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Poetic Edda

Nor wailing went,  as other women,(When by Sigurth  slain I sat).
12.[1] Never so black  had seemed the nightAs when in sorrow  by Sigurth I sat;The wolves.........................
13.[2] ..............Best of all  methought 'twould beIf I my life  could only lose,Or like to birch-wood  burned might be.
14.[3] From the mountain forth  five days I fared,Till Hoalf's hall  so high I saw;
  1. ↑ Many editions make one stanza of stanzas 12 and 13, reconstructing line 3; the manuscript shows no gap. Bugge fills out the stanza thus: "The wolves were howling  on all the ways, / The eagles cried  as their food they craved."
  2. ↑ Cf. note on preceding stanza. Grundtvig suggests as a first line "Long did I bide,  my brothers awaiting." Many editors reject line 4.
  3. ↑ The manuscript marks line 3 as beginning a stanza, and many editions combine lines 3-4 with lines 1-2 of stanza 15. Hoalf (or Half): Gering thinks this Danish king may be identical with Alf, son of King Hjalprek, and second husband of Hjordis, Sigurth's mother (cf. Fra Dautha Sinfjotla and note), but the name was a common one. Thora and Hokon have not been identified (cf. Guthrunarkvitha I, concluding prose, which is clearly based on this stanza). A Thora appears in Hyndluljoth, 18, as the wife of Dag, one of the sons of Halfdan the Old, the most famous of Denmark's mythical kings, and one of her sons is Alf (Hoalf?).

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