88

lips that was not offered to both of them alike. Odin accordingly asked Vidar
to make room for Loki at his side, and Vidar promptly arose and poured
drink into Loki’s cup. Loki offered obeisance to all the gods and goddesses
and drank to them all — Bragi alone excepted. Bragi now proposed to
present him with horse and sword and rings in recompense if he would
keep the peace. Loki replied with taunts, maintaining that Bragi had none of
the possessions of which he spoke: “Of all the Æsir sitting here, you are
most afraid of battle and most wary of flying bolts.” “If I were outside the
hall, as certainly as I now sit within the hall, I should carry away your head
in my hand,” retorted Bragi. “You are brave enough while you are sitting in
your seat, Bragi Grace-the-Benches,” answered Loki; “if you are angry,
come and fight it out with me.” “I beg of you,” said Bragi’s wife, Idun, “do
not taunt Loki herein Ægir’s hall.” “Hold your tongue, Idun,” rejoined Loki;
“of all wanton women I call you the most wanton; with your white arms you
have embraced the slayer of your own brother.” Idun declared that she only
wished to pacify Bragi so that the two would not come to blows. Now
Gefjon spoke: “Why do you two Æsir continue to bandy words in this
presence? Loki appears not to know that he is on the wrong road, that all
the gods are angry at him.” Loki at once stopped her lips by reminding her
of an amorous adventure in which she had played a part. Hereupon Odin
warned Loki to beware of Gefjon’s wrath: “For she knows the destinies of
men as well as I.” Loki immediately turned upon Odin
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and said: “You have often granted victory to dastards.” “You, for your part,”
replied Odin, “lived eight winters under ground as a woman, milking cows.”
No insult much worse could possibly be thrown in a man’s teeth, and so
Loki was not slow in making a rejoinder no less coarse, to the effect,
namely, that Odin had once sojourned on the island of Samsey engaged in
the practice of witchcraft and sorcery after the manner of witches. Frigg
now took a part in the discussion, declaring that Odin and Loki had better
not reveal what they had been occupied with in the morning of time, and
Loki immediately countered with the old story that on a certain occasion
when Odin was absent from home, she had had his brothers Vili and Ve for
husbands. “Had I here in Ægir’s hall a son like Balder, you would not easily
escape,” answered Frigg. “You plainly wish me to recount still more of my
evil deeds,” said Loki; “know then, it is my doing that you shall no more see
Balder come riding into the hall.” “You are beside yourself,” said Freyja, “to
dare relate all the evil and heinous acts of your life; Frigg knows the course
of destiny, though she tells no man thereof.” “Silence,” answered Loki; “I
know you only too well. There is scarcely any one in this company, whether
of Æsir or Elves, whom you have not had for a lover; you are a Troll,
wicked through and through; once the gods surprised you with your own
brother.” “It is of little consequence,” said Njord, “that women have lovers; it
is far worse that you, womanish god, venture into our presence.” Loki
reminded him that he had once been sent east
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ward as a hostage and that the women of Hymir had covered him with
insults. “Even if I was once a hostage, nevertheless I have begotten a son
(Frey) who is the friend of all and the bulwark of the Æsir.” “His mother was
your own sister,” replied Loki. Tyr now spoke: “Frey is foremost of the brave
men of Asgard, he violates neither maid nor wife, and he looses from
bonds all those that are bound.” “Hold your tongue, Tyr; never have you
been able to bring about peace; do not forget how the Fenris Wolf tore off
your right hand.” “Nevertheless,” answered Frey, “the Wolf lies in bondage
until the Twilight of the Gods; and just as he lies chained outside the river’s
mouth, so may you come to lie fettered if you do not keep silence.” “For
gold you bought the daughter of Gymir and sold your sword besides, so
that when the sons of Muspell come riding across the Dark Woods you will
find no weapon ready to your hand.” Then spoke Byggvir, Frey’s serving
man: “If I had offspring like that of Ingunar-Frey and if I lived happily as he
does, I would crush this crow of evil omen finer than marrow and break all
his limbs asunder.” “What is that little thing wagging his tail and whimpering
there under the mill? You hid yourself in the straw on the floor when men
went forth to battle.” On Heimdal’s declaring Loki to be drunk, Loki replied:
“Hold your tongue, Heimdal. In the morning of time a life most base was
dealt out to be your portion, to stand forever with a stiff back, waking and
watching on behalf of the gods.” Skadi now forecast a threatening future for
Loki: “Hitherto your lot has been good, Loki, but you shall
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not much longer play fast and loose; to the sharp stone the gods shall bind
you with your own son’s entrails.” “None the less was I chief among those
that put your father Thjazi to death,” answered Loki. Skadi retorted,
“Therefore cold counsels will always go out to you from my house and
home.” Now Sif stepped forward and poured mead into a horn for Loki; she
drank to him and asked him to molest Skadi no more, but his only response
was to boast that he, if none else, had enjoyed the favors of Sif. “The
mountains are trembling,” said Beyla; “I think Thor must be coming; he will
find a way of stopping the mouth of him who heaps blame on the Æsir.” As
Loki was berating Beyla, Thor appeared and, fuming with rage, threatened
Loki with his hammer. Still Loki had the boldness to say to him: “You will
not be so brave when you go out against the Wolf, and the Wolf devours
Odin.” “I will hurl you into the regions of the east so that no man shall lay
eyes on you again,” answered Thor. “You had better keep quiet about your
journeys to the east,” said Loki, adding a further reminder of the cowardly
way in which Thor had borne himself in Skrymir’s glove and how fast he
had found the thongs bound about the wallet; “hale and hearty, you nearly
perished with hunger.” “If you do not hold your tongue at once, Mjollnir shall
strike you, without further ado, down to Hell, even lower than the Gate of
Corpses.” “I have spoken what I had to speak,” said Loki; “I will now depart,
on your account alone, for I know that you strike when you are moved to
strike.” To Ægir he declared that this banquet was
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his last, that flames were to consume all that he owned.

Loki now took his leave and hid himself in the mountains, where he
built a house with four doors so placed that from within he was able to spy
in all directions. Often he assumed the shape of a salmon and lurked
among the waterfalls of Franang. He pondered much upon what devices
the Æsir might employ in order to catch him in the falls; and as he sat in the
house brooding on these things, he took flax yarn and wove it into meshes
in the manner commonly used in making a net. Before long he saw the
Æsir drawing near; for Odin, looking out from Lidskjalf, had discovered his
hiding. Losing no time, Loki threw the net on the fire burning before him,
and sprang into the waterfall. When the Æsir reached the house, the wise
Kvasir was the first to enter; as soon as he saw the ashes of the burned
net, he understood that it was a means of catching fish, and he told the
Æsir as much. They all set about the task of making a net according to the
model in the ashes; when it was finished they went down to the stream and
threw the net into the water. Thor had hold of one end, and all the other
Æsir held fast to the other end. As they drew the net, Loki swam before it
and lay quiet between two stones until the net had passed over him;
nevertheless they noticed that the net had touched some living thing. They
went up stream and cast in the net a second time, but now they had
weighted it so that nothing could pass beneath it. Loki swam ahead of the
net until he came within a short distance
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of the sea; then he leaped over the rope and swam up to the waterfall
again. Now the Æsir had caught sight of him; they went up stream a third
time and separated into two parties so that each group held one end of the
net while Thor waded down the middle of the river. In such a manner they
drew the net down toward the sea. In this predicament Loki was compelled
either to run out to sea, which would put him in grave danger of his life, or
to leap over the, net once more. He ventured the leap anew, but Thor
seized him and held him fast by the tail, although the salmon slipped a
short way through his hands; this is the reason why the salmon tapers
toward the tail. Now Loki was taken captive outside the bounds of any
hallowed place, and therefore he could expect no mercy. The Æsir carried
him off to a cavern in the mountains. There they took three flagstones,
placed them on end, and bored a hole in each one. Next they seized hold
of Loki’s sons, Vali and Nari; Vali, transforming himself into a wolf, at once
tore his brother limb from limb. Thereupon the Æsir took Nari’s entrails and
with them bound Loki in such a position across the three stones that one of
the stones stood under his shoulders, the second under his loins, and the
third under the tendons of his knees. The bands turned into iron. Skadi
caught a venomous serpent and fixed it above him in such a way that the
venom would be sure to drip into his face. Sigyn, Loki’s wife, stood beside
him holding a basin to catch the dripping poison; but when the basin was
filled, she had to go away to empty it; and while she was gone the
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poison fell on his face and threw him into such violent contortions that the
whole earth trembled. This is the phenomenon now known as an
earthquake. Thus Loki shall lie bound until the coming of the Twilight of the
Gods.

OTHER NORSE MYTHS CONCERNING THE DEATH OF

BALDER (IN SAXO)

The ancient Danish historian Saxo also has an account — no doubt

drawn chiefly from Norse sources1 — of the death of Balder. It differs
materially from the narrative in the Eddas. In Saxo’s story the name of
Balder’s slayer is Hother, son of Hothbrod. He is not a blind god, but a bold
and well-favored prince who from his youth has distinguished himself for
bodily strength and adroitness in all manly exercises. He has no equal as a
swimmer and as a bowman, and no one can match him in playing the harp.
He loves Nanna, the daughter of his foster father Gevar, and she returns
his love. Odin’s son, the mighty Balder, sees her and pays court to her;
being disappointed in his suit, he seeks to kill Hother. From certain Forest-
Maidens Hother learns the entire plot; in consultation with his foster father
Gevar he ascertains that the only means of wounding Balder is the sword
of the Forest-Troll Miming. With much difficulty he gains possession of this
sword. Balder makes war on Hother and Gevar, in the course of which he
loses a great battle at sea, although all of the gods, even Odin and Thor,
fight on his

1
See Axel Olrik, Kilderne til Sakses otdhistorie II (1894), p. 13 ff.
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side; Thor crushes down with his cudgel all that oppose him until Hother
succeeds in splitting the shaft of it; then even the gods take flight. Now
Hother weds Nanna and becomes king of Sweden, which land is his
domain by hereditary right. Balder continues the struggle against him, now
with a greater measure of good fortune, gains the victory over him in two
battles, and thus wins the kingdom of Denmark, which Hother has sought
to lay under tribute to himself. But Balder’s unhappy love for Nanna
consumes his strength. No longer able to walk, he is compelled to ride in a
chariot. In order to help him regain his vigor, three Celestial Maidens brew
for him a drink made from the poison of serpents. Hother, meanwhile, gains
knowledge of the posture of affairs from the same three Forest-Maidens
who assisted him before, and makes opportune haste to join battle with
Balder; the battle which ensues between them lasts a whole day, and
neither side wins a decisive victory. During the night Hother sallies forth to
meet the Maidens who are preparing the potent draught; he asks them to
give him some of it, but they dare not heed his request, although they are
well disposed toward him in all things else. On his return journey by a
happy chance he encounters Balder alone. He wounds him with his sword,
and Balder dies three days afterward. Hother now becomes king also in
Denmark. Odin, meaning to avenge the death of Balder, seeks the advice
of soothsayers, and the Finn Rostiophus tells him that Rind, daughter of the
king of Ruthenia (Russia) is to bear him a son who will avenge
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his brother. Assuming a disguise, Odin enters the service of the king as a
soldier and performs such incredible deeds of valor that he becomes the
king’s most highly trusted henchman. Now he pays court to Rind with the
consent of the king; but, too haughty to accept him, she sends him away
with a box on the ear. The next year he returns in the guise of a smith and
fashions for the princess the most lovely ornaments of gold and silver; but
instead of the kiss he asks for, he gets only a second box on the ear, the
princess being unwilling to favor a man so old. The third time he appears
as the gayest of knights, but his courtship meets with no better luck than
before. At last he returns in the likeness of a young girl, and so finds a
place among Rind’s handmaidens. The handmaiden, as he calls himself,
pretends to unusual skill in healing. When the princess in the course of time
falls ill of a dangerous malady, the handmaiden is summoned and, on
being promised her love as a guerdon, restores Rind to health. Thus Odin
gains what he has long sought. Rind becomes his consort and bears him a
son, whom Saxo calls Bous and who is no doubt to be identified with the
Vali of the Eddas. Of him Saxo relates only that he makes war on Hother,
that Hother falls in battle, but that Bous receives a mortal wound from
which he dies on the following day. The Eddas, on the other hand,
represent Vali as still living, inasmuch as he is one of the small number of
gods who are to survive the Twilight of the Gods.
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THE DEATH OF KVASIR — SUTTUNG

