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Fafnismol

  Sigurth spake:26.[1] "Afar didst thou go  while Fafnir reddenedWith his blood my blade so keen;With the might of the dragon  my strength I matched,While thou in the heather didst hide."
  Regin spake:27. "Longer wouldst thou  in the heather have letYon hoary giant hide,Had the weapon availed not  that once I forged,The keen-edged blade thou didst bear."
  Sigurth spake:28. [2] "Better is heart  than a mighty bladeFor him who shall fiercely fight;The brave man well  shall fight and win,Though dull his blade may be.
29.[2] "Brave men better  than cowards be,When the clash of battle comes;And better the glad  than the gloomy manShall face what before him lies.
30.[3] "Thy rede it was  that I should ride

  1. In the manuscript stanzas 26-29 stand after stanza 31, which fails to make clear sense; they are here rearranged in accordance with the Volsungasaga paraphrase.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Almost certainly interpolated from some such poem as the Hovamol. Even the faithful Volsungasaga fails to paraphrase stanza 29.

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