Then he turned about unto her, and his raiment was fouled and torn,
And his eyen were great and hollow, as a famished man forlorn;

But he cried: "Hail, Sister Signy! I looked for thee before,
Though what should a woman compass, she one alone and no more,
When all we shielded Volsungs did nought in Siggeir's land?
O yea, I am living indeed, and this labour of mine hand
Is to bury the bones of the Volsungs; and lo, it is well-nigh done.
So draw near, Volsung's daughter, and pile we many a stone
Where lie the grey wolf's gleanings of what was once so good."

So she set her hand to the labour, and they toiled, they twain in the wood,
And when the work was over, dead night was beginning to fall:
Then spake the white-hand Signy: "Now shall thou tell the tale
Of the death of the Volsung brethren ere the wood thy wrath shall hide,
Ere I wend me back sick-hearted in the dwelling of kings to abide."

Then said Sigmund:

"We lay fettered to the tree and at midnight there came from the
thicket two mighty wood-wolves, and falling on my brethren Gylfi and
Geirmund, they devoured them in their bonds, and turned again to the
forest. Night after night, my sister, this befell, till I was left
alone with our brother Sigi to await the wood-beasts. Then came
midnight, and one of the wolves fell upon Sigi and the other turned
on me. But I met it with snarling like its own, and my teeth gripped
its throat, and my hands strove with the fetters till they burst. So
I slew the beast with my irons, but when I looked, Sigi lay dead, and
the other wolf had fled again to the thicket. Then I lay hid till