The death of Kvasir occasioned the dissemination among men of a

knowledge of the poetic arts. It happened in the following manner:
Kvasir1 was in the habit of journeying hither and thither in the world
for the purpose of teaching wisdom to men. Once upon a time he was
invited to visit the home of the Dwarfs Fjalar and Galar; they begged
permission to speak a word or two with him in private, and promptly killed
him. His blood they allowed to drip into two crocks and a kettle; then they
mixed honey with the blood and from this pottage they brewed a mead
possessing the peculiar virtue that whoever should drink of it would
become a skald or a soothsayer. The two crocks are called Son and Bodn,
and the kettle Odrœrir. The Dwarfs told the Æsir that Kvasir had been
drowned in his own perfect wisdom, no man being wise enough to match
wits with him. Some time later the Dwarfs invited into their home a Giant
named Gilling and his wife. The Dwarfs asked the Giant to row out to sea to
fish with them; as they were rowing along the shore, the boat struck a reef
and overturned. Gilling, being unable to swim, was drowned, while the
Dwarfs managed to right the boat and reach land. When they told the
Giant’s wife of the accident, she moaned and wept aloud. Fjalar suggested
that it might ease her grief to look out to sea where her hushand had
perished, and the thought pleased her; whereupon Fjalar directed his
brother

1
See p. 13.
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Galar to take a millstone, post himself above the door, and drop the stone
on her head as she stepped out, for he was heartily wearied with her
lamentations. Galar did as he was told. When Suttung, Gilling’s son,
learned what had happened, he came upon the Dwarfs, took them captive,
and marooned them on a reef over which the sea washed at flood tide. In
their distress they begged Suttung to have mercy on them and offered to
give him the precious mead in recompense for his father’s death. Suttung
accepted their proffer, and in this way a reconciliation was effected
between them. He hid the mead at a place called Nitbjorg and set his
daughter Gunnlod to keep watch over it.
When all these events came to the knowledge of Odin, he set out
determined to secure the mead for himself. In his journey he came to a
meadow belonging to Suttung’s brother Baugi, where he saw nine thralls at
work cutting hay. On his asking if they wanted their scythes sharpened they
gladly accepted his services. Taking his whetstone from his belt he put
such a fine edge on the scythes that the thralls were eager to buy the
whetstone from him. He was willing to sell, but finding that each one of
them coveted it, he tossed the whetstone into the air; all of them tried to
catch it at one time, and thus had the misfortune to cut one another’s
throats with their scythes. Now Odin found lodging for the night with Baugi.
Baugi complained to Odin that his nine thralls had killed one another, and
that he was at his wits’ end to get laborers in their stead. Odin, who had
called himself Bolverk, offered to do nine men’s work
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for Baugi, if Baugi would only procure him a draught of Suttung’s mead by
way of wages. Baugi answered that, though he had no sort of control over
the mead, which Suttung kept in his own charge alone, he was willing to go
in the company of Bolverk and try to gain possession of the mead for him.
While summer lasted, Bolverk did the work of nine men for Baugi; but when
winter came, he demanded his hire. The two accordingly visited Suttung, to
whom Baugi explained the agreement between himself and Bolverk; but
Suttung refused outright to let them have so much as a single drop. Bolverk
then proposed to Baugi that they would have to try to get hold of the mead
by some sort of trickery, and Baugi was nothing loath. Bolverk produced an
auger called Rati and asked Baugi to bore a hole with it through the
mountain, that is, provided the auger would bite rock. Baugi set to work and
had not bored a great while before he declared that he had made a hole
clear through the stone of the mountain. On Bolverk’s blowing into the hole,
however, the grit flew back into his face; having thus discovered that Baugi
meant to fool him, Bolverk enjoined him to bore again in sober earnest.
Baugi plied the auger a second time; and when Bolverk blew once more,
the dust flew inward. Bolverk now transformed himself into a snake and
crawled through the hole. Baugi tried to pierce his body with the auger but
failed. Odin soon made his way to the spot where Gunnlod sat guarding the
mead, and remained there with her three nights. She gave him leave to
drink thrice of the mead; the first time he drained Odrœrir, the second time
Bodn,
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and the third time Son. Then taking on the form of an eagle, he flew away
as fast as ever he could fly. When Suttung became aware of what was
going on, he too assumed the shape of an eagle and spread his wings in
pursuit of Odin. When the Æsir caught sight of Odin flying toward home,
they placed their crocks out in the courtyard. On alighting within the walls of
Asgard, Odin spewed the mead into the crocks; but Suttung having by that
time nearly overtaken him, he let a part of the mead slip behind him. The
gods, however, were not in the least disturbed, and permitted who would to
gather up the dregs. Odin made a gift of the mead to the Æsir and to all
who understand the art of poetry; the remnants of mead which fell into the
mire became the allotted portion of poetasters.

ODIN’S DEBATE WITH VAFTHRUDNIR

Just as Thor was accustomed to make adventurous sorties in order to

discomfit the Giants with material weapons, so Odin from time to time
undertook to match wits with them; to this end he would send out
challenges inviting them to try their wisdom against his own. Among the
Giants was an old wiseacre named Vafthrudnir, famous for his knowledge
of the ancient history of the universe and of the gods themselves; with him
Odin wished to debate for mastery. Frigg begged him to forgo his purpose
on the plea that no one could compete with Vafthrudnir; but since Odin was
determined, Frigg could do nothing else than wish
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him luck and express the hope that his wisdom would not be found wanting
in the hour of trial. Odin accordingly sought out Vafthrudnir; presenting
himself under the name of Gagnrad,1 he let it be known that he had come
to discover whether Vafthrudnir was really so wise as rumor had made him
out to be. “You shall not escape from my hall,” said Vafthrudnir, “if your
wisdom does not surpass my own; meanwhile, take a seat and we shall
see which of us two knows the more.” Gagnrad, declining the proffered
seat, declared that a poor man coming to a rich man’s house should either
speak sound sense or remain silent; if he let his words run wild, he courted
certain misfortune. “Tell me, then, Gagnrad, since you choose to plead your
cause from the floor,” said Vafthrudnir — and he forthwith began to put
questions about the horses of Night and Day, about the river Iving that
forms the boundary between gods and Giants, and about the plains of
Vigrid, where the battle between the gods and the Giants is destined to
take place. Gagnrad made ready response to all these questions and then
took a seat to propound his own queries. The one who suffered defeat was
to lose his head. Gagnrad in his turn questioned Vafthrudnir about the
making of the earth from Ymir’s body, about the sun and moon, about day
and night, about Ymir’s or Aurgelmir’s origin in the Elivagar, about
Ræsvælg, about Njord, about the life of the Heroes in Valhalla, about which
of gods and men were to survive the ruin of the universe, and about the
passing of Odin. Vafthrudnir

1
That is, “he who determines good fortune or victory.”
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had an answer for every question. Finally Gagnrad asked what it was that
Odin whispered in Balder’s ear as Balder was being laid on the funeral pile.
This question Vafthrudnir was at a loss to answer, and thus he understood
that his opponent was none other than Odin himself. Then he confessed
that with the mouth of one doomed to death had he bandied words with his
guest; Odin after all remained the wisest of the wise.

ODIN (GRIMNIR) AND GEIRRED

On another occasion, too, Odin in person gave a great deal of

information about the gods, their manner of life, and their dwellings. King
Raudung had two sons, Agnar and Geirrœd. Once upon a time, when
Agnar was ten years of age and Geirrœd was eight, they rowed off in a
boat to catch fish. The wind drove them out to sea. In the darkness of the
night their boat was splintered on the shore, and so they made their way to
land. There they came across a peasant, with whom they remained
throughout the winter. The wife adopted Agnar as a foster son and the
husband adopted Geirrœd. The peasant couple were in fact none other
than Odin and Frigg. When spring was come, the husband made the boys
a present of a boat; and as he and his wife walked with them down to the
shore, the man talked with Geirrœd in private. The boys found favoring
winds and finally touched at their own father’s boat landing. Geirrœd, who
had taken
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his station at the prow, leaped on land; as he did so he pushed the boat
back into the sea, calling out to his brother: “Go where the Trolls may get
you!” The boat drifted out into the ocean, while Geirrœd walked home and
received a joyous welcome. Geirrœd’s father had died in the meantime.
Geirrœd was made king in his stead, and later became a famous man.
Odin and Frigg were sitting one day in Lidskjalf looking out into the
universe. “Do you see your foster son Agnar,” asked Odin, “living yonder in
a cavern with a Giantess and begetting children with her? My own foster
son Geirrœd, meanwhile, rules over his lands as a king.” “Yet he is so
sparing of his food,” answered Frigg, “that he stints his guests when he
thinks that too many have come to him at one time.” Odin declared that
there could be no greater falsehood, and so they made a wager to decide
the matter. Frigg sent her handmaiden Fulla to king Geirrœd with a
message warning him to beware of a certain sorcerer who had found his
way into the land, doubtless with the purpose of casting evil spells upon the
king; the sorcerer might be easily identified because no dog, however
savage, would attack him. It was indeed only idle talk that king Geirrœd
was lacking in hospitality; nevertheless he gave commands to seize a man
whom, as it proved, no dog would bite. The man, who was wrapped in a
blue cloak, gave his name as Grimnir — in reality it was Odin himself
disguised.1 When they laid hands on him, he had little to say for himself,
and therefore the king caused him to be

