The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

222 THE OCEAN OF STORY
Now let us look at the poem he was annotating :
1. Maids from the south 1
Fair and young,
On the shore of the sea
The maids of the south,
2.
Hlathguth and Hervor,
And Olrun the Wise
One in her arms
To her bosom white
4. Swan-White second
And her arms the third
Next round Volund's
5. There did they sit
In the eighth at last
(And in the ninth
The maidens yearned
The fair young maids
6. Volund home
From a weary way,
Slagfith and Egil
Out and in went they,
7. East fared Egil
And Slagfith south
Volund alone
Red gold he fashioned
And rings he strung
So for his wife
In the fair one home
through Myrkwood 2
their fate to follow ;
to rest them they sat,
and flax they spun.
Hlothver's children,
Kjar's daughter was.
took Egil then
the woman fair.
flew,
Swan-feathers she wore,
of the sisters threw
neck so white.
for seven winters,
came their longing again,
did need divide them),
for the murky wood,
their fate to follow.
from his hunting came,
the weather-wise bowman,
the hall found empty,
everywhere seeking.
after Olrun,
to seek for Swan-White ;
in Ulfdalir lay,
8. Red gold he fashioned with fairest gems,
This Nithuth learned,
That Volund alone
on ropes of bast ;
he waited long,
might come to him.
the lord of the Njars,
in Ulfdalir lay. . . .
(The rest of the poem does not concern our inquiry.)
1 I retain the caesural pause. Each half-line has two accented syllables
and two (in some cases three) unaccented ones.
2 A magic, dark forest.