Note 54 — The Short Lay of Sigurth
Henry Adams Bellows translation
Probably a line has been lost from this stanza. Grundtvig adds as a new first line: “Her shalt thou find | in the hall of Half.” Some editions query line 3 as possibly spurious. Svanhild: the figure of Svanhild is exceedingly old. The name means “Swan-Maiden-Warrior,” applying to just such mixtures of swan-maiden and Valkyrie as appear in the Völundarkvitha. Originally part of a separate tradition, Svanhild appears first to have been incorporated in the Jormunrek (Ermanarich) story as the unhappy wife of that monarch, and much later to have been identified as the daughter of Sigurth and Guthrun, thus linking the two sets of legends.