1
Gríma, “a covering for the face,” “a mask.”
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tortured in order to loosen his tongue, by placing him between two fires and
forcing him to remain there eight nights. King Geirrœd at the time had a
son, ten years of age, who bore the name Agnar after his father’s brother.
Agnar, stepping up before Grimnir, gave him a drink from a well-filled horn,
saying that his father did ill in torturing a man charged with no misdeed.
Grimnir drained the horn to the lees, by which time the fire had come near
enough to singe his cloak. Then he chanted a long lay, in the course of
which he sang the praises of Agnar and reckoned up all of the thirteen
dwellings of the gods: Thrudheim, Ydalir, Alfheim, Valaskjalf, Sœkkvabek,
Gladsheim, Thrymheim, Breidablik, the Mounts of Heaven, Folkvang,
Glitnir, Noatun, and Vidi, the home of Vidar. Furthermore he sang of the
meat and drink of Valhalla, of the dimensions of Valhalla and Bilskirnir, of
Heidrun, of Eikthyrnir, of the rivers in the realms of gods and men, of the
horses of the gods, of Yggdrasil, of the Valkyries, of the horses of the sun
and of the wolves that pursue them, and of the creation of the world. At last
he recounted all of his own names and gave Geirrœd to understand that he
had played the fool and that he had forfeited the favor of Odin. When
Geirrœd heard that the man was Odin, he sprang up to help him away from
the fire. The sword which had lain across his knees slipped from his hand
with the point upward, and the king stumbled and fell forward upon the
sword in such a way that it pierced him through the body; Odin at once
disappeared from sight. Agnar, however, ruled many years as king over the
land.
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HARBARD AND THOR

Once upon a time when Thor had been away in the regions of the
east carrying on his warfare with the Giants, he came on his homeward
journey to a sound, on the other side of which stood the ferryman by his
boat. Thor called to him, and the ferryman called out in turn, asking who it
was that was waiting on the other shore. Thor answered: “If you will only
ferry me across, you shall have food from the basket on my back; I ate
herrings and oatcakes before starting on my journey and even now I am
not at all hungry.” The ferryman, who later disclosed that his name was
Harbard, retorted with taunts, ridiculing Thor as a barefooted vagrant
without breeches. “Bring your boat to this side,” said Thor; “and tell me who
owns it.” “The owner is Hildolf the Wise, of Radseysund,” answered
Harbard; “he has just given me express commands not to ferry vagabonds
and horse thieves across the water, but only honest folk that I myself know
well; so tell me your name if you want to cross the sound.” Thor told with
great pride who he was — “Odin’s son and Magni’s father” — and
threatened to make Harbard pay for his obstinacy if he did not bring the
boat over at once. “No, I will stay here and wait for you,” said Harbard; “and
you will meet no man more difficult to deal with than myself, now that
Rungnir is dead.” “You see fit to remind me of Rungnir and his head of
stone,” answered Thor; “and yet he sank to earth under my blows. What
were you doing while I did that work?” “I was a companion of
 106

Fjolvar five full winters on the island of Algrœn; there we sped the time in
battle, cutting down warriors; we endured many hardships, but
nevertheless we gained the love of seven sisters. Did you ever do the like,
Thor?” “I slew Thjazi and tossed his eyes into the heavens,” retorted Thor;
“what do you say to that?” Harbard replied: “By artful practices I enticed the
Dark-Riders to leave their husbands. Lebard, it seems to me, was a Giant
hard to cope with; though he made me a gift of a magic wand, yet I played
him false so that his wits forsook him.” “An evil return for a good gift,” said
Thor. “One oak gains what is peeled from another; I each man looks to his
own interest — but what else have you done, Thor?” “I invaded the east
and there put to death Giantesses as they made their way to the
mountains; great would be the progeny of the Giants if all of them were
suffered to live, and small would be the number of men in Midgard. Is there
anything else you have done, Harbard?” “I was in Valland and took my part
in battle; I egged the heroes on but never reconciled one to another; to
Odin belong the earls that fall in battle, and to Thor the thralls.” “You would
mete out unequal justice among the Æsir if it lay in your power to do so.”
“Thor has much strength but little courage; fearful as a coward you
squeezed yourself into the glove, most unlike what Thor should be; you
dared not make the slightest noise, afraid as you were that the Giant might
hear you.” “Harbard, dastard that you are!

1
A proverb, the meaning of which is that one man’s loss is the other man’s gain.
 107

I would kill you if I could only reach across the sound.” “Why should you do
so? You have no reason whatever. Have you done anything else worth
mentioning?” “Once in the realms to the east, as I stood guard at the river
(Iving?), the sons of Svarang sought my life; they hurled stones at me, but
victory did not fall to their lot; they themselves had to sue for peace. What
have you done?” “I too was in the east, and there trifled with a fair maiden
who was not unwilling to pleasure me.” “I took the life of Berserk women on
the island of Læsey; they had left undone no evil deed, had bereft men of
their senses by means of witchcraft.” “Only a weakling, Thor, would take
the lives of women.” “She-wolves (werewolves) they were, not real women;
they smashed my boat as it lay leaned against the shore; they threatened
me with iron bands, and kneaded Thjalfi like dough. What were you doing
meanwhile?” “I was among the armed men marching hither with flying
standards to redden their spears in blood.” “Perhaps it was you, then, who
came and offered us most evil terms?” asked Thor. “I will offer you a
recompense of arm rings, as many as they shall deem right who may
choose to reconcile us to each other.” “Who has taught you such biting
words of scorn, the like of which I never have heard before?” “The ancient
men who dwell in the mounds at home.” “That is a fine name you give to
the barrows of the dead. Yet,” continued Thor, “your mocking will prove
dearly bought if I wade across the sound; no wolf shall howl more hideously
than you if I strike you but once with my hammer.
 108

“Sif has a man visiting her, whom you may want to meet; prove your
strength there, where your duty demands it.” Thor said it was a shameless
lie; but Harbard only crowed over having delayed Thor on his homeward
journey, and Thor had to own the justice of his taunts. “I should never have
believed,” said Harbard, “that a boatman would be able to hinder Asa-Thor
in his travels.” “I will give you a piece of advice, then: row the boat across,
and let us bandy words no more.” “Leave the sound if you choose; I will not
ferry you over.” “Show me the way, at any rate,” begged Thor, “since you
will not help me cross the water.” “That is too small a favor to be denied,”
answered Harbard, “but it is a long way to go: first some paces to ‘Stock’
and then to ‘Stone’; then take the first turning to the left until you reach
Verland; there Fjorgyn will meet her son and show him the road to the land
of Odin.” “Can I finish the journey today?” “With toil and trouble you may
reach your journey’s end before the sun sinks, if I am not mistaken.” “Our
parleying might as well stop, since you do nothing but pick new quarrels;
but you will pay for your stubbornness if we ever chance to meet again.”
“Go where the Trolls may get you!” said Harbard by way of a last word.

RAGNAROK — THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

At last the time draws near when the existing universe must perish
and the gods must succumb before higher powers. This period is called in
the ancient myths the
 109

Dissolution or Destin? (rok) of the gods or rulers (ragna, genitive plural of

regin); a later form is ragnarøkkr, the Darkness of the Gods. The gods
themselves have foreknowledge of its coming, which is foreshadowed by
many signs. Evil and violence increase. The Æsir’s cock with the golden
comb (Gullinkambi) crows to waken the Heroes of Odin’s retinue; the dun
cock in Hel’s keeping crows likewise; so also crows the red cock Fjalar in
the world of the Giants; and Garm bays vehemently outside the rocky
fastness of Gnipa. For the space of three years the earth is filled with strife
and wickedness; brother kills brother for gain’s sake, and the son spares
not his own father. Then come three other years, like one long winter;
everywhere the snow drifts into heaps, the sun yields no warmth, and biting
winds blow from all quarters. That winter is known as Fimbul Winter (the
Great Winter). The wolf Skoll swallows the sun, and Hati or Manigarm
swallows the moon so that the heavens and the air are sprayed with blood.
The stars are quenched. The earth and all the mountains tremble; trees are
uprooted; all bonds are burst asunder. Both Loki and the Fenris Wolf shake
off their shackles. The Midgard Serpent, seeking to reach dry land, swims
with such turbulent force that the seas wash over their banks. Now the ship
Naglfar once more floats on the flood. The ship is made from dead men’s
nails, and therefore the nails of all that die should be trimmed before their
burial, to the end that Naglfar may be the sooner finished. Loki steers the
ship, and the crews of Hell follow him. The Giant Rym comes
 110

out from the east, and with him all the Rime-Thursar. The Fenris Wolf
rushes forth with gaping maw; his upper jaw touches the heavens, his
nether jaw the earth; he would gape still more if there were more room. His
eyes are lit with flame. The Midgard Serpent, keeping pace with the Wolf,
spews venom over sky and sea. Amidst all the din and clamor the heavens
are cleft open, and the Sons of Muspell ride forth from the south with Surt
in the van, fires burning before him and behind him. His sword shines
brighter than the sun. As they ride out over the bridge Bifrost, it breaks
asunder beneath their feet. One and all, the Sons of Muspell, the Fenris
Wolf, the Midgard Serpent, Loki, Rym, and all the Rime-Thursar direct their
course toward the fields of Vigrid, which measure a hundred miles each
way. The Sons of Muspell muster their hosts for battle, and the radiance of
their levies gleams far and wide.
Meanwhile, on the part of the Æsir, Heimdal rises to his feet and
sounds the Gjallar-Horn with all his might in order to rouse the gods. They
meet in assembly and take counsel together. Odin rides to Mimir’s Well to
seek guidance there. The ash Yggdrasil trembles, and all things in heaven
and earth are seized with dread. Æsir and Heroes don their panoplies and
march upon the fields of Vigrid. Foremost rides Odin, girt with his golden
helmet and magnificent byrnie; brandishing his spear Gungnir, he presses
on against the Fenris Wolf. At his side walks Thor; but as he soon finds
himself in mortal conflict with the Midgard Serpent, he can give no aid
 111

to Odin. Frey joins battle with Surt, and Tyr with the dog Garm, who also
has broken from his fetters. Heimdal fights against Loki.
Thor in the end kills the Midgard Serpent but is himself able to walk
only nine steps after the struggle is over; then he sinks to the ground dead,
borne down by the venom spewed over him by the Serpent. The Wolf
swallows Odin, and so the god lives no more; but Vidar at once steps into
the breach, thrusts one of his feet into the nether jaw of the Wolf, grasps
the upper jaw with his hand, and thus tears open the Wolf’s throat; his foot
is shod with a heavy shoe made from all the slivers of leather that men
have cut from their boots at the toe or the heel; consequently men should
always cast such patches aside in order that they may serve the uses of
the Æsir.1 Frey falls at the hands of Surt, no longer having at his need the
good blade he once gave to Skirnir. Tyr and Garm, and likewise Loki and
Heimdal, kill each other.
Thereupon Surt hurls fire broadcast over the whole earth and all
things perish. The wild, warlike order passes and a new life begins.
Out of the sea there rises a new earth, green and fair, whose fields
bear their increase without the sowing of seed. The sun has borne a
daughter as beautiful as herself, and the daughter now guides the course
of the sun in her mother’s stead. All evil is passed and gone. On the plains
of Ida assemble those Æsir who did not fall in the last great battle: Vidar,
Vali, and the sons of

1
Thus runs the story in Snorri’s Edda; according to the Voluspá, Vidar kills the Wolf by
means of his sword.
 112

Thor — Modi and Magni. Thither resort also Balder and Hod, now returned
out of Hell, and thither comes Hœnir out of Vanaheim. Once again the Æsir
make their dwelling on the plains of Ida, where Asgard stood before; in the
grass they find scattered the ancient gold chessmen of the gods, and thus
they recall to memory the old days and speak together of the vanished
past. Now that Thor’s battles are done, Modi and Magni fall heir to Mjollnir.
Nor are all among mankind dead. Lif and Lifthrasir have saved themselves
from the fires of Surt at a place called Hoddmimir’s Holt, where they find
subsistence in the dews of the morning; from these two spring forth a new
race of men. At Gimle stands a hall thatched with gold and brighter than the
sun. There a righteous generation shall dwell, in joys that never end. “Then
shall come from above the Mighty One, he who governs all things.”

