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Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II

Once through clouds  she was wont to ride,And battles fought  like fighting men,(Till Helgi a captive  held her fast;Sister she is  of Sigar and Hogni,Thus bright are the eyes  of the Ylfings' maid.)"

Helgi escaped and went to a fighting ship. He slew King Hunding, and thenceforth was called Helgi Hundingsbane.[1]

(II)

He lay with his host in Brunavagar[2], and they had there a strand-slaughtering[3], and ate the flesh raw. Hogni[4] was the name of a king. His daughter was Sigrun[4]; she was a Valkyrie and rode air and water; she was Svava reborn. Sigrun rode to Helgi's ship and said:

5. "Who rules the ship  by the shore so steep?Where is the home  ye warriors have?Why do ye bide  in Brunavagar,Or what the way  that ye wish to try?"

    liberately lying, it is useless to test any part of his speech for accuracy.

  1. ↑ Prose. No division indicated in the manuscript.
  2. ↑ Brunavagar ("Bruni's Sea"): mentioned only in this section.
  3. ↑ Strand-slaughtering: a killing on the shore of cattle stolen in a raid.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hogni and Sigrun: cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 17 and note; the annotator's notion of Sigrun as the reincarnated Svava (cf. Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar, concluding prose note) represents a naive form of scholarship. There is nothing in stanzas 5-12 which clearly identifies Sigrun as a Valkyrie, or which, except for the last line of stanzas 12, identifies the speaker as Sigrun. Some editors, therefore, call here simply "the Valkyrie," while

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