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Updated: June 4, 2025
But Sinfiotli saw what was in her eyes and he said, "I will not drink from this horn. There is venom in the drink." Then, to end the mockery that the Queen would have made over Sinfiotli, Sigmund who was standing by took the horn out of Borghild's hand. No venom or poison could injure him. He raised the horn to his lips and drained the mead at a draught.
On his way he passed the bodies of eleven slain men. And he came upon Sinfiotli lying in the thicket, his wolf's shape upon him, and panting from the battle he had waged. "Thou didst strive with eleven men. Why didst thou not call to me?" Sigmund said. "Why should I have called to thee? I am not so feeble but I can strive with eleven men." Sigmund was made angry with this answer.
A third time she came to him. Before she offered the horn she said, "This is the one who fears to take his drink like a man. What a Volsung heart he has!" Sinfiotli saw the hatred in her eyes, and her mockery could not make him take the mead from her. As before Sigmund was standing by. But now he was weary of raising the horn and he said to Sinfiotli, "Pour the drink through thy beard."
The Queen said to Sinfiotli, "Must other men quaff thy drink for thee?" Later in the night she came to him again, the horn of mead in her hand. She offered it to Sinfiotli, but he looked in her eyes and saw the hatred that was there. "Venom is in the drink," he said. "I will not take it." And again Sigmund took the horn and drank the mead at a draught. And again the Queen mocked Sinfiotli.
He looked on Sinfiotli where he lay, and the wicked wolf's nature that was in the skin came over him. He sprang upon him, sinking his teeth in Sinfiotli's throat. Sinfiotli lay gasping in the throes of death. And Sigmund, knowing the deadly grip that was in those jaws of his, howled his anguish. Then, as he licked the face of his comrade, he saw two weasels meet.
She went within the Hall; then the flames burst over it and all who were within perished. Thus the vengeance of the Volsungs was wrought. And Sigurd thought on the deed that Sigmund, his father, and Sinfiotli, the youth who was his father's kinsman, wrought, as he rode the ways of the forest, and of the things that thereafter befell them.
And beside the sleeping men he saw wolfskins, left there as though they had been cast off. Then Sigmund knew that these men were shape-changers that they were ones who changed their shapes and ranged through the forests as wolves. Sigmund and Sinfiotli put on the skins that the men had cast off, and when they did this they changed their shapes and became as wolves.
And as soon as he drank, the venom that was in the drink went to his heart, and he fell dead in the Hall of the Branstock. Oh, woeful was Sigmund for the death of his kinsman and his comrade. He would let no one touch his body. He himself lifted Sinfiotli in his arms and carried him out of the Hall, and through the wood, and down to the seashore.
And she made Sinfiotli welcome to the Hall of the Branstock. But although she showed herself friendly to him her heart was set upon his destruction. That night there was a feast in the Hall of the Branstock and Borghild the Queen went to all the guests with a horn of mead in her hand. She came to Sinfiotli and she held the horn to him. "Take this from my hands, O friend of Sigmund," she said.
Sigmund went searching for the herb he saw the weasel carry to his comrade. And as he sought for it he saw a raven with a leaf in her beak. She dropped the leaf as he came to her, and behold! It was the same leaf as the weasel had brought to his comrade. Sigmund took it and laid it on the wound he had made in Sinfiotli's throat, and the wound healed, and Sinfiotli was sound once more.
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