"Child, child, who art thou that hast smitten? bright child, of whence is thy birth?" "I am called the Wild-thing Glorious, and alone I wend on the earth." "Fierce child, and who was thy father?--Thou hast cleft the heart of the Foe!" "Am I like to the sons of men-folk, that my father I should know?" "Wert thou born of a nameless wonder? shall the lies to my death-day cling?" "How lieth Sigurd the Volsung, and the Son of Sigmund the King?" "O bitter father of Sigurd!--thou hast cleft mine heart atwain!" "I arose, and I wondered and wended, and I smote, and I smote not in vain." "What master hath taught thee of murder?--Thou hast wasted Fafnir's day." "I, Sigurd, knew and desired, and the bright sword learned the way." "Thee, thee shall the rattling Gold and the red rings bring to the bane." "Yet mine hand shall cast them abroad, and the earth shall gather again." "I see thee great in thine anger, and the Norns thou heedest not." "O Fafnir, speak of the Norns and the wisdom unforgot!" "Let the death-doomed flee from the ocean, him the wind and the weather shall drown." "O Fafnir, tell of the Norns ere thy life thou layest adown!" "O manifold is their kindred, and who shall tell them all? There are they that rule o'er men-folk and the stars that rise and fall: --I knew of the folk of the Dwarfs, and I knew their Norns of old; And I fought, and I fell in the morning, and I die afar from the gold: --I have seen the Gods of heaven, and their Norns withal I know: They love and withhold their helping, they hate and refrain the blow; They curse and they may not sunder, they bless and they shall not blend; They have fashioned the good and the evil; they abide the change and the end." "O Fafnir, what of the Isle, and what hast thou known of its name, Where the Gods shall mingle edges with Surt and the Sons of Flame?" "O child, O Strong Compeller? Unshapen is its hight; There the fallow blades shall be shaken and the Dark and the Day shall smite, When the Bridge of the Gods is broken, and their white steeds swim the sea, And the uttermost field is stricken, last strife of thee and me." "What then shall endure, O Fafnir, the tale of the battle to tell?" "I am blind, O Strong Compeller, in the bonds of Death and Hell. But thee shall the rattling Gold and the red rings bring unto bane." "Yet the rings mine hand shall scatter, and the earth shall gather again." "Woe, woe! in the days passed over I bore the Helm of Dread, I reared the Face of Terror, and the hoarded hate of the Dead: I overcame and was mighty; I was wise and cherished my heart In the waste where no man wandered, and the high house builded apart: Till I met thine hand, O Sigurd, and thy might ordained from of old; And I fought and fell in the morning, and I die far off from the Gold."