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Then Bikki told the king, and the king let hang Randver, but bade Swanhild be trodden under horses' feet. But when Gudrun heard thereof, she spake to her sons Words of strife heard I, Huger than any, Woeful words spoken, Sprung from all sorrow, When Gudrun fierce-hearted With the grimmest of words Whetter her sons Unto the slaying. "Why are ye sitting here? Why sleep ye life away?
So when Hermanaric the mighty, the great Gothic king, heard of Svanhild's beauty, he sent his son Randver to woo her for him, but Bikki the False said to the youth: 'Better far were this maiden for thee than for thy old father'; and the maiden and the prince thought it good advice. Then Bikki went and told the king, and Hermanaric bade them take and hang Randver at once.
And as he was led to the gallows he took his hawk and plucked the feathers from off it, and bade show it to his father; and when the king saw it, then he said, "Now may folk behold that he deemeth my honour to be gone away from me, even as the feathers of this hawk;" and therewith he bade deliver him from the gallows. But in that while had Bikki wrought his will, and Randver was dead-slain.
She drave over the firths to the land of King Jonakr, and he wedded her, and their sons were Sorli, and Erp, and Hamdir, and there was Swanhild, Sigurd's daughter, nourished: and she was given to Jormunrek the Mighty. Now Bikki was a man of his, and gave such counsel to Randver, the king's son, as that he should take her; and with that counsel were the young folk well content.
Now many an ill rede had he given the king or this, but of all his ill redes did this sting home the most; and still would the king hearken to all his evil redes; wherefore he, who might nowise still the wrath within him, cried out that Randver should be taken and tied up to the gallows-tree.
Randver answered, "Meet and right, fair lord, that I should go on thine errands." So the king set forth this journey in seemly wise, and they fare till they come to King Jonakr's abode, and behold Swanhild, and have many thoughts concerning the treasure of her goodliness.
Jormunrek was the name of a mighty king of those days, and his son was called Randver.
Then spake Bikki to Randver, "How good and right it were if thou thyself had to wife so lovely a woman rather than the old man there." Good seemed that word to the heart of the king's son, and he spake to her with sweet words, and she to him in like wise.
But on a day Randver called the king to talk with him, and said, "Jormunrek the King would fain be thy brother-in-law, for he has heard tell of Swanhild, and his desire it is to have her to wife, nor may it be shown that she may be given to any mightier man than he is one." The King says, "This is an alliance of great honour, for a man of fame he is."
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