ON THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE EDDAS

We may with some justice speak of a system of divinity or a

mythology of the Eddas; but this does not mean the same as the actual
religion of our forefathers, their systems of belief and worship. As to the
worship of the gods, we have scattered items of information in ancient
written records, of which an account will follow, p. 267 ff. Besides, the
appendix will contain a summary of the knowledge supplied by Norwegian
place names as to the worship of the gods in pagan times.1 Of the actual
belief in the gods, of the fundamental

1
This appendix on Norwegian place names, pp. 210-44 of the original, is omitted in the
present translation. —Translator’s note.
 113

mental forces supporting pagan religious feeling, it is much more difficult to

give a searching analysis, since, the materials for an exposition of this
character are most various and of a kind which, in the present state of
scholarly investigation, would require a series of critical studies at first
hand. So far as this phase of the religion of our fathers is concerned, we
must rest content with the indications furnished in the foregoing division of
the book, on the “Myths of the Gods, or the Mythology Proper.”1 Express
emphasis, however, must be laid, on the fact that the particular form
assumed by the myths of the gods depends to a great extent on the literary
vehicle — be it poem or prose narrative verging on folk tale — by means of
which it has been delivered to us.
With reference to both worship and creed it would be necessary, by
reason of the nature and the chronological distribution of the sources, to
take up the discussion on an historical basis; but a history of Northern
religions is still to be written.2 Such a work cannot be written until some
further progress has been made in clearing the ground by separating out
the relatively late Christian elements, a task begun by Sophus Bugge in his
Studier over de nordiske Gude- og Helte- Sagns

1
In general, reference may be made to V. Grønbech, Vor folkeœt i oldtiden (Our Race
in Antiquity), particularly vol. III (Hellighed og helligdom: Holiness and Sanctuary) and
vol. IV (Menneskelivet og guderne: Human Life and the Gods), Copenhagen, 1912; cf.
the same author’s Religionsskiftet i Norden (The Change of Religion in the Northern
Countries), Copenhagen, 1913.
2
Cf., however, Karl Helm, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte I, Heidelberg, 1913, of
which up to the present time only the period down to the “Roman era” has been
published.
 114

Oprindelse (1881–89), and during the present generation carried forward

principally by Axel Olrik1 and Kaarle Krohn (Skandinavisk mytologi,
Helsingfors 1922). In the works named, the comparative study of folklore
takes a conspicuous place; especially have Finnish borrowings from the
Northern peoples proved to have great significance.2 Much also remains to
be done toward a true estimation of the value of Norse literature as source
material. The situation in this respect, however, is such that it is possible —
and defensible from the standpoint of the history of religion — to attempt an
exposition of what may be termed the Norse mythology. The fact is that our
principal sources, the poems relating to the gods in the Poetic Edda,
together with a group of skaldic poems, present a closely correlated unity
as to content, period, and surroundings;3 under such a unified aspect
Snorri viewed the religious poetry from the close of the pagan era,
principally the tenth century, and on it he built his consecutive presentation
in the Gylfaginning, the first section of his Edda. It is of great importance
that we keep clearly in mind the position occupied

1
Cf. note to p. 112.
2
Cf. J. Fritzner, Lappernes Hedenskab og Trolddomskunst sammenholdt med andre
Folks, isœr Nordmœndenes Tro og Overtro, in [Norsk] Historisk Tidsskrift IV, 1877, p.
135 ff.; Axel Olrik, Nordisk og lappisk gudsdyrkelse in Danske studier 1905, p. 39 ff.;
Wolf von Unwerth, Untersuchungen über Totenkult und Odinnverehrung bei
Nordgermanen and Lappen (Germanistische Abhandlungen 37), Breslau, 1911; Kaarle
Krohn, Skandinavisk mytologi. Cf. the literature cited in the notes to p. 16, p. 25, line 7
p. 86.
3
Cf. A. Olrik, Eddamytologien (Nordisk tidsskrift 1917, p. 81 ff.).
 115

by the two Eddas in the intellectual life of the Norse race.1

Now that we have given an orderly view of the mythology of our
forefathers, some mention should be made of the chief sources from which
the account has been drawn. These are, as often pointed out, the two
Eddas. One of the two, Snorri’s Edda, dates back no farther than the
thirteenth century. It is a learned work intended as a handbook for skalds,
wherein they might find easy access to the ancient mythology forming a
basis for the poetic phraseology of the time; in the course of our discussion
occasional examples have been given of skaldic kennings based on the
myths of the gods. Snorri thus had the task of collecting and re-telling all of
the myths known to his day; and it is clear that his sources were of three
kinds: various poems preserved in the Poetic Edda, other poetry and
skaldic verses, and finally nonmetrical tales that had run current in popular
tradition. But since his work was begun several centuries after the pagan
faith had died out, there is reason to believe that the myths of the last class
especially had not come down in their original form. At any rate, there is no
certainty in the matter. And inasmuch as Snorri was not content with re-
telling the individual myths, but also in great measure gave them a
systematic arrangement of his own, his personal interpretation of the vague
myths must have influenced his treatment of the whole.

1
Cf. Finnur Jónsson, Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie, 2nd ed., vol. I,
1920 (on the literary history of the Eddic poems).
 116

The second principal source of our knowledge of the ancient

mythology is the collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda. These
poems no doubt possess greater authority for the purpose than Snorri’s
Edda; but even they do not come from a period when the ancient faith
flourished in its fullest energy. They belong to the Viking Age, to an era
during which the Northern peoples maintained the liveliest relations with the
outside world; and during those last centuries of paganism — as also in
earlier times, when communication with nations of a superior cultivation
was by no means slight — the Northern races surely received impulses
from without which must have affected various elements in their
mythology.1 Great care must therefore be exercised in seeking ancient
native material in the myths of the Eddas. The warlike spirit which marked
the Viking Age (a spirit which was by no means wanting in the preceding
period) doubtless was very influential in making the mythology of the Eddas
take on the coloring of a religion for warriors. It is only the fallen warrior
who is received into the company of the Heroes in Valhalla, and not even
death itself puts an end to the life of battle; the war-god Odin is of all gods
the king, in comparison with whom the other gods take subordinate rank.
Moreover, the evidence of the sagas goes to show that the Viking Age was
an era of intellectual ferment during which many men gave up their faith in
the deities of old, and put their trust in their own right arms instead; a
rational movement of this type must have had a strong influence

1
See notes to p. 7; top. 25, line 7; to p. 86; and to p. 112.
 117

on the poetic elaborations of the mythology which sprang up during this

period. The gods of paganism are without exception created in the image of
man; and the Norse Asa-religion is to so great a degree an expression of
the Viking Age that it may well be regarded as bearing in significant
particulars the plain impress of the period.
To discover, in the next place, to what extent the religion of our
forefathers may be primitive and domestic in origin, recourse must perhaps
be had especially to indications lying outside the range of the Eddie
mythology itself. Place names and cult reminiscences surviving in later folk
custom and folk beliefs provide a great deal of information.1 To a less
degree, literary sources other than those purely Norse, are of value.2 One
of the most important of these sources is the chapter in Tacitus’s Germania
containing the account of the worship of Nerthus (Njord); this passage
gives us, when compared with other later materials,3 glimpses of a distant
past when culture divinities had the foremost place in public worship. The
worship of these gods maintained itself until paganism was extinct, and
even then had force enough to perpetuate itself in newer popular customs;
but these gods had only a slight attraction for the poets of the Edda.4
Another important source is Adam of Bremen’s account (The History of the
Bishops of

1
Cf. Gudmund Schütte, Hjemligt Hedenskab i almenfattelig Fremstilling, Copenhagen
1919.
2
Cf. pp. ix-xii.
3
See note to p. 16.
4
See, however, p. 17; and Skírnismál.
 118

Hamburg IV, 26-27) of the gods of the temple at Uppsala in the eleventh
century, probably based on the description of an eyewitness, Sven
Ulvsson: “In this temple the people bow down before the images of three
gods so arranged that the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the
centre, on one side of him Wodan (Odin), and on the other side Fricco
(Frey). Thor governs the air and rules over thunder and lightning, wind and
rain, fair weather and harvests. The second, Wodan, that is, the raging one,
makes war and gives men courage in the face of the enemy. The third is
Fricco, who grants peace and delight to mortals; his image sometimes is
represented with a large phallus. Wodan they present armed, as we are
accustomed to present Mars. To Thor, on the other hand, wielding a
sceptre, they give the appearance of Jupiter. They also worship gods
whose origin was human, men who for their mighty deeds have been
immortalized. All of the gods have their several priests, who make offerings
on behalf of the people. In case of threatening pestilence or famine,
sacrifices are offered to Thor; in case of impending war, to Wodan; when
weddings are to be celebrated, ... sacrifice is made to Fricco. The common
sacrificial festival of all the Swedes together is held each ninth year in
Uppsala.”
This passage shows how the worship of the Swedes differed from
that which has been delivered to us through the tradition of the Eddas.
Great interest attaches to the circumstance that Thor here is definitely
represented as the god of fruitfulness.1 For the

1
Cf. p.12 and note to p. 65.
 119–120

rest, literature outside of the Norse domains supplies only the sparsest
references to faith and worship. The surviving evidences are for the most
part limited to a mere recital of the names of the various divinities; one of
the very few exceptions is to be found in the myth about Wodan, Frea, and
the origin of the name of the Longobards.1

1
See note to p. 27.
 II
THE HEROIC LEGENDS
 123

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

According to views common during the Romantic period, the heroic

legends were at once mythical and historical, and thus closely allied to the
myths of the gods. More recent scholarship, which reckons only to a slight
degree with domestic legendary traditions dating from a remote antiquity,
has formed quite a different opinion. At the present time the heroic legends
are studied not only according to their contents, according to their motives;
considered as a complete whole, the heroic legend exists merely in and by
means of the literary form it has assumed; consequently, for the proper
investigation of the heroic legend a peculiar literary-historical method must
be adopted, differing from the method used in the study of mythology, in
that the literary forms dealing with the gods must be correlated with the
fixed, distinctly local ceremonies having to do with the worship of the gods.
The heroic literature has for its subject human destinies which by
their elevation above the commonplace have made a strong appeal to the
poet. In their most compact form, where the chief interest gathers about
strong-willed personalities moulded by the great moments of life, we come
across the heroic legends in brief epic lays which can be traced back to the
period of the national migrations and which in pre-Christian times ran their
course among all of the Germanic tribes. Heroic lays of this type, in their
more uncontaminated
 124

ancient forms or in literary adaptations of Norse origin (dialogue verse

without direct narration) provide the bulk of the heroic poetry of the Poetic
Edda. During historic times in Norway and Iceland, this heroic poetry had a
continued existence in the so-called “sagas of antiquity” (fornaldarsogur),
saga-like stories which drew their themes from antiquity, from a prehistoric,
pagan era. The legendary materials in these sagas frequently have their
roots in prose adaptations of ancient heroic lays;1 yet newer materials
make their appearance during the Viking Age, and popular taste takes
another direction.2 These heroic sagas, which lack the firm outlines of the
ancient heroic lays, are subjected to influences from all sorts of vagabond
themes, for instance folk-tale themes, and at length we find an entire group
of sagas of antiquity which must be regarded as nothing more than
independent compositions dealing with arbitrarily invented personages
whose lifetime is laid in the era of the petty kings anterior to the unification
of Norway.3
Of the heroic legends as a whole it is to be said in general that,
contrary to the practice of historians of a generation ago, they are not to be
treated as historical sources. The poetic elements have gained the
ascendancy over the historical elements and created

1
Hervarar Saga, p. 130 ff; Volsunga Saga, note to p. 159.
2
The adventures of the hero in love and war, as in Ragnar Lodbrok’s Saga, p. 245 ff, a
typical saga from the Viking Age.
3
Thus no doubt Fridthjofs Saga, p. 256. Many of the “antique sagas” have given rise to
popular ballads. On this subject reference may be made, once for all, to K. Liestøl,
Norske trollvisor og norrøne sogor, Christiania 1915.
 125

combinations of a kind that bids defiance to history and chronology alike.

