Denmark -- History -- To 1241; Folklore -- Scandinavia
"Quit the care of the sheep entrusted to thee; scorn to drive the steps
of the goats; share my bed, and fitly reward my prayers.
"O thou whom I have sought with such pains, turn again thy listless
beams; for a little while--it is an easy gesture--lift thy modest face.
"I will take thee hence, and set thee by the house of thy father, and
unite thee joyfully with thy loving mother, if but once thou wilt show
me thine eyes stirred with soft desires.
"Thou, whom I have borne so oft from the prisons of the giants, pay thou
some due favour to my toil of old; pity my hard endeavours, and be stern
no more.
"For why art thou become so distraught and brainsick, that thou wilt
choose to tend the flock of another, and be counted among the servants
of monsters, sooner than encourage our marriage-troth with fitting and
equal consent?"
But she, that she might not suffer the constancy of her chaste mind to
falter by looking at the world without, restrained her gaze, keeping her
lids immovably rigid. How modest, then, must we think, were the women of
that age, when, under the strongest provocations of their lovers, they
could not be brought to make the slightest motion of their eyes! So when
Ottar found that even by the merits of his double service he could not
stir the maiden's gaze towards him, he went back to the fleet, wearied
out with shame and chagrin. Sigrid, in her old fashion, ran far away
over the rocks, and chanced to stray in her wanderings to the abode of
Ebb; where, ashamed of her nakedness and distress, she pretended to be
a daughter of paupers. The mother of Ottar saw that this woman, though
bestained and faded, and covered with a meagre cloak, was the scion of
some noble stock; and took her, and with honourable courtesy kept her
by her side in a distinguished seat. For the beauty of the maiden was
a sign that betrayed her birth, and her telltale features echoed her
lineage. Ottar saw her, and asked why she hid her face in her robe.
Also, in order to test her mind more surely, he feigned that a woman was
about to become his wife, and, as he went up into the bride-bed, gave
Sigrid the torch to hold. The lights had almost burnt down, and she
was hard put to it by the flame coming closer; but she showed such an
example of endurance that she was seen to hold her hand motionless, and
might have been thought to feel no annoyance from the heat. For the
fire within mastered the fire without, and the glow of her longing soul
deadened the burn of her scorched skin. At last Ottar bade her look to
her hand. Then, modestly lifting her eyes, she turned her calm gaze upon
him; and straightway, the pretended marriage being put away, went up
unto the bride-bed to be his wife. Siwald afterwards seized Ottar, and
thought that he ought to be hanged for defiling his daughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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