WALKING ON RED-HOT IRON. 



561 



his jealousy, and that she was unfaithful to him. She 

 answers : 



" ' I will take oaths 



Before thee about all this 

 Upon the white l 

 Holy stone, 

 That I acted not 

 With Thjodrek 

 As husband and wife 

 Might do. 

 * * * * 



' Send to Saxi, 



The king of the southern men, 

 He can consecrate 

 The boiling cauldron.' 

 Seven hundred men 2 

 Went into the hall 

 Before the king's wife 

 Touched the cauldron. 



' Now Gnunar will not come, 

 I call not on Hogni, 3 

 I will never see 

 My kind brothers ; 

 Hogni would have avenged 

 Such a charge with the sword ; 

 Now I must myself 

 Clear me of this.' 



She dipped to the bottom 4 

 Her Avhite hand, 

 And took up 

 The costly stones ; 

 * Look now, men, 

 I am guiltless 

 According to holy custom ; 

 See how the cauldron boils.' 



Merry was the heart 

 In the breast of A tli 

 When he saw the hand 

 Of Gudrun unharmed. 

 Now shall Herkja 

 Go to the cauldron, 

 She who to G udruii 

 Attributed treachery. 



The man saw not a pitiful sight 



Who beheld not 



How the hands of Herkja 



Were scalded there ; 



They led the maid 



Into a foul mire ; 5 



Thus were the wrongs 



Of Gudrun redressed." 



(3rd Song of Gudrun.) 



The severest ordeal resorted to seems to have been that of 

 walking on red-hot irons. 



" Hallkel Huk, a lend-man in Norway, went westward to 

 the Hebrides ; there Gilli-Krist came to him from Ireland, 

 and said that he was the son of King Magnus Berfcetti 

 (bare-foot). His mother was with him, ami said that he was 

 also called Harald. Hallkel received them, took them with 

 him to Norway, and at once went to King Sigurd with Harald 

 and his mother. They told the king their errand. Sigurd 

 talked of this matter with the chiefs, and said that every one 

 might advise what he liked, but all asked him to have his own 



1 In the second song of Helcji, stnnza 31, 

 an oath upon a stone is mentioned ; these 

 holy stones may have meant hor/fx. 



2 This shows th large size ot some of 

 the halls. 



3 Her brothers. 



VOL. I. 



4 From stanza 2 we see that the kettle 

 was consecrated. Stanza 5 shows the 

 accuser had to go through the ordeal 

 also. 



5 They drowned her in a mire. 



2 o 



