Are there helms in Hunland
so high as ours?
Are we lieges of Atli,
lands receiving
from Hun master?
Hogni answer!’
44
‘Of Gudrun I think –
grim thoughts awake!
A ring she hath sent me,
a ring only.
Wolf’s hair winds it,
woven round it,
wolves lie in wait
at the way’s ending.’
45
‘Yet runes she sends me,
runes of healing,
words well-graven
on wood to read;
fast bids us fare
to feast gladly,
old woes forgetting
and ancient wrong.’
*
46
Gifts gave Gunnar,
guerdon kingly;
wine bade men bring
to weary guest.
Deep there drank they
to day’s ending,
doom they recked not;
din resounded.
47
In came Grimhild
grey with wisdom,
the runes she read,
the written tokens.
Her brows darkened
boding evil;
to Gunnar spake she
grave and slowly.
48
‘These runes I doubt:
they are writ with cunning,
strangely twisted,
stained and darkened.
There were others under,
now overlaid –
if I read them right
they were runes of ill.’
49
Gunnar had drunken,
to his guest turned he:
‘Ye Huns have no wine
such as here runneth!
It irks us to ride
to your ale-quaffing;
guile fills your horns –
Gunnar comes not!’
50
Laughing said Vingi:
‘My lord shall I tell
that in courts of Gjuki
no kings are left?
There rules a queen,
a rune-conner;
his weighty words
a woman judgeth?
51
I must haste away,
so will hide it not,
that Atli is old,
but Erp is young.
Thy sister’s son
is but seven winters –
strong hands he needs
to steer his realm.
52
In Gunnar hoped he
for guide and help,
of his sister’s son
the safe keeper.
He weened ye might wield