What may be authentic history in such poetic versions of the legends we
can not discover so long as we have to rely solely on the legends
themselves; we must seek the aid of veracious historical documents and
the testimony of trustworthy foreign historians to get at the residuum of
truth, as, for example, in the case of the legends dealing with Ragnar
Lodbrok and his sons. As a rule the outcome of such a procedure is that
the legends disclose no historical facts not already known through these
foreign sources. In a number of the legends even this expedient is denied
us, since history fails to confirm the events recited in the legends; this holds
true, for instance, with the Helgi legends, for which reason it is difficult if not
impossible to ascertain their origins. Other legends have made their way to
the Northern nations from neighboring countries, for example, the legends
of the Volsungs and the Gjukungs; but these also have suffered many
changes in form in the fresh soil to which they were transplanted.
Among the heroic legends there are several that show a closer
mutual relationship, and therefore are designated as a legendary cycle; still
others are isolated, showing no connection with anything else. It has been
further demonstrated that the legendary process tends in the course of time
to draw together various originally distinct legends and thus to create new
cycles. Among the great cycles, those of the Volsungs, the Niflungs, and
the Gjukungs are most prominent. Among the independent legends, those
dealing with
 126

Wayland Smith, with Frodi and his handmaidens, and with the Battle of the
Hjadnings emerge above the rest.

WAYLAND

The legend of Wayland runs as follows: Once upon a time there were
three brothers, named Slagfinn, Egil, and Wayland; their father was king of
the Finns. It so befell that they went out on their skis to hunt and came to a
place called Wolf Dales, lying near a body of water called Wolf Lake; there
they built themselves a house. One morning they chanced to see three
beautiful women sitting on the shore weaving linen; beside them lay their
swan cloaks, by which token the brothers knew them to be Valkyries. They
carried the three women home and wedded them. Slagfinn took to wife
Ladgunn Swanwhite; Wayland took Hervor Allwise; and Egil took Olrun.
The first two were the daughters of king Lodvi, and the third a daughter of
king Kiar of Valland. When they had lived together seven years, a longing
for battle came over the Valkyries, and in the absence of the brothers they
flew away. Egil and Slagfinn at once set out in search of their wives;
Wayland remained alone at home in the Wolf Dales, busying himself in his
smithy with the forging of objects of price. While he awaited the return of
his wife, he sped the time in fixing precious stones in settings of gold and in
fashioning magnificent rings. The fame of his handiwork reached the
hearing of Nidud, the evil and greedy king of the Njarir. One night, in the
waning of the moon, he
 127

marched forth with an armed band and reached the house in the Wolf
Dales while Wayland was away hunting. By this time Wayland had finished
seven hundred rings, which he had left hanging all together on one rope;
Nidud lifted one of them off, and lay in wait for the homecoming of
Wayland. Wayland returned, sat down before the fire to roast bear’s meat,
and in the meantime counted his rings. Missing one of them, he thought
that his wife must surely have come home; but while he sat pondering the
matter, he fell asleep. Awakened by the weight of heavy fetters on his
hands and feet, he asked who had laid shackles upon him. Nidud called out
to learn how Wayland had dared to seize his treasures in the Wolf Dales, to
which Wayland answered that all of his possessions were his by right.
Nidud now carried Wayland off to his own court, took from him even his
splendid sword, and gave the ring to his own daughter Bodvild. But Nidud’s
queen, fearing the vengeance of Wayland, spoke words of warning to her
husband. “His eyes glitter like those of a serpent every time he sees the
sword and catches sight of Bodvild’s ring,” she said; “sever his sinews and
expose him on the island of Sævarstead.” They did her bidding; having
severed Wayland’s sinews at the knees, they placed him on the island,
where he was employed in forging for the king all manner of precious
things, and where none but the king was permitted to visit him. Many a time
Wayland bemoaned his fate; without sleeping a wink he plied his task at
the smithy and never ceased to meditate on means of repaying Nidud for
his treachery.
 128

At last fortune favored his designs. One day Nidud’s two sons came out to
the island and asked leave to look at his treasures. Opening a chest, he
showed them many magnificent things; on the next day they were to return
in secret-, and he would give them all that he possessed. They came as
they had promised, and no one in the palace knew of their coming.
Wayland once more opened the chest; and while they stood looking down
into it, he let the heavy lid fall in such a way as to cut off their heads. The
bodies he hid beneath the floor, but the skulls he silvered over and sent
them to Nidud for drinking vessels; the eyeballs he employed as jewels in
ornaments for the queen; and from the teeth he fashioned brooches for
Bodvild. Now after a time it so happened that Bodvild was unfortunate
enough to crack the ring Nidud had given her. Not daring to let her father
find out about her misadventure, she secretly sought out Wayland to have
him mend it for her. He promised to do so. Since he treated her with great
kindness, she suspected no evil when he offered her something to drink;
the liquid being strong, she grew giddy and drowsy and so fell an easy prey
to his purposes. Now Wayland donned a feather cloak and in this guise
flew into Nidud’s courtyard, where he settled to rest on the palings. He
found Nidud sitting sleepless, brooding over the fate of his sons; divining
that Wayland had caused their death, the king questioned him about them.
Wayland then told how it all had come about, how the king’s sons had been
killed, how gems had been framed from their skulls, their eyes, and their
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teeth, and how Bodvild had been dishonored. Wayland flew away laughing,
and Nidud had to stand in helpless rage watching him escape. He called
Bodvild to him and asked if it was true that she and Wayland had sat
together on the island. “Yes, it is true,” replied Bodvild; “we sat together one
whole fearful hour — I had no power to resist him.”

THE HJADNINGS

The legend of the Battle of the Hjadnings is recounted as follows in

the Prose Edda: King Hogni had a daughter named Hild. Once upon a time,
when Hogni had gone to a meeting of kings, she was taken captive by king
Hedin Hjarrandason. As soon as Hogni learned that his realm had been
sacked and his daughter carried off, he set out at the head of his soldiery in
pursuit of Hedin. He got news that Hedin had taken flight toward the north;
but when Hogni reached Norway, he was told that Hedin had shaped his
course over the western seas. Hogni set sail in the wake of his enemy and
at length touched the Orkney Islands, where he encountered Hedin off the
island of Haey. Hild went to her father and offered him terms of peace in
Hedin’s name; or, in case he refused, an alternative struggle for life or
death. Hogni would not accept the proffer of conciliation. The two kings
thereupon landed on the island and marshaled their warriors for battle.
Once again Hedin made overtures of peace; calling out to his kinsman, he
offered him by way of recompense a heap of gold. But Hogni answered:
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“It is too late; I have already drawn the sword Dainsleif, forged in the smithy
of the Dwarfs; each time it is bared some man must lose his life; its stroke
can never be arrested; and the wounds it makes are never healed.” “You
boast of your sword,” said Hedin; “but that does not mean that you shall
boast of the victory; that sword is the best which does not fail its master at
his need.” Then they began the battle, to be known ever afterward as the
Battle of the Hjadnings. During the whole day they fought on, and at night
the kings went aboard their ships. In the course of the night Hild went out
upon the field of battle and by means of her magic roused into life all of the
fallen warriors. The next day the kings marched up on land and began the
struggle anew, and with them all those who had been slain the day before.
Thus they continued their warfare day after day. All who fell and all
weapons and shields that were left on the field turned to stone; but as each
new morning broke, the slain rose up armed and ready for the fray. In this
way the Battle of the Hjadnings is to go forward until the coming of the
Twilight of the Gods.

THE LEGEND OF TYRFING

Another sword, a match for Dainsleif, bore the name Tyrfing. It was
forged under durance by the Dwarfs Dulin and Dvalin for Svafrlami, the
brave grandson of Odin. Svafrlami had surprised them outside of their rock
and had made haste to cast spells over them to prevent their getting back
into the stone. He then
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threatened to take their lives unless they promised to forge for him a sword
with hilt and handle of gold, a sword which would never rust, which would
always bring victory, and which would cut iron as if it were so much cloth.
The Dwarfs gave unwilling assent and finished the sword within the
designated time; but when Dvalin had given it into the king’s hand, and
while he was still standing at the door opening into the rock, he said: “Your
sword will take the life of a man each time it is unsheathed, and with it three
dastard’s deeds will be done; it will also bring death upon yourself.”
Svafrlami struck at the Dwarf with the sword, but failed to touch him. After
that day he kept the sword in his possession a long time and with it won
many a victory in battle and in single combat.
On the island of Bolm dwelt a great Berserk named Arngrim, who
fared fair and wide as a Viking. It so happened that in harrying the domains
of Svafrlami he came face to face with Svafrlami himself. Svafrlami aimed a
blow at Arngrim with Tyrfing, but succeeded only in striking his shield, from
which he cut off a portion, while Tyrfing buried its point in the earth. In a
moment Arngrim severed Svafrlami’s hand from his body, laid hold of
Tyrfing, and cleft Svafrlami’s body in twain from head to foot. Thus a part of
the prophecy of the Dwarf came to be fulfilled. Arngrim now took
Svafrlami’s fair daughter Eyfura captive, carried her off to Bolm, and made
her his wife. They had twelve sons, all of them tall men, strong and warlike,
who from their earliest years sped
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the time in Viking forays, to their own increasing renown. The eldest,
named Angantyr, was a head taller than his brothers and as strong as any
two of them; the others bore the names Hervard, Hjorvard, Saeming, Rani,
Brami, Barri, Reifnir, Tind, Bui, and the two named Hadding, who were
twins. Angantyr fell heir to Tyrfing, Hervard had the sword Rotti, Sæming
had Mistiltein. Now and again the Berserk rage came over them, and
during such periods it chanced a time or two that they killed some of their
own men; in order to prevent happenings of this sort, when they felt the
Berserk rage taking hold of them they went ashore out of their ships and
fought with boulders or with the timbers of the forest. No king ever crossed
their purposes, to such a degree were they held in awe for their wildness
and cruelty.
One evening at Yuletide the champions of Bolm sat making vows
over their flowing bowls. Angantyr avowed his intention of possessing the
fair Ingeborg, daughter of king Yngvi of Uppsala. The following summer the
brothers journeyed to the court of Yngvi and at once marched into the hall;
Angantyr recounted his vow and demanded an immediate answer. On
hearing what was said, Hjalmar the Haughty promptly came forward. For a
long while he had spent his winters in the retinue of Yngvi and had
rendered him most important services. Reminding the king of all his
services, he asked Yngvi rather to bestow Ingeborg upon himself than upon
so evil a Berserk as Angantyr. Yngvi declared that Ingeborg herself must
make the decision, and she chose Hjalmar; whereupon Angantyr
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challenged him to single combat on the island of Samsey. Hjalmar

