"
King Atli answered, "Naught true are thy words, nor will this our
speech better the lot of either of us, for all is fallen now to
naught; but now do to me in seemly wise, and array my dead corpse
in noble fashion."
"Yea, that will I," she says, "and let make for thee a goodly
grave, and build for thee a worthy abiding place of stone, and
wrap thee in fair linen, and care for all that needful is."
So therewithal he died, and she did according to her word: and
then they cast fire into the hall.
And when the folk and men of estate awoke amid that dread and
trouble, naught would they abide the fire, but smote each the
other down, and died in such wise; so there Atli the king, and
all his folk, ended their life-days. But Gudrun had no will to
live longer after this deed so wrought, but nevertheless her
ending day was not yet come upon her.
Now the Volsungs and the Giukings, as folk tell in tale, have
been the greatest-hearted and the mightiest of all men, as ye may
well behold written in the songs of old time.
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