There were many things about her marriage with Thorstan which she did
not understand at the time--Thorstan's urgency for it was one, a kind
of feverish haste about getting through with preliminaries; and another
was his opposition to living anywhere but at Brattalithe. He would not
go to her father's house, nor to that which had been Thore's, and which
was now hers for life. He put a reeve in each of them and took her to
Brattalithe. Afterwards she understood everything, and was confounded
by her former blindness; but it is the truth that Thorstan's love for
her was of a sort to forbid thinking. She was carried off her feet and
out of her common sense by his passion. He, so dumb and still a man,
was by the touch of passion set on fire. And fire caught fire. The
pair of them lived in each other, and the world seemed empty of all
other men and women.
As for Thorstan himself, knowing what he knew, it is not wonderful that
his love burned at white heat. Passion with him was in a trap and
fighting for an hour of life. What is wonderful is, that he never
betrayed in any other way that he had the end in sight from the
beginning. It was "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" with
him. But Gudrid did not see it. She was too happy to see it. Her
doom was flooded out by sunlight, as it were.
He made songs for her from the time of Thore's death onwards, and in
these his secret might have been revealed if she had been able to read
below the surface. He sang her one night as she lay in his arms the
terrible Song of Helgi and Sigrun. Certainly Death and Love embrace in
that.
Helgi was a Wolfing, the son of Sigmund and Borghild. He was forecast
a hero by the Norns, and at fifteen slew Hunding, who had slain his
father. The sons of Hunding gathered themselves--Alf and Eywolf,
Hiorward and Haward--and the hosts met in the plain under Lowfell.
There was war in heaven while those armies made it on earth. Out of
the lightning flare came the Valkyrs, daughters of Odin, choosers of
the slain. They rode grey horses; they wore helms and coats of mail;
their spear-heads gleamed like fire. Helgi sat by the Eagle Rock and
cried out to them to stay. And one--it was Hogni's daughter,
Sigrun--turned him her fire-hued face and answered: "Other business
have we in hand than to pledge you in horns. My father has plight me
to King Hodbrord, whom I hold no better than the son of a cat. Yet he
will come for me soon unless you deliver me." Then love grew between
them as they looked at each other; and Helgi said: "Fear not Hodbrord,
for I will meet him unless I am dead."
King Hodbrord called up his levies and mustered a host. The ships
flocked about Brandey, but still he waited, and warriors came to him,
hundreds of them, from Hedinsey and other islands. Then said Helgi to
Hiorleif, "Is the host called?" And Hiorleif nodded his head and
pointed them out over sea, high-beaked ships, hemmed with shields,
thick on the water like wild swans. They fought in a storm, and the
waves played their part in the battle. The waters drank as much blood
as the swords; from on high Sigrun the Valkyr guided the warriors of
Helgi.
Now King Hodbrord stood in the gate of his house, hooded and helmed,
his spear in his hands. He saw far off in the valley horsemen riding
with speed, whose cloaks flew out in the wind they made. Who come
here? Whose is the host? And Godmund, his housewife, told him of the
sea-fight, and that the Wolfings were coming against his house. Then
looking, he saw the helm-bright Valkyrs coursing the air, keeping pace
with the horsemen below. They met in a crash by the Wolf rock; the
swords flamed, the spears were like flying stars. Over the dead
Hodbrord Sigrun the Valkyr cried in triumph, "Never for your arms is
Sigrun of Sevafell," and as she spoke the arm of Helgi the hero held
her fast.
Their love was fierce, but it was short. Helgi is dead of countless
wounds, and laid in his barrow with his weapons beside him. Sigrun of
Sevafell keeps the house; she sits by the fire; her eyes are hard. She
says to herself--
"Now had been here
Had he been minded
Sigmund's son,
The hero Helgi,
Out of the halls of Odin;
But the eagles roost
On the high ash-boughs,
All the household
Falleth to dreams--
Faint is my hope of him now."
But her handmaid at the window sees a man riding in armour. He rides a
grey horse, his face is pale and streaked with blood. She speaks to
herself, and then to the dead--
"What wraith rideth?
Is Doomsday come?
Shall dead men ride,
Shall they drive spurs in?
Ho, pale rider,
Hast thou leave homeward to fare?"