There he decreed they should starve to death.

But, before their prison was closed, Signy cast into it a bundle of straw, wherein she had concealed Balmung, the magic sword.

Thanks to this weapon, Sigmund and Sinfiotli not only hewed their way out of their separate prisons, but slew all the Goths who attempted to escape from Siggier's dwelling, which they set aflame.

But, although both proposed to save Signy, she merely stepped out of the house long enough to reveal Sinfiotli's origin and bade them farewell, ere she plunged back into the flames! And then King Siggier's roof-tree upheaved for its utmost fall, And its huge walls clashed together, and its mean and lowly things The fire of death confounded with the tokens of the kings.
A sign for many people on the land of the Goths it lay, A lamp of the earth none needed, for the bright sun brought the day.
Feeling he had done his duty by avenging his father's and brothers' death, Sigmund now returned home, where in his old age he was slain in battle shortly after his marriage to a young wife.

Finding him dying on the battle-field, this wife bore off the fragments of his magic sword as sole inheritance for his child, whom she hoped would prove a boy who could avenge him.