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Poetic Edda

And the foreign women  in wagons faring;A week through lands  so cold we went,And a second week  the waves we smote,(And a third through lands  that water lacked).
37.[1] The warders now  on the lofty wallsOpened the gates,  and in we rode.
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38. Atli woke me,  for ever I seemedOf bitterness full  for my brothers' death.
  Atli spake:39.[2] "Now from sleep  the Norns have waked meWith visions of terror,—  to thee will I tell them;Methought thou, Guthrun,  Gjuki's daughter,With poisoned blade  didst pierce my body."

    The stanza describes the journey to Atli's home, and sundry unsuccessful efforts have been made to follow the travellers through Germany and down the Danube. Foreign women: slaves. Line 5, which the manuscript marks as beginning a stanza, is probably spurious.

  1. ↑ After these two lines there appears to be a considerable gap, the lost stanzas giving Guthrun's story of the slaying of her brothers. It is possible that stanzas 38-45 came originally from another poem, dealing with Atli's dream, and were here substituted for the original conclusion of Guthrun's lament. Many editions combine stanzas 37 and 38, or combine stanza 38 (the manuscript marks line 1 as beginning a stanza) with lines 1-2 of stanza 39.
  2. ↑ The manuscript indicates line 3 as the beginning of a stanza. The manuscript and most editions do not indicate the speakers in this and the following stanzas.

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