promised to appear at the designated place the next summer, and so the
brothers returned home. In the spring the sons of Arngrim first paid a visit
to Earl Bjartmar, where Angantyr wedded Svava, the earl’s daughter. At the
time agreed upon, both Hjalmar and the sons of Arngrim set sail for
Samsey; in Hjalmar’s company went his brother in arms, the mighty and
famous Norseman Orvar-Odd (Arrow-Odd). Hjalmar elected to fight against
Angantyr, and Orvar-Odd against the eleven other brothers. The combat
now began, and Odd was fortunate enough to slay all of the eleven; but
when he came to see what had befalled Hjalmar, he saw Angantyr lying
dead at his enemy’s feet, while Hjalmar himself was sitting on a hummock,
pale as death. Odd asked how the battle had gone with him, to which he
answered: “I have sixteen wounds, my byrnie is worn with the fray, and
Tyrfing has pierced me beneath the heart; draw this ring from my finger and
carry it to Ingeborg in token of my love.” Thus his life ended. Odd laid all
the Berserks fully armed in barrows, but Hjalmar’s body he bore with him to
Sweden. Ingeborg died of a broken heart and was buried in the same
mound with Hjalmar.
Some time later Svava, wife of Angantyr, gave birth to a daughter
whom they gave the name Hervor and who became the foster child of
Bjartmar. She grew up to be tall and well-favored, but even at an early age
she showed a vehement and headstrong character; she inclined more to
the use of sword and
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shield than to employments befitting a woman. When she was fully grown,
she set out to visit her father’s barrow in Samsey, meaning to reclaim
Tyrfing from burial. Dressing in men’s clothing, she took the name Hervard,
joined a band of Vikings, and sailed to the coasts of Samsey. Here she
went ashore alone, her companions being afraid of the spectres and evil
spirits that were said to harbor there. She did in fact meet with many
manifestations of devilry; the barrows appeared to be on fire; not a whit
deterred, she strode straight through the flames to the barrows of the
Berserks. There she called to Angantyr and his brothers with many
incantations, thus compelling her father to answer her summons. Angantyr
charged her with madness in rousing dead men in such a way from their
repose; he refused to deliver Tyrfing up to her and even maintained that the
sword was not in his keeping. Then she demanded it still more vehemently,
asserting that the Æsir would grant him no further rest if he denied to his
only child her rightful inheritance. “Beware of Tyrfing,” Angantyr then
answered; “it will destroy all your kindred; it is lying beneath my shoulders,
swathed in fire; no maiden I know will dare take it in her hand.” “I fear not
your fire,” said Hervor. At length Tyrfing flew hurtling into her hand, and she
gave many thanks for the gift. “I had rather possess Tyrfing,” she
continued, “than hold sway over all of Norway.” Angantyr notwithstanding
reiterated his foreboding prophecy; to which she answered that she cared
not what fate might befall her sons. Then he spoke these words:
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Long shall you keep Daughter, farewell

Hjahnar’s bane, In your hands rest
Long shall you bear it; Twelve men’s lives,
Wield it but warily, If you can believe me;
Touch not its edges; Power and hardihood,
In the twain there is venom, All good things soever
Worst of all evils That Arngrim’s sons
That men may suffer. Have left behind them.

Now she took her departure; but the Vikings had already fled in fear
from that haunted place. She was therefore compelled to find other
shipping to carry her thence; later she visited king Gudmund of Glæsisvoll,
with whom she remained throughout the winter, still in the garb of a man.
Gudmund being stricken in years, his son Hofund virtually governed the
realm. Once while she was playing chess with Gudmund, and had laid
Tyrfing aside, one of the men of the retinue drew it from its scabbard to
admire its burnished edge; Hervor at once sprang up and drove the sword
through his body, inasmuch as the blade demanded the blood of man once
it was unsheathed. Despite this deed Hervor was permitted to depart
unmolested; soon falling in with other Vikings, she made common cause
with them for a time; when she had tired of their forays, she returned home
to her mother’s father, where she practised needlework and tapestry like
other maidens. The fame of her beauty meanwhile spread far and wide.
Hofund paid court to her and won her for his wife. They had two sons,
Angantyr and Heidrek. Angantyr was gentle and winsome, and his father
loved him most; Heidrek, who was the foster son of the wise champion
Gissur, was malicious
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of spirit and yet his mother loved him the most; both were tall, strong, and
handsome men. Once upon a time Hofund gave a great banquet, at which
Heidrek and Gissur were not asked to be guests. Heidrek was offended; he
nevertheless presented himself at the banquet, where he made such bad
blood between two of the guests that one of them killed the other. Hofund,
a most upright man, laid the ban of outlawry on Heidrek; whereupon
Heidrek, with a mind to causing his father the utmost grief, drew Tyrfing,
given him by his mother as a gift, and killed Angantyr. This was the first of
the dastard’s deeds destined to be done with Tyrfing. As Heidrek was
taking his leave, Hofund sped his parting with certain wise counsels, which
were to bring him good fortune if he would only follow them. They were as
follows: 1) He was never to give aid to any man who had played false to his
rightful overlord; 2) he was to leave no moment’s peace to any man who
had murdered his own sworn brother; 3) he was not to permit his wife to
visit her own kin too often, no matter how much she begged for leave; 4) he
was not to stay late with his mistress;1 5) he was not to ride his best horse if
he was in a hurry; 6) he was never to act as foster father for the children of
men holding higher rank than himself; 7) he was never to greet a guest with
a joke; 8) he was never to lay Tyrfing down at his feet. Heidrek, however,
thinking Hofund’s counsel to be devised with evil intent, averred that he
would give no heed to it. He

1
Or to tell her weighty secrets, it might be added on the witness of the following events
in the saga.
 137

soon allied himself with a band of Vikings, but not before he had taken
occasion to redeem from death two miscreants, one of whom had played
false to his overlord and the other of whom had brought about the death of
his own sworn brother.
Heidrek before long became a captain of Vikings. Having offered his
services to Harold, king of Reidgotaland, he promptly brought defeat upon
two earls who had been harrying the land. By way of reward he won
Harold’s fair daughter Helga and one half of the kingdom. Heidrek and
Helga had a son, whom they named Angantyr; of equal years with him was
a son whom Harold had begotten in old age, and whose name was
Halfdan. In course of time a severe famine visited the realm; and when
wise men invoked the decree of the gods, they received the answer that
they were to offer the most highborn youth of the land in sacrificial
atonement. Now each man sought to spare his own son. Harold declared
that Angantyr was the nobler of birth, and Heidrek imputed the honor to
Halfdan; finally they agreed to leave the decision to the upright Hofund.
Heidrek visited his father in person, and Hofund told him that Angantyr held
the higher rank, but at the same time taught him an artifice by which the
execution of the judgment might be evaded. When Heidrek returned to
Reidgotaland he signified his willingness to offer up his son as a sacrifice
provided only that every second one of Harold’s men would first swear
absolute obedience and fealty to himself. They did according to his will, but
Heidrek made use of the occasion to create dissension between
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Harold and Halfdan, further contending that Odin would receive his due if
the king, the king’s son, and a number of his men were offered up as a
sacrifice. No sooner said than done; the battle at once began, and Heidrek
slew his own kinsman Halfdan with Tyrfing. That was the second of the
dastard’s deeds. The blood of Harold and Halfdan was sprinkled on the
altar of the gods, and Heidrek dedicated to Odin all who had fallen on the
battlefield. But queen Helga, no longer wishing to live, hanged herself in the
vale of Disardal.
Heidrek now subjected the whole realm to his own rule and also
harried many foreign countries. After gaining a victory over king Humli of
the land of the Huns, Heidrek took the king’s daughter Sifka captive, kept
her by him for a time, and then sent her home to her father’s house, where
she gave birth to a son, who was called Lod. Not long afterward he took to
wife the daughter of the king of Saxland, but soon drove her away because
on one of her many visits to her father’s court she had played him false. He
continued to ponder on ways and means of acting contrary to his father’s
counsels; accordingly he paid a visit to the mighty king Rollaug of
Holmgard in Russia and offered to take the king’s son Herlaug under his
charge. On Rollaug’s giving his consent, Herlaug left the kingdom in
Heidrek’s company. Some time later, Heidrek paid a visit to Russia and
brought with him his mistress Sifka and Herlaug. One day Heidrek went out
hunting with Herlaug but returned home alone; under the pledge of secrecy
he told Sifka that
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he had by chance drawn Tyrfing from the scabbard and therefore had
come under the necessity of piercing Herlaug’s body with the sword. Sifka,
unable to keep the secret, revealed it to Herlaug’s mother. A great
commotion ensued. Heidrek and his men were surprised, he himself was
bound with chains, and in this action no one showed more zeal than the
two miscreants he had once ransomed. Heidrek was about to be carried
out into the forest and hanged, but he was saved by a band of his own
men, whom he had had the foresight to place in ambush there. He returned
to Reidgotaland, mustered a huge army, and swept with fire and sword
through Rollaug’s domains; meanwhile the news had come out that
Herlaug had not been killed but was safe and sound at Heidrek’s court.
Rollaug made proffers of peace; Heidrek accepted the terms and later
wedded Rollaug’s daughter Hergerd, receiving by way of dowry a region
called Vindland, contiguous to Reidgotaland. One evening as Heidrek,
mounted on his best horse, was bringing Sifka home, who sat with him in
the saddle, the horse stumbled just as they reached the banks of a river,
and Sifka suffered a broken leg. Heidrek and Hergerd got a daughter, who
was given the name of her father’s mother Hervor; the child was put under
the care of Earl Ormar. Heidrek now forsook his warlike enterprises and
devoted himself to establishing law and justice in the land. He forbade all
civil conflicts and chose twelve wise men to be judges in all matters of
dispute. He offered sacrifice by preference to Frey, in whose honor he
reared a boar that grew well-nigh
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to the size of an ox, and so fair that each hair seemed as if made of gold.
Every Yuletide Eve the king and his men swore oaths by the boar, laying
one hand on his head and the other on the bristles of his neck. On one
occasion the king made the vow that whatsoever a man might do amiss, he
should still have the right to lay his cause before the twelve sages for
equitable judgment, and he should be privileged to escape his due
punishment if he could put riddles that the king would be unable to read.
In Reidgotaland there lived a mighty man named Gestumblindi. He
had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the king and was therefore
summoned before the tribunal of the twelve sages. Fearing the worst of
evils, he offered sacrifice to Odin for aid. One evening Odin actually
appeared before him and promised to help him by going before Heidrek in
his stead. Gestumblindi accordingly hid himself, while Odin assumed his
likeness and presented himself before the king. Here he was asked if he
would like to try his luck at riddling with the king, but Gestumblindi (Odin)
showed no eagerness to make the venture. At length he made up his mind
to the attempt, and essayed a multitude of riddles, the greater number
having to do with nature and some few with divinity; but Heidrek read them
all. The following are examples of his riddles:

Gestumblindi: From home I fared,

From home I journeyed,
On my way I saw roadways,
Roadways beneath me,
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Roadways above me,

Roadways on all sides.
Heidrek, king,
Rede me this riddle.

