United States or Timor-Leste ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And he was as great in war as in peace; for no other people dared harm, or in any way impose upon, the Nibelungen folk, or any of his faithful liegemen. It is told how, once on a time, he warred against the Hundings, who had done his people an injury, and how he sailed against them in a long dragon-ship of a hundred oars.
Then came forth a man of the kin of the Shieldings of the Upper-mark, and clomb the mound; and he spake in rhyme from beginning to end; for he was a minstrel of renown: "Lo I am a man of the Shieldings and Geirmund is my name; A half-moon back from the wild-wood out into the hills I came, And I went alone in my war-gear; for we have affinity With the Hundings of the Fell-folk, and with them I fain would be; For I loved a maid of their kindred.
Now look to see them shortly; for worn are fifteen days Since in the garth of the Hundings I saw them dight for war, And a hardy folk and ready and a swift-foot host they are." Therewith Geirmund went down clattering from the Hill and stood with his company.
And at once the wind ceased blowing, and the sea was calm, and the warm sun shone through the rifted clouds, and the coast of Hundings Land lay close before them. But when they looked for Fjolner, as he called himself, they could not find him. One day Siegfried sat in his sun-lit hall in Nibelungen Land; and Kriemhild, lovely as a morning in June, sat beside him.
And down in a dell was I gotten with a thorn-brake in its throat, And heard but the plover's whistle and the blackbird's broken note 'Mid the thorns; when lo! from a thorn-twig away the blackbird swept, And out from the brake and towards me a naked man there crept, And straight I rode up towards him, and knew his face for one I had seen in the hall of the Hundings ere its happy days were done.
Gay then was the heart within me, as over the hills I rode And thought of the mirth of to-morrow and the sweet-mouthed Hunding maid And their old men wise and merry and their young men unafraid, And the hall-glee of the Hundings and the healths o'er the guesting cup.
If the gods will that we should drown, it is folly for us to strive against fate. We are bound to the shore of the Hundings' land, and thither must our good ship carry us. Hoist the sails high on the masts, even though the wind should tear them into shreds, and split the masts into splinters!"
Word Of The Day