Page:Völsunga Saga (1888).djvu/162

 mourning and lamentation there was, so that folk heard it far and wide through that abode.

Now Gudrun asked her bower-maidens why they sat so joyless and downcast. “What has come to you, that ye fare ye as witless women, or what unheard-of wonders have befallen you?”

Then answered a waiting lady, hight Swaflod, “An untimely, an evil day it is, and our hall is fulfilled of lamentation.”

Then spake Gudrun to one of her handmaids, “Arise, for we have slept long; go, wake Brynhild, and let us fall to our needlework and be merry.”

“Nay, nay,” she says, “nowise may I wake her, or talk with her; for many days has she drunk neither mead nor wine; surely the wrath of the Gods has fallen upon her.”

Then spake Gudrun to Gunnar, “Go and see her,” she says, “and bid her know that I am grieved with her grief.”

“Nay,” says Gunnar, “I am forbid to go see her or to share her weal.”

Nevertheless he went unto her, and strives in many wise to have speech of her, but gets no answer whatsoever: therefore he gets him gone and finds Hogni, and bids him go see her: he said he was loth thereto, but went, and gat no more of her.

Then they go and find Sigurd, and pray him to visit her; he answered naught thereto, and so matters abode for that night.

But the next day, when he came home from hunting, Sigurd went to Gudrun, and spake—

“In such wise do matters show to me, as though great and evil things will betide from this trouble and upheaving, and that Brynhild will surely die.”

Gudrun answers, “O my lord, by great wonders is she