10
to me alone belongs
all the hoard of the Niflungs, now Hagena lives not.
One of twain, ever was there doubt in my mind;
no doubt have I, now I am alone.
The Rhine shall rule the red gold
15
that stirs men to strife, the rolling flood [shall rule]
the heritage of the old Niflungs, come from giants.
The twisted rings shall gleam in the river
and by no means adorn the hands of the
children of the Huns.’
*
The living king they set in a fenced place,
20
the host of the Huns. Serpents were creeping,
coiled snakes within the walls,
but Gu?here wrathful-hearted struck
the harp in his hiding-place. Rang, resounded,
string against finger. His voice came
25
clear as a war-cry through the grey rock
in rage against his enemies. So shall a king of the people,
a warlike lord, guard his gold against foes.
Notes
2 The element cumbol in the compound word cumbolwiga meant an ensign, a banner.
4 gar-niflung. In earlier forms of this passage my father wrote gimneoflung here, at line 12 hord Neoflunga, and at line 17 Ealdneoflunga. I cannot account for these forms of the name, but in any case in the final text he returned to Niflung, Niflunga. In the earlier forms (only) he wrote the word gar ‘spear’ against gim ‘jewel’ in gimneoflung; but since the verse in Atlakvi?a has M?rr kva? ?at Gunnarr, geir-Niflungr (‘Glorious Gunnar spoke, the spear-Niflung’) I have adopted this.
6 Hella: in Atlakvi?a and in the Lay of Gudrun the name of the thrall is Hjalli.
17 entiscum yrfe. This puzzling line depends on a very debatable verse in Atlakvi?a, in which the word askunna ‘of divine race’ precedes arfi Niflunga ‘the heritage of the Niflungs’. In his comments on this my father seems to have favoured askunna Niflunga ‘the Niflungs of divine race’, while admitting that it is not clear what was meant by this, rather than taking it with arfi, saying that ‘it is very dubious if one can speak of a hoard as being “of divine race”.’
In his Old English version he wrote first here oscund yrfe (where oscund means ‘of divine race, divine’, the word os being the etymological equivalent of Norse ass, plural ?sir), then changed it to the adjective entisc (and subsequently entiscum) ‘giant, of giants’ from the noun ent (from which was derived the name of the Ents of Middle-earth). In a subsequent copy he wrote oscund in the margin against entisc, as if still uncertain.
25–26 It is notable that almost exactly the same words
stefn in becom
hea?otorht hlynnan under harne stan
appear in Beowulf lines 2552–3, where they are used of Beowulf’s great cry of challenge at the approach of the dragon.
