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Poetic Edda

Far, methinks, is our realm  from the hills of the Rhine;I mind me that treasures  more we hadWhen happy together  at home we were."
17.[1] Without stood the wife  of Nithuth wise,And in she came  from the end of the hall;On the floor she stood,  and softly spoke:"Not kind does he look  who comes from the wood."

[2]King Nithuth gave to his daughter Bothvild the gold ring that he had taken from the bast rope in Völund's

    script stanza 16 is followed by the two lines of stanza 2, and many editions make of lines 3-4 of stanza 16 and stanza 2 a single speech by Völund. Grani's way: Grani was Sigurth's horse, on which he rode to slay Fafnir and win Andvari's hoard; this and the reference to the Rhine as the home of wealth betray the southern source of the story. If lines 1-2 belong to Völund, they mean that Nithuth got his wealth in the Rhine country, and that Völund's hoard has nothing to do with it; if the speaker is Nithuth, they mean that Völund presumably has not killed a dragon, and that he is far from the wealth of the Rhine, so that he must have stolen his treasure from Nithuth himself.

  1. ↑ Line 1 is lacking in the manuscript, lines 2-4 following immediately after the two lines here given as stanza 2. Line 1, borrowed from line 1 of stanza 32, is placed here by many editors, following Bugge's suggestion. Certainly it is Nithuth's wife who utters line 4. Who comes from the wood: Völund, noted as a hunter. Gering assumes that with the entrance of Nithuth's wife the scene has changed from Völund's house to Nithuth's, but I cannot see that this is necessary.
  2. ↑ Prose. The annotator inserted this note rather clumsily in the midst of the speech of Nithuth's wife.

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