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Poetic Edda

  Guthrun spake:32.[1] "It shall go with thee, Atli,  as with Gunnar thou heldestThe oaths ofttimes sworn,  and of old made firm,By the sun in the south,  by Sigtyr's mountain,By the horse of the rest-bed,  and the ring of Ull."
33.[2] Then the champer of bits  drew the chieftain great,The gold-guarder, down  to the place of death...................
34.[3] By the warriors' host  was the living heroCast in the den  where crawling aboutWithin were serpents,  but soon did GunnarWith his hand in wrath  on the harp-strings smite;
  1. ↑ The manuscript does not indicate the speaker. Sigtyr ("Victory-God"): Othin; what particular mountain (if any) is meant is unknown. Horse of the rest-bed: probably this means "bedpost," i.e., the support of the marriage-bed. Ull: the archer-god, cf. Grimnismol, 5 and note. Nothing is known of his ring.
  2. ↑ Apparently the remains of a Fornyrthislag stanza. Some editors combine the two lines with the line here indicated as stanza 30. Champer of bits: horse. The manuscript indicates no gap.
  3. ↑ Six Fornyrthislag lines which editors have tried to reconstruct in all sorts of ways. The manuscript marks line 5 as the beginning of a new stanza. Regarding the serpents' den, Gunnar's harp-playing, and the manner of his death, cf. Drap Niflunga and Oddrunargratr, 27-30, and notes. In Atlamol, 62, Gunnar plays the harp with his feet, his hands being bound, and some editors change hand in line 4 to "foot." Lines 5-6 may be interpolated, or, as Bugge maintains, lines 1-4 may have been expanded out of two lines.

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