These ballads would seem to belong among the numerous ramifications of the Hilde saga. Of these, the second lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, in Sæmund's Edda, and 'Waltharius,' the beautiful poem of Ekkehard, are most like the ballads.[112] Leaving 'Waltharius' till we come to 'Erlinton,' we may notice that Sigrún, in the Helgi lay, though promised by her father to another man, Hödbrodd, son of Granmar, preferred Helgi. She sought him out, and told him frankly her predicament: she feared, she said, the wrath of her friends, for breaking her father's promise. Helgi accepted her affection, and bade her not care for the displeasure of her relatives. A great battle ensued between Helgi and the sons of Granmar, who were aided by Sigrún's father and brothers. All her kinsmen were slain except one brother, Dag. He bound himself to peace with Helgi, but, notwithstanding, made sacrifices to Odin to obtain the loan of his spear, and with it slew Helgi. We have, therefore, in so much of the lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, the groundwork of the story of the ballads: a woman, who, as in many of the Ribold ballads, has been betrothed to a man she does not care for, gives herself to another; there is a fight, in which a great number of her kinsmen fall; one brother survives, who is the death of the man she loves. The lay of Helgi Hiörvard's son, whose story has much in common with that of his namesake, affords two resemblances of detail not found in the lay of the Hundingslayer. Helgi Hiörvard's son, while his life-blood is ebbing, expresses himself in almost the words of the dying Ribold: "The sword has come very near my heart." He then, like Ribold and Earl Brand, declares his wish that his wife should marry his brother, and she, like Guldborg, declines a second union.[113]