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Atlamol

"Ill for me is this fighting,  if I pay for your fierceness,And sad is the day  to die leaving my swineAnd all the fair victuals  that of old did I have."
59.[1] They seized Buthli's cook,  and they came with the knife,The frightened thrall howled  ere the edge did he feel;He was willing, he cried,  to dung well the courtyard,Do the basest of work,  if spare him they would;Full happy were Hjalli  if his life he might have.
60. Then fain was Hogni—  there are few would do thus—To beg for the slave  that safe hence he should go;"I would find it far better  this knife-play to feel,Why must we all hark  to this howling longer?"
61.[2] Then the brave one they seized;  to the warriors boldNo chance was there left  to delay his fate longer;Loud did Hogni laugh,  all the sons of day heard him,
  1. ↑ Cook: the original word is doubtful. The Volsungasaga does not paraphrase lines 3-5; the passage may be a later addition, and line 5 is almost certainly so.
  2. ↑ It is probable that a stanza describing the casting of Gunnar into the serpents' den has been lost after this stanza. Sons of day: the phrase means no more than "men."

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