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humiliation of being denied the kingdom in spite of having retrieved the priceless swanskin. The men who had sailed with him to the end of the world now turned their backs on him; the crowd who had welcomed Sigurd as their new king on his homecoming now whispered ever louder about the devilish arts employed by his foreign bride-to-be for the theft: indeed, what they had once called recovery they now termed plunder – and Sigurd’s men had no wish to be associated with a thief.
    ‘But Gudrun Gjukadottir did not stop there in her eagerness to help Sigurd Fafnir’s-bane. She became a regular guest at the palace where she enchanted Attila’s daughters, Gunnhild and Hildigunn, with her flattery and magic. In their youth and naiveté they were taken in by the foreign woman’s honeyed words – for she was both exotic and sinister in a way that titillates the young – and as is common with teenagers, the princesses despised their father as old and behind the times. He was ancient, nearly fifty! They were ashamed of him, and so were delighted when the beautiful enchantress said she knew a way to make King Attila young and virile again.
    ‘On the appointed day, Gudrun Gjukadottir went to the palace, armed with an axe and a large cauldron. She sat herself down in the middle of the banqueting hall, filled the cauldron with herbs and water and lit a good fire underneath. Then she led a black billy goat into the hall and chopped it up into seven pieces with the axe, hacking head and limbs from the trunk, which she then cut in two and placed in the pot. As the cauldron boiled, bubbled and flashed red in the steam, the witch chanted her ancient incantations, stirring the soup all the while. After a brief space she thrust an arm into the cauldron and drew out a bleating kid. It was black, with the same white star on its forehead as the old billy goat that seemed to have been reborn before the eyes of those present. The princesses clapped their hands and twirled around: the time had come for their aged father to be rejuvenated by the same charm.
    ‘The daughters of Lemnos gloated over his fate but it pierced our Argonaut hearts to hear such gruesome events treated as entertainment. However, mindful of the women’s unspoken, and far from guaranteed, promises of unconditional compliance, we took care not to offend them with our dismay.
    ‘The poetess was darker than our Lemnian hostesses. Her skin took on a blue sheen as she plucked the pearl-inlaid lyre, her body swaying back and forth with the rhythm, the shawl at times veiling the fair-voiced poetess and her instrument like a coal-green wave. And so the third part of the story began. The woman’s deep voice resonated from within the gossamer twilight of her veil as she performed for us the denouement of the tale:
    ‘Sigurd Fafnir’s-bane and Gudrun Gjukadottir were living in exile after the murder of Attila. Gudrun was content, having borne him two promising sons, Hogni and Gjuki, but Sigurd resented their poverty. He met Princess Brynhild while out walking one day and fell in love with her. She in turn was greatly impressed that such a widely renowned dragon slayer should want her for his wife. Together they convinced her father Grim that Sigurd had taken no part in Gudrun’s appalling crimes and that he was a fitting guest for the royal palace and a worthy husband for Brynhild. As the poetess described the moment when Sigurd informed Gudrun of his intention to divorce her and send her away as he was going to marry Brynhild and keep their sons, we men assumed that a lively marriage farce would now ensue in place of the gory tale of horror, so we laughed even louder than the women.
    ‘What none of us knew that evening on Lemnos was that the song in which the dark poetess’s voice was raised prophesied the fate of our beloved captain Jason – the hero who lost everything was none other than he.
    ‘The day before Sigurd and Brynhild’s wedding, Gudrun gave her sons by Sigurd