But Sigurd took the Heart, and wood on the waste he found, The wood that grew and died, as it crept on the niggard ground, And grew and died again, and lay like whitened bones; And the ernes cried over his head, as he builded his hearth of stones, And kindled the fire for cooking, and sat and sang o'er the roast The song of his fathers of old, and the Wolflings' gathering host: So there on the Glittering Heath rose up the little flame, And the dry sticks crackled amidst it, and alow the eagles came, And seven they were by tale, and they pitched all round about The cooking-fire of Sigurd, and sent their song-speech out: But nought he knoweth its wisdom, or the word that they would speak: And hot grew the Heart of Fafnir and sang amid the reek. Then Sigurd looketh on Regin, and he deemeth it overlong That he dighteth the dear-bought morsel, and the might for the Master of wrong, So he reacheth his hand to the roast to see if the cooking be o'er; But the blood and the fat seethed from it and scalded his finger sore, And he set his hand to his mouth to quench the fleshly smart, And he tasted the flesh of the Serpent and the blood of Fafnir's Heart: Then there came a change upon him, for the speech of fowl he knew, And wise in the ways of the beast-kind as the Dwarfs of old he grew; And he knitted his brows and hearkened, and wrath in his heart arose; For he felt beset of evil in a world of many foes. But the hilt of the Wrath he handled, and Regin's heart he saw, And how that the Foe of the Gods the net of death would draw; And his bright eyes flashed and sparkled, and his mouth grew set and stern As he hearkened the voice of the eagles, and their song began to learn. For the first cried out in the desert: "O mighty Sigmund's son, How long wilt thou sit and tarry now the dear-bought roast is done?" And the second: "Volsung, arise! for the horns blow up to the hall, And dight are the purple hangings, and the King to the feasting should fall." And the third: "How great is the feast if the eater eat aright The Heart of the wisdom of old and the after-world's delight!" And the fourth: "Yea what of Regin? shall he scatter wrack o'er the world? Shall the father be slain by the son, and the brother 'gainst brother be hurled?" And the fifth: "He hath taught a stripling the gifts of a God to give: He hath reared up a King for the slaying, that he alone might live." And the sixth: "He shall waken mighty as a God that scorneth a truth; He hath drunk of the blood of the Serpent, and drowned all hope and ruth."