Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/363

 THE SHEPHERD:

Whence and what are you? doomed to die? Or, dead, revisit you the sky? For ride by night or ride by day, You ne'er shall come to Gymer's may.

SKIRNER:

I grieve not, I, a better part Fits him who boasts a ready heart: At hour of birth our lives were shaped; The doom of fate can ne'er be 'scaped.

But Gerd inside hears the stranger, and thus speaks to her maid-servant:

What sounds unknown my ears invade, Frightening this mansion's peaceful shade; The earth's foundation rocks withal, And trembling shakes all Gymer's hall.

THE MAID-SERVANT:

Dismounted stands warrior sheen; His courser crops the herbage green.

GERD:

Haste! bid him to my bower with speed, To quaff unmixed the pleasant mead; And good betide us; for I fear My brother's murderer is near.

Skirner having entered, Gerd thus addresses him:

What are you, elf or asas' son? Or from the wiser vanas sprung? Alone to visit our abode, O'er bickering flames, why have you rode?

SKIRNER:

Nor elf am I, nor asas' son; Nor from the wiser vanas sprung: Yet o'er the bickering flames I rode Alone to visit your abode.