Page:The Elder Edda and the Younger Edda - tr. Thorpe - 1907.djvu/149

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THE LAY OF VOLUND

blazed the brushwood, and the arid fir, the wind-dried wood, before Volund.

10. On the bearskin sat, his rings counted, the Alfar's companion: one was missing. He thought that Hlodver's daughter had it, the young Alvit, and that she was returned.

11. So long he sat until he slept; and he awoke of joy bereft: on his hands he felt heavy constraints, and round his feet fetters clasped.

12. "Who are the men that on the rings' possessor have laid bonds? and me have bound?"

13. Then cried Nidud, the Niarars' lord: "Whence gottest thou, Volund! Alfars' chief![1] our gold, in Ulfdal?"

14. "No gold was here in Grani's path, far I thought our land from the hills of Rhine. I mind me that we more treasures possessed, when, a whole family, we were at home.

15. Hladgud and Hervor were of Hlodver born; known was Olrun, Kiar's daughter, she entered into the house, stood on the floor, her voice moderated: Now is he not mirthful, who from the forest comes."

King Nidud gave to his daughter Bodvild the ring which had been taken from the bast in Volund's house; but he himself bore the sword that had belonged to Volund. The queen said:

16. His teeth he shows, when the sword he sees, and
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  1. The designation of Alfars' chief, or prince, applied to Volund, who, as we learn from the prose introduction, was a son of a king of the Finns, may perhaps be accounted for by the circumstance that the poem itself hardly belongs to the Odinic Mythology, and was probably composed when that system was in its decline and giving place to the heroic or romantic.

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