Heidrek: Good is your riddle,

Gestumblindi,
Yet do I rede it:
Birds flew above you,
Fish swam beneath you,
A bridge was your roadway.

Gestumblindi: What was the drink

I drank yesterday?
Neither water nor wine,
Neither mead nor ale,
Nor was it food,
Yet I thirsted not.
Heidrek, king,
Rede now this riddle.

Heidrek: Good is your riddle,

Gestumblindi,
Yet do I rede it
You walked in the sun,
You rested in shadow,
Dew fell in the dales;
There did you sup
On the dews of the night,
And so cooled your palate.

Gestumblindi: Who are the men

That ride to the moot,
At one in their counsels?
Troops are sent forth,
Now hither, now thither,
Wardens of home.
Heidrek, king,
Rede now this riddle.
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Heidrek: Good is your riddle,

Gestumblindi,
Yet do I rede it:
Itrek and Andad1
Year in, year out,
Play blithe at chess;
In concord their troops
Lie couched in the casket;
On the board the chessmen do battle.

Gestumblindi: Four are walking,

Four hang downward,
Two point the way,
Two defend against dogs;
One brings up the rear
Ever and always,
Most often unclean.
Heidrek, king,
Rede now this riddle.

Heidrek: Good is your riddle,

Gestumblindi,
Yet do I rede it:
That beast surely
To you is well known;
Four feet she has,
Fourfold is her udder,
Horns defend her,
The tail follows after.

Gestumblindi: Who are the twain

That ride to the moot?
They have three eyes together,
Ten are their feet,
But one tail only;
So they traverse all regions.
Heidrek, king,
Rede me this riddle.
1
The white king and the black king.
 143

Heidrek: Good is your riddle,

Gestumblindi,
Yet do I rede it
Odin sits mounted,
Riding on Sleipnir;
One eye has he,
But the horse has twain;
Odin has two legs,
The horse has eight;
The horse alone has a tail.

Finally Gestumblindi — Odin — put the same question with which he

once stopped the mouth of Vafthrudnir:

Now tell me this only,

Since you deem yourself
Wiser than other kings:
What words did Odin
Whisper to Balder
Ere on the pyre they laid him?

Then Heidrek spoke in anger:

Evil and malice,

All the world’s infamy,
Prattle, buffoonery, nonsense!
No man knows your words
But yourself alone,
Wretched, malevolent spirit.

With these words he drew Tyrfing and was about to cut Odin down;
but Odin took the shape of a falcon, and the sword struck only his tail, from
which it shore off a part; this is the reason why the falcon has a stubbed
tail. Odin said: “Because you broke your promise and drew your sword
against me, the most miserable of your thralls shall be your death.” And
having spoken, he flew away.
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A short time afterward the king was murdered by nine thralls who had
been freemen in their own land but had been taken prisoners of war by
Heidrek. These thralls during the night broke into the king’s bedchamber
and slew him with Tyrfing. Thus the sword performed the third dastard’s
deed, and the curse was lifted from it. Angantyr, son of Heidrek, now
became king. He set out at once in pursuit of the thralls and came upon
them as they sat fishing from a boat in the river Graf. As one of them was
cutting off the head of a fish with Tyrfing, Angantyr heard him say jocosely:
“The pike in the river of Graf must pay the penalty for the killing of Heidrek
at the foot of the mountains of Harfada.” That very night Angantyr put them
to death and carried away Tyrfing. Having thus avenged the slaying of his
father, he gave in honor of his own succession a great banquet in his
palace of Danparstad in Arheim.
When his half brother Lod got wind of his father’s death, he journeyed
to Arheim, where Angantyr still was holding his festival, and sat down
among the men who were drinking at the table. Angantyr invited him to a
seat with himself, but Lod answered: “We have not come to fill our bellies
but to demand our rightful inheritance; I lay claim to one half of all the
possessions of Heidrek, one half of all that has a point and all that has an
edge, of treasures, of cows and calves, of mills, of serving men, of thralls
and their children, of the boundary forest Dark Wood, of the sacred grove in
the land of the Goths, of the precious stone in Danparstad, one half of
fortresses of
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war, of lands and people, of gleaming gold rings.” Angantyr replied:

“Shields shall clash and spears cross each other in flight and many a man
shall bite the grass before I divide Tyrfing with you, Humlung,1 or give you a
half of my inheritance; I will give you gold and fee, twelve hundred men,
twelve hundred horses, twelve hundred armor-bearers; each man shall
receive rich gifts; to each man will I give a maiden, to each maiden a
necklace; I will surround you with silver when you sit down and heap gold
about you when you arise, so that rings overflow on all sides; you shall hold
sway over one third of the lands of the Goths.” Heidrek’s old foster father,
Gissur Grytingalidi, who was still among the living, heard these words, and
said: “The serving man’s son might well be content with such gifts as
these!” When this taunt fell on the ears of Lod, he was enraged and
hastened home to his mother’s father Humli; the two together mustered a
mighty army against Angantyr. When their forces were ready they marched
through the boundary forest Dark Wood to the uttermost plains of Gotaland,
where Angantyr’s sister and her foster father Ormar were stationed in
defence of a frontier stronghold against the Huns. Early one morning
Hervor became aware of a great cloud of dust; soon after, she saw the
glittering of helmets and knew that it marked the army of the Huns. She
chose to fight rather than to flee; defending herself bravely she fell in the
ensuing battle, and many men with her. Ormar fled the field and rode day
and night until he came to Arheim,

1
Daughter’s son of Humli.
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where he told Angantyr of the battle with the Huns and of Hervor’s death.
Angantyr’s lips twitched with grief as he spoke the words: “In most
unbrotherly wise were you betrayed, glorious sister.” Then, looking about
among his retainers, he spoke again: “We were once many as we sat about
our flowing bowls; now that we should be many we are few; I see no man in
my retinue who has the strength of will to ride forth against the Huns to
offer them battle, even though I promise him a guerdon of rings.” Then old
Gissur lifted up his voice and said, “I will ride, nor ask for gold or fee.”
Donning his weeds of war he leaped into the saddle, brisk as any youth,
pausing only to ask:

Whither shall I bid

The Huns come to battle?

Angantyr answered:

Bid them come to Dylgja,

To the Heaths of Dun,
Bid them join battle
At the foot of Mount Josur;
There the Goths often
Gladly made war,
There gained victories,
Fair with renown.

Gissur did according to Angantyr’s command, and summoned the

Huns to battle on the Heaths of Dun. “Marked for death is your war lord,” he
said; “may Odin turn the flight of the spear after the bent of my words.” Lod
wished to take him captive; but Humli opposed such a course, and Gissur
said, “We do not fear, Huns, your horn bows.” Angantyr with his
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army came to meet the Huns, who were twice the number of the Goths. Yet
by day and by night warriors streamed to Angantyr’s banner from all parts
of his kingdom, and after a day’s battle the Goths had the upper hand.
Angantyr strode out from beneath the shelter of the stronghold of shields
and with Tyrfing hewed down both men and horses. He exchanged buffets
with his brother, and both Lod and Humli fell; so many of the Huns were
stricken to earth that rivers were dammed in their course and whole valleys
were filled with bodies of the slain. Angantyr came across his own brother
lying dead. “I offered you chattels and riches,” he said; “now you have
nought, neither land nor gleaming rings. A curse rests on our kin; I have
brought you down to death. Evil is the doom of the Norns.”

THE LEGENDS OF THE VOLSUNGS — HELGI

HJORVARDSSON

Like the legends centering about Tyrfing, the legendary cycle of the
Volsungs is made up of a number of separate legends. The action lies in
both northern and central Europe, and the legends themselves are found
among all the races belonging to the great Germanic family. The Eddic
poems begin the cycle with the story of Helgi Hjorvardsson.
In Norway there was a king named Hjorvard who had made the vow
that he would possess the most beautiful woman in the world. He already
had three wives, each of whom had borne him a son; he and his
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retinue all held these boys to be the handsomest in all the world. Once
upon a time, however, Atli, a son of one of Hjorvard’s earls named Idmund,
happened to be walking abroad in a grove. A bird sitting in a tree heard
Atli’s men say that no women on earth were fairer than Hjorvard’s wives.
The bird began to twitter and asked Atli if he had ever laid eyes on Sigrlin,
daughter of king Svafnir, who was the fairest of all maidens. Atli asked the
bird to reveal to him what it knew about her; it promised that the king
should win Sigrlin if he would build for it a temple and many altars and
there offer in sacrifice many gold-horned cattle. On Atli’s telling all these
things to Hjorvard, the king sent him off to ask Svafnir for the hand of
Sigrlin. But her foster father, Earl Franmar, persuaded Svafnir to deny the
king’s suit, and Atli had to return home with his errand unfulfilled. Hjorvard
now determined to go in person, and Atli went with him. In the meantime
another powerful king, by name Rodmar, had paid court to Sigrlin; he also
had met with a refusal and in his wrath had killed Svafnir and harried his
realms. Franmar concealed Sigrlin with his own daughter Alof in a lonely
house, transformed himself into an eagle, and so kept watch over the
maidens by means of magic arts. When Hjorvard and Atli reached the top
of the mountains and caught sight of the reaches of Svavaland, they saw
nothing but fire and desolation on all sides; nevertheless they descended
and lay down to rest for the night beside a river not far from the house
where the maidens were hidden. The eagle perched on the
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roof had fallen asleep; Atli killed it with his spear, entered the house, found
the young women, and led them before Hjorvard. The king took Sigrlin to
wife, and Atli took Alof. Hjorvard and Sigrlin got a son, who grew to be tall
and handsome; but he was dumb, and no name was given to him.
One day, as the king’s son was sitting on a mound, he saw nine
Valkyries riding toward him, one of whom far surpassed the others in
beauty. She said to him: “Helgi, if you persist in your silence, it will be long
before you have gold rings to give and before you win renown.” Then Helgi
found the power of utterance and said: “What will you give me as a gift, fair
maiden, now that you dower me with a name of my own? I will not accept
the name unless you give me yourself with it.” She answered: “In
Sigarsholm lie six and forty swords, one of which is better than the others; it
is adorned with gold, a ring is fixed in its hilt, courage is in its middle and
terror in its point, and along the edge lies a serpent flecked with blood,
winding his tail about the handle.” The Valkyrie’s name was Svava,
daughter of king Eylimi; from that day on, she gave great aid to Helgi in the
fighting of his battles.
Helgi now went before his father and asked for armed men in order to
march against Rodmar to avenge the death of his mother’s father, Svafnir.
Hjorvard having put the men under his command, Helgi sought out the
sword designated by Svava; then he sallied forth together with Atli and took
the life of Rodmar. As time passed they performed many a
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deed of prowess. Helgi killed the mighty Giant Hati, whom he found sitting
on a mountain side. Afterward he and Atli sailed into Hatifjord, where
Rimgerd, Hati’s daughter, sought to harm them by sorcery; but Atli, who
was keeping watch during the night, artfully contrived to keep her listening
to his speech ’ so that she forgot to hide from the rising sun, and so was
turned into stone. Thereupon Helgi paid a visit to king Eylimi, where he took
Svava to wife; they loved each other beyond measure, but she remained a
Valkyrie as before.
Meanwhile Helgi’s elder half brother Hedin had remained at home
with his father in Norway. One evening at the Yuletide, while he was out in
the forest alone, he came upon a Troll woman mounted on the back of a
wolf which she was guiding by means of serpents instead of reins; she
offered to go with him, but he would not consent. Then she said, “You shall
pay for that at your drinking.” At evening, as the wassail bowl went round
and vows were being made by the great boar, Hedin swore that he would
possess Svava, his brother Helgi’s wife. No sooner had he spoken the oath
than he was smitten with remorse and set off on unbeaten paths toward the
south to meet his brother Helgi. Helgi received him gladly, asked for tidings
from Norway, and wanted to know whether he had been banished, since he
was making such a journey alone. Hedin made a clean breast of his
trouble, telling how the Troll woman had bewitched him into making the
vow concerning Svava. Helgi comforted him and said that the vow might
after all
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be fulfilled. “Rodmar’s son Alf,” he declared, “has challenged me to meet

him in combat when three days have passed, and no one knows whether I
shall leave the field alive.” Helgi had a premonition that he was marked for
death, the Troll woman being none other than his own attendant spirit. Alf
and Helgi fought at Sigarsvoll near Frekastein (the Wolf Stone); there was
a great battle, in the course of which Helgi received a mortal wound. He
dispatched Sigar to summon Svava to hasten to his side before he died.
When she came Helgi begged that she would, after his own death, wed
Hedin and give him her love; but she answered that when she gave her
troth to Helgi she had vowed never to wed another in his stead. Both Helgi
and Svava were born anew, as Helgi Hundingsbane and Sigrun.1

VOLSUNG — SIGGEIR — SIGMUND — SINFJOTLI

The legends dealing definitely with the Volsungs begin with the story
of Odin’s son Sigi, who was driven into exile because he had killed the
thrall of another man of high degree, and who later won for himself a
kingdom in Hunaland. In the end he was betrayed and put to death by his
own brothers-in-law. His son Rerir became king in his stead, avenged the
murder of his father, and won great renown for his own prowess in war.
Rerir and his wife, deeply grieved, at their childless state, prayed devoutly
to the gods to grant children to them. Frigg and Odin heard their prayers,

1
See pp. 164-65.
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and Odin sent his Valkyrie Ljod, daughter of the Giant Rimnir, to carry an
apple as a gift to the king. The queen ate of it, and their wishes were
fulfilled. But for the space of six years she remained unable to give birth to
the child; the king meanwhile died and the queen at length, weary of days,
caused the child to be cut from her side in order to save its life. It was a
large and well-shaped boy. He gave his mother a kiss before she died. He
got the name Volsung and became king of Hunaland after his father. With
his wife Ljod, who had brought the apple to Rerir, he had a daughter
named Signy and ten sons; the eldest and bravest of them all was
Sigmund, twin brother to Signy. The Volsungs, as they came to be called,
excelled all other men in all manner of prowess and manly sports. King
Volsung caused a great and splendid hall to be built, in the midst of which
stood a tall tree, stretching its fruitful boughs out over the roof; this tree they
called the Stem of the Children.
A mighty king, Siggeir of Gautland, paid court to Signy and secured
the promise of her hand from Volsung and his sons, against her own will.
The marriage was celebrated with great pomp in king Volsung’s hall. While
the festival was in progress an old, one-eyed man with a broad hat on his
head came into the hall and thrust a sword into the Stem of the Children up
to the hilt, with the words that he who proved able to draw it out again
should have it as a gift and would find f or a certainty that he had never laid
eyes on a better sword. Thereupon he went out of the door; it was Odin in
disguise, and no one knew whence he
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came or whither he went away. The guests all tried to draw the sword but
to no avail; at last Sigmund came forward and pulled it out at the first trial.
Every man praised the sword, all avowing that they had never seen one so
good. Siggeir offered Sigmund for it three times its weight in gold, but
Sigmund said: “You might have drawn it forth as well as I; I will not sell it for
all the gold in the world.” At these words Siggeir became incensed and at
once began to meditate revenge.
The next day Siggeir made it known that he intended to take his
departure while the weather was still fair, at the same time inviting king
Volsung and his sons to pay him a visit after an interval of three months, on
which occasion, he added, they might make up for what they were now
losing of the marriage feast by reason of his early leave-taking. Signy said
to her father that she was reluctant to go away with Siggeir and that she
could foresee great misfortunes as the aftermath of the wedding; but
Volsung brushed aside her misgivings with fair words, consoling her as
best he could. Siggeir took his departure, and three months later Volsung
and his sons set out on their voyage with three well-manned ships. On their
arrival in Gautland late one evening, Signy hastened to meet them with the
tidings that Siggeir had mustered against them a great army, meaning to
play them false. Volsung nevertheless would entertain no thought of flight
but marched up into the land to face Siggeir’s hosts, who at once attacked
him. Volsung and his sons fought with great courage; eight
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times they broke Siggeir’s lines, but the ninth time they were worsted,
Volsung himself was slain, and his ten sons were taken prisoner. Siggeir
meant to put them to death, but Signy persuaded him to expose them out in
the forest with their feet bound to a stake, so that she might have, at least
for a time, the pleasure of beholding their features. Siggeir did as she
wished. But during the night Siggeir’s old mother, who was skilled in
sorcery, transformed herself into a she-wolf, bit one of the brothers to
death, and ate his body; she did likewise during each of the following nights
until Sigmund alone remained alive. Signy, who had appointed watchmen
to bring her news of all that happened, now caused Sigmund’s face to be
smeared with honey. When the she-wolf came again and smelled the
honey, she began to lap it up; when she reached Sigmund’s mouth, he
seized her tongue in his teeth and thus held her fast. The wolf in attempting
to escape thrust her feet against the stake; but the stake sprang asunder,
the wolf’s tongue was torn from her jaws so that she died forthwith, and
Sigmund regained his freedom. Signy, learning what had befallen, herself
went out to see him, and conspired with him that he was to build himself an
earth house in the forest and that Signy was to carry to him anything that
he might need. Siggeir now believed that all of the Volsungs were dead.
Signy and Sigmund kept pondering upon some suitable form of
revenge. Signy had borne two sons to Siggeir. When the eldest of these
was ten years of age, she sent him out to the forest to give Sigmund any
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assistance that he might require. One day Sigmund asked the boy to knead
dough for bread and for this purpose gave him a sack of meal. On returning
Sigmund found that the boy had done nothing; he had been afraid to touch
the sack because some living thing stirred within it. Now Sigmund knew
that the boy lacked the required courage, and he said as much to his sister.
“Kill him then,” answered Signy; “he does not deserve to live.” Sigmund did
so. The next year Signy sent her second son, and he fared likewise. She
then got a witch to exchange shapes with her and in this guise she herself
went out to her brother, who failed to recognize her. After remaining with
him three nights she returned home and assumed her former likeness once
more. Some time later she gave birth to a large, strong, and handsome
son, who was given the name of Sinfjotli and who in all respects resembled
the Volsungs. When he reached the age of ten, she sent him out to
Sigmund. Meanwhile she had put him to the same tests she had used in
the case of the other sons: she had sewed their kirtles fast to their arms
through skin and flesh; the two elder sons had complained, but Sinfjotli
when his turn came gave no sign. She tore his kirtle off so that his skin
came away with the sleeves, but he paid no heed. “That is a small matter to
one of the Volsungs,” were his only words. When he arrived at Sigmund’s
house he was set to kneading the dough, the same task that had been
given to his older brothers. When Sigmund returned home, Sinfjotli had
already baked the bread. Sigmund asked if he had not found something
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in the meal. “Yes, it seemed to me at first that there was some living thing
in it, but I kneaded the whole into one mass,” answered Sinfjotli. “You have
kneaded into the meal a most venomous serpent,” said Sigmund; “and you
will have to eat that very bread this evening.” As it happened, there was
this difference between father and son, that while Sigmund was able to
swallow poison without suffering the least harm, Sinfjotli on the other hand
was able to endure poison only on the surface of his body but could not eat
or drink it unhurt.
Sigmund deeming Sinfjotli still too young to assist in carrying out his
revenge, determined first to accustom him to dangers and difficulties, and
to this end took the boy with him on robber forays during several summers.
Still having no inkling that the boy was not the son of Siggeir, he was
amazed at Sinfjotli’s often putting him in mind of his purposed vengeance
on Siggeir. On one occasion they came across a house in the forest where
two men lay sleeping with great gold rings on their fingers, two princes who
had been turned into wolves and who were able to cast off their wolfish
likeness once in ten days, and no oftener. This happened to be one of the
days, and their wolf pelts hung above them as they slept. Sigmund and
Sinfjotli sprang into the pelts and thereafter roved about a long time in the
guise of wolves, doing what harm they could do throughout Siggeir’s
domains. Each tenth day they became men again. Once Sigmund chanced
to bite Sinfjotli’s throat so hard that he lay a long while seemingly dead;
Sigmund fell to
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cursing the wolf’s clothing, but as he did so he caught sight of an ermine

biting another to death and waking the dead to life again by means of a
leaf. Sigmund did likewise to Sinfjotli, who immediately came to life; they
went up to the earth house, waited till the time once more came for the
shifting of shapes, and then burned the wolf’s pelts, for which they had no
further use.
When Sinfjotli had no more than reached man’s estate, Sigmund led
him to Siggeir’s house for the purpose of carrying out his revenge. Having
agreed with Signy that the hour of vengeance was to strike during the night,
they hid themselves in the anteroom. Meanwhile the two small children of
Signy and Siggeir were running about the floor of the hall, playing with gold
rings. One of the golden bands rolled out into the anteroom where Sigmund
and Sinfjotli were sitting, and the boy who ran to pick up the ring caught
sight of two tall, hard-favored men in broad helmets and gleaming byrnies.
The boy hurried away to tell his father what he had seen. Siggeir at once
had his misgivings; but Signy led the two little children out into the
anteroom and asked Sigmund to kill them so that they should tell no more
tales. Sigmund would not do her bidding, but Sinfjotli killed them both and
threw their bodies out into the hall. The king started up and gave
commands to seize the men sitting in the anteroom; after a long and brave
struggle, Sigmund and Sinfjotli were taken captive, bound fast, and placed
in the midst of a huge pile of stones and turf in such a manner that a large
stone slab set on end in
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the middle of the heap separated them. Just as the last pieces of turf were
being laid over the mound, Signy came forward and tossed an armful of
straw down to Sinfjotli. In the bundle of straw was hidden a piece of meat,
within which lay Sinfjotli’s sword, a blade capable of cutting stone as easily
as wood. Sinfjotli told Sigmund what had happened, and Sigmund was very
glad. Sinfjotli now thrust the point of the sword over the upper edge of the
slab so that Sigmund could seize hold of it; in this manner they were able to
shear the slab in two from top to bottom, and so they found themselves
side by side in the mound. Then they severed their own fetters and cut their
way out of the mound itself. They now went straight to the king’s hall,
heaped up wood round about it, and set it on fire; the hall immediately burst
into flames, before any who were within knew what was going on. At length
Siggeir woke out of sleep and at once understood it all. Sigmund bade
Signy make her escape from the hall, but she answered: “Now I have taken
full vengeance against Siggeir for the death of my father Volsung; I caused
our children to lