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Thorleik would not have told you our mind as yet if he had first taken counsel with me thereon. And when you claim that Helgi's life has come in revenge for Bolli, it is a matter well known to men that a money fine was paid for the slaying of Helgi, while my father is still unatoned for." Halldor gave him a good welcome, and asked him to stay there, but Snorri said he must ride back that night.
But it is absent from the Helgi poems; and the "old wives' tales" of Helgi's re-birth have nothing to do with his legend, but are merely a bookman's attempt to connect stories which he felt to be the same though different.
Nevertheless, when Sævil and his retinue had started off, Helgi got an untamed colt, and mounting it with his face toward the horse's tail, set out, acting all the while very foolishly. Hroar also mounted a colt, and joined him; and the two overtook the company. They galloped back and forth beside Sævil's retinue, until finally Helgi's mask fell off, and then Signy recognized him.
"Bring the spades!" cried Ketill "a fitting enough epitaph for Liot Skulison." His conqueror was already in Helgi's arms. "I thought I should have had to avenge you, Estein. My heart is light again." "Odin has answered me, Helgi." "And the spell is broken?" "No; that spell, I fear, will break only with my death-wound." Helgi laughed out of pure light-heartedness.
"With the melting of the snow I shall take to the sea again, and steer for the setting of the sun." The old seer laid his hand affectionately upon his shoulder. "There spoke the brother of Olaf," he said. "And now to sleep. In the morning I shall send Jomar to warn Ketill, so trouble not thyself further." "If I but knew Helgi's fate," Estein began. "Doubt not my words," said Atli.
If thou wert an outlaw in the woods, Helgi's death were avenged.... Never again while I live, by night or day, shall I sit happy at Sevafell, if I see not the light play on my hero's company, nor the gold-bitted War-breeze run thither with the warrior." But Helgi returns from the grave, unable to rest because of Sigrun's weeping, and she goes down into the howe with him: Sigrun.
A bondmaid of Sigrun went in the evening-tide by Helgi's mound, and there saw how Helgi rode toward it with a great company; then she sang BONDMAID: It is vain things' beguilling That methinks I behold, Or the ending of all things, As ye ride, O ye dead men, Smiting with spurs Your horses' sides? Or may dead warriors Wend their ways homeward?
"Helgi's head seems hardly so strong as his hand, Thorar!" For once the lawman was overreached, and with a laugh he drained his horn and answered, "I had thought better of you Norsemen." The hardest part of the business now remained. To go out in the same way he knew would excite suspicion; if he delayed too long, search would be made for Helgi; and there sat Thorar facing him.
Yet Frithiof was rescued from the danger as if by miracle; for one by one the ships sank down as though some water-giant had stretched out his strong arm, and dragged them below, and Helgi only saved himself by swimming ashore. Loud laughed Bjorn. "I bored holes in the ships last night," said he; "it is a rare ending to Helgi's fleet."
The feud might easily have been transferred from him to Helgi as well as to Sigurd, for invention is limited as regards episodes, and a narrator who wishes to elaborate the story of a favourite hero is often forced to borrow adventures. In the original story, Helgi's blood-feud was probably with the kindred of Sigrun or Svava.
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