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Poetic Edda

"Long since did we plan  how soon we might slay you."
  Hogni spake:41.[1] "Little it matters  if long ye have planned it; For unarmed do ye wait,  and one have we felled, We smote him to hell,  of your host was he once."
42.[2] Then wild was their anger  when all heard his words;Their fingers were swift  on their bowstrings to seize,Full sharply they shot,  by their shields were they guarded.
43.[3] In the house came the word  how the heroes without

    and with little grudging toward eagle and wolf.'" The demand for the treasure likewise appears in the Nibelungenlied.

    These two lines, which most editions combine with stanza 39, may be the first or last two of a four-line stanza. The Volsungasaga gives Atli's speech very much as it appears here.

  1. ↑ The manuscript does not indicate the speaker; Grundtvig adds as a first line: "Then Hogni laughed loud  where the slain Vingi lay." Many editors assume the loss of a line somewhere in the stanza. Unarmed: Hogni does not see Atli's armed followers, who are on the other side of the courtyard (stanza 39). One: Vingi.
  2. ↑ Most editors assume the loss of one line, after either line 1 or line 3.
  3. ↑ The manuscript reading of lines 1-2, involving a metrical error, is: "In the house came the word  of the warring without, / Loud in front of the hall  they heard a thrall shouting." Some editors assume a gap of two lines after line

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