Now Sigi grew old, and had many to envy him,
so that at last those turned against him whom he trusted most; yea, even
the brothers of his wife; for these fell on him at his unwariest, when
there were few with him to withstand them, and brought so many against
him, that they prevailed against him, and there fell Sigi and all his
folk with him. But Rerir, his son, was not in this trouble, and he brought
together so mighty a strength of his friends and the great men of the
land, that he got to himself both the lands and kingdom of Sigi his father;
and so now, when he deems that the feet under him stand firm in his rule,
then he calls to mind that which he had against his mother's brothers,
who had slain his father. So the king gathers together a mighty army,
and therewith falls on his kinsmen, deeming that if he made their kinship
of small account, yet none the less they had first wrought evil against
him. So he wrought his will herein, in that he departed not from strife
before he had slain all his father's banesmen, though dreadful the deed
seemed in every wise. So now he gets land, lordship, and fee, and is become
a mightier man than his father before him.
Much wealth won in war gat Rerir to himself, and wedded
a wife withal, such as he deemed meet for him, and long they lived together,
but had no child to take the heritage after them; and ill-content they
both were with that, and prayed the Gods with heart and soul that they
might get them a child. And so it is said that Odin hears their prayer,
and Freyia no less hearkens wherewith they prayed unto her: so she,
never lacking for all good counsel, calls to her her casket-bearing
may, (1) the daughter of Hrimnir the giant, and sets an apple in her
hand, and bids her bring it to the king. She took the apple, and did
on her the gear of a crow, and went flying till she came whereas the
king sat on a mound, and there she let the apple fall into the lap of
the king; but he took the apple and deemed he knew whereto it would
avail; so he goes home from the mound to his own folk, and came to the
queen, and some deal of that apple she ate.
So, as the tale tells, the queen soon knew that she
big with child, but a long time wore or ever she might give birth to
the child: so it befell that the king must needs go to the wars, after
the custom of kings, that he may keep his own land in peace: and in
this journey it came to pass that Rerir fell sick and got his death,
being minded to go home to Odin, a thing much desired of many folk in
those days.
Now no otherwise it goes with the queen's sickness than
heretofore, nor may she be the lighter of her child, and six winters
wore away with the sickness still heavy on her; so that at the last
she feels that she may not live long; wherefore now she bade cut the
child from out of her; and it was done even as she bade; a man-child
was it, and great of growth from his birth, as might well be; and they
say that the youngling kissed his mother or ever she died; but to him
is a name given, and he is called Volsung; and he was king over Hunland
in the room of his father. From his early years he was big and strong,
and full of daring in all manly deeds and trials, and he became the
greatest of warriors, and of good hap in all the battles of his warfaring.
Now when he was fully come to man's estate, Hrimnir
the giant sends to him Ljod his daughter; she of whom the tale told,
that she brought the apple to Rerir, Volsung's father. So Volsung weds
her withal; and long they abode together with good hap and great love.
They had ten sons and one daughter, and their eldest son was hight Sigmund,
and their daughter Signy; and these two were twins, and in all wise
the foremost and the fairest of the children of Volsung the king, and
mighty, as all his seed was; even as has been long told from ancient
days, and in tales of long ago, with the greatest fame of all men, how
that the Volsungs have been great men and high-minded and far above
the most of men both in cunning and in prowess and all things high and
mighty.
So says the story that king Volsung let build a noble
hall in such a wise, that a big oak-tree stood therein, and that the
limbs of the tree blossomed fair out over the roof of the hall, while
below stood the trunk within it, and the said trunk did men call Branstock.