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Poetic Edda

to the heart. Fafnir writhed and struck out with his head and tail. Sigurth leaped from the trench, and each looked at the other. Fafnir said:

1.[1] "Youth, oh, youth!  of whom then, youth, art thou born? Say whose son thou art,Who in Fafnir's blood  thy bright blade reddened, And struck thy sword to my heart."

Sigurth concealed his name because it was believed in olden times that the word of a dying man might have great power if he cursed his foe by his name. He said:

2. "The Noble Hart  my name, and I go A motherless man abroad;Father I had not,  as others have, And lonely ever I live."

[2]

    sungasaga it was the blood, and not the venom, that poured down on Sigurth's head. Sigurth was much worried about this danger, and before he dug the trench asked Regin what would happen if the dragon's blood overcame him. Regin thereupon taunted him with cowardice (Sigurth refers to this taunt in stanza 30, but the stanza embodying it has disappeared). After Sigurth had dug his trench, an old man (Othin, of course) appeared and advised him to dig other trenches to carry off the blood, which he did, thereby escaping harm.

  1. ↑ The first line in the original, as here, is unusually long, but dramatically very effective on that account.
  2. ↑ The names of the speakers do not appear in the manuscript, though they seem originally to have been indicated in the

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