Helgi in Valhalla

Helgi married Sigrun and they had sons. Helgi did not live to old age. Dag, Hogni’s son, sacrificed to Odin for revenge for his father. Odin lent Dag his spear. Dag encountered Helgi, his brother-in-law, at a place called Fetter-grove. He pierced Helgi with the spear and Helgi fell there. And Dag rode to the mountains and told this news to Sigrun:

30 ‘Sister, I am reluctant to tell you of grief,
for I am forced to make my kinswoman weep:
there fell this morning below Fetter-grove
the lord who was the best in the world
and who stood on the necks of chieftains.’

31 ‘May all the oaths which you swore
to Helgi rebound upon you,
by the bright water of Leift
and the cold, wet stone of Unn.

32 ‘May the ship you sail on not go forward,*
though the wind you need has sprung up behind;
may the horse you ride on not go forward,
though you need to escape your enemies.

33 ‘May the sword that you wield never bite for you,
unless it’s whistling above your own head.
Helgi’s death would be avenged on you,
if you were a wolf out in the forest
deprived of wealth and all well-being
and of food, except when you glutted yourself on corpses.’

Dag said:
34 ‘You’re mad, sister! you’re out of your wits,
that you wish this evil fate on your brother;
Odin alone caused all the misfortune,
for he cast hostile runes between kinsmen.

35 ‘Your brother offers you red-gold rings,
all Vandilsve and Vigdal;
take half of our homeland to pay for your loss,
ring-adorned woman, you and your sons.’

36 ‘I shall not sit so happily at Sefafell,
neither early nor at night-time, that I’ll desire to live on;
unless light should shine on the prince’s company,
unless Vigblær should gallop here under the chieftain,
tamed to his gold bridle, and I could welcome the warrior.

37 ‘Helgi so terrified
all his enemies and their kin,
just as panicking goats run before the wolf
down from the mountain filled with fear.

38 ‘So Helgi surpassed the soldiers
like the bright-growing ash beside the thorn-bush
and the young stag, drenched in dew,
who towers above all other animals
and whose horns glow right up to the sky.’

A burial-mound was made for Helgi. And when he came to Valhall Odin asked him to rule over everything with him. Helgi said:

39 ‘Hunding, you shall fetch the foot-bath*
for every man and kindle the fire,
tie up the dogs, watch the horses,
give the pigs slops before you go to sleep.’

One evening Sigrun’s maid went past Helgi’s mound and saw Helgi riding into the mound with a large number of men. The maid said:

40 ‘Are these just delusions, that I think I can see
dead men riding, or is it Ragnarok?
where do you spur your horses onward,
or are the fighters allowed to come home?’

Helgi said:
41 ‘These are not delusions that you think you see,
nor the end of mankind, though you gaze upon us,
though we spur our horses onwards,
nor are the fighters allowed to come home.’

The maid went home and told Sigrun:

42 ‘Go outside, Sigrun from Sefafell,
if you want to meet the army-leader;
the mound has opened, Helgi has come!
his wounds are bleeding, the prince asks you
to staunch his injuries.’

Sigrun went into the mound to Helgi and said:

43 ‘Now I am so glad, at our meeting,
as are the greedy hawks of Odin*
when they know of slaughter, steaming flesh,
or, dew-gleaming, they see the dawn.

44 ‘First I want to kiss the lifeless king,
before you throw off your bloody mail-coat;
your hair, Helgi, is thick with hoar-frost,
the prince is all soaked in slaughter-dew,*
Hogni’s son-in-law has clammy hands.
How, ruler, can I find a remedy for this?’

45 ‘You alone, Sigrun from Sefafell,
cause Helgi to be soaked in sorrow-dew;
you weep, gold-adorned lady, bitter tears,
sun-bright southern girl, before you go to sleep;
each falls bloody on the breast of the prince,
cold and wet, burning into me, thick with grief.

46 ‘We ought to drink precious liquors,*
though we have lost our love and our lands;
no man should sing a lament for me,
though on my breast wounds can be seen;
now the lady is enclosed in the mound,
a human woman with us, the departed.’

Sigrun made up a bed in the mound.

47 ‘Here I’ve made you, Helgi, a bed all ready;
descendant of the Ylfings, now free from care
in your arms, lord, I’ll sleep,
as I would with the prince, when he was living.’

48 ‘I declare nothing else could be less expected,
neither early nor late at Sefafell,
that you should sleep in the dead man’s arms,
white lady, in the tomb, Hogni’s daughter,
and you alive, and royally born.

49 ‘It is time for me to ride along the blood-red roads,
to set the pale horse treading the path through the sky;
I must cross the wind-vault’s bridge in the west,
before Salgofnir awakens the victorious people.’*

Helgi and his men rode away, and the women went back to the house. The next evening Sigrun had the maid keep watch by the mound. And at dusk, when Sigrun came to the mound, she said:

50 ‘He would have come by now, if he meant to come,
Sigmund’s son, from Odin’s halls;
I declare that hopes of the prince coming here are fading,
now the eagles roost on the ash-branches
and all the household head for the dream-assembly.’*

51 ‘Do not be so mad as to go alone,
high-born lady, into the home of ghosts;
much more powerful at night, lady, are all
dangerous dead creatures, than by the light of day.’

Sigrun did not live long from sorrow and grief. There was a belief in pagan times, which we now reckon an old wives’ tale, that people could be reincarnated. Helgi and Sigrun were thought to have been reborn. He was called Helgi Haddingia-damager, and she was Kara, Halfdan’s daughter, as is told in the ‘Song of Kara’,* and she was a valkyrie.


- Poetic Edda, Helgakviða Hundingsbana II