Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/416

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Poetic Edda

 Hither o'er mountains high;The glittering worm  would have wealth and life  If thou hadst not mocked at my might."

[1]Then Regin went up to Fafnir and cut out his heart with his sword, that was named Rithil[2], and then he drank blood from the wounds. Regin said:

31. "Sit now, Sigurth,  for sleep will I, Hold Fafnir's heart to the fire;For all his heart  shall eaten be, Since deep of blood I have drunk."

Sigurth took Fafnir's heart and cooked it on a spit. When he thought that it was fully cooked, and the blood foamed out of the heart, then he tried it with his finger to see whether it was fully cooked. He burned his finger, and put it in his mouth. But when Fafnir's heart's-blood came on his tongue, he understood the speech of birds. He heard nut-hatches chattering in the thickets. A nut-hatch said:

32.[3] "There sits Sigurth,  sprinkled with blood,And Fafnir's heart  with fire he cooks;

    Something has evidently been lost before this stanza. Sigurth clearly refers to Regin's reproach when he was digging the trench (cf. note on introductory prose), but the poem does not give such a passage.

  1. ↑ Prose.
  2. ↑ Rithil ("Swift-Moving"): Snorri calls the sword Refil ("Serpent").
  3. ↑ That the birds' stanzas come from more than one source

[380]

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.