The short chap. xvi. is abbreviated from a long poem called the
"Prophecy of Gripir" (the Grifir of the Saga), where the whole
story to come is told with some detail, and which certainly, if
drawn out at length into the prose, would have forestalled the
interest of the tale.
In the slaying of the Dragon the Saga adheres very closely to the
"Lay of Fafnir"; for the insertion of the song of the birds to
Sigurd the present translators are responsible.
Then comes the waking of Brynhild, and her wise redes to Sigurd,
taken from the Lay of Sigrdrifa, the greater part of which, in
its metrical form, is inserted by the Sagaman into his prose; but
the stanza relating Brynhild's awaking we have inserted into the
text; the latter part, omitted in the prose, we have translated
for the second part of our book.
Of Sigurd at Hlymdale, of Gudrun's dream, the magic potion of
Grimhild, the wedding of Sigurd consequent on that potion; of the
wooing of Brynhild for Gunnar, her marriage to him, of the
quarrel of the Queens, the brooding grief and wrath of Brynhild,
and the interview of Sigurd with her -- of all this, the most
dramatic and best-considered parts of the tale, there is now no
more left that retains its metrical form than the few snatches
preserved by the Sagaman, though many of the incidents are
alluded to in other poems.
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