their faces to Sigmund, and waded the swathes of the
sword.
"O, look ye long," said the Sea-king, "for here lieth a mighty lord:
And all these are the deeds of his war-flame, yet hardy hearts, be
sure,
That they once durst look in his face or the wrath of his eyen endure;
Though his lips be glad and smiling as a God that dreameth of mirth.
Would God I were one of his kindred, for none such are left upon earth.
Now fare we into the thicket, for thereto is the woman fled,
And belike she shall tell us the story of this field of the mighty
dead."

So they wend and find the women, and bespeak them kind and fair:
Then spake the gold-crowned handmaid: "Of the Isle-king's house we
were,
And I am the Queen called Hiordis; and the man that lies on the field
Was mine own lord Sigmund the Volsung, the mightiest under shield."

Then all amazed were the sea-folk when they hearkened to that word,
And great and heavy tidings they deem their ears have heard:
But again spake out the Sea-king: "And this blue-clad one beside,
So pale, and as tall as a Goddess, and white and lovely eyed?"

"In sooth and in troth," said the woman, "my serving-maid is this;
She hath wept long over the battle, and sore afraid she is."

Now the king looks hard upon her, but he saith no word thereto,
And down again to the death-field with the women-folk they go.