Though suspecting
treachery, they come, and are killed one after another, except Sigmund
who is secretly saved by his sister and hidden in the wood. She
meditates revenge, and as her two sons grow up to the age of ten,
she tests their courage, and finding it wanting makes Sigmund kill
both: the expected hero must be a Volsung through both parents. She
therefore visits Sigmund in disguise, and her third son, Sinfjoetli,
is the child of the Volsung pair. At ten years old, she sends him to
live in the wood with Sigmund, who only knows him as Signy's son. For
years they live as wer-wolves in the wood, till the time comes for
vengeance. They set fire to Siggeir's hall; and Signy, after revealing
Sinfjoetli's real parentage, goes back into the fire and dies there,
her vengeance achieved:
"I killed my children, because I thought them too weak to avenge our
father; Sinfjoetli has a warrior's might because he is both son's son
and daughter's son to King Volsung. I have laboured to this end,
that King Siggeir should meet his death; I have so toiled for the
achieving of revenge that I am now on no condition fit for life. As
I lived by force with King Siggeir, of free will shall I die with him."
Though no poem survives on this subject, the story is certainly
primitive; its savage character vouches for its antiquity. _Voelsunga_
then reproduces the substance of the prose _Death of Sinfjoetli_
mentioned above, the object of which, as a part of the cycle, seems
to be to remove Sinfjoetli and leave the field clear for Sigurd.
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