REGIN.

NOW THIS IS THE FIRST BOOK OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SIGURD THE
VOLSUNG, AND THEREIN IS TOLD OF THE BIRTH OF HIM, AND OF HIS
DEALINGS WITH REGIN THE MASTER OF MASTERS, AND OF HIS DEEDS IN THE
WASTE PLACES OF THE EARTH.


_Of the birth of Sigurd the son of Sigmund._

Peace lay on the land of the Helper and the house of Elf his son;
There merry men went bedward when their tide of toil was done,
And glad was the dawn's awakening, and the noon-tide fair and glad:
There no great store had the franklin, and enough the hireling had;
And a child might go unguarded the length and breadth of the land
With a purse of gold at his girdle and gold rings on his hand.
'Twas a country of cunning craftsmen, and many a thing they wrought,
That the lands of storm desired, and the homes of warfare sought.
But men deemed it o'er-well warded by more than its stems of fight,
And told how its earth-born watchers yet lived of plenteous might.
So hidden was that country, and few men sailed its sea,
And none came o'er its mountains of men-folk's company.
But fair-fruited, many-peopled, it lies a goodly strip,
'Twixt the mountains cloudy-headed and the sea-flood's surging lip,
And a perilous flood is its ocean, and its mountains, who shall tell
What things in their dales deserted and their wind-swept heaths may
dwell.

Now a man of the Kings, called Gripir, in this land of peace abode:
The son of the Helper's father, though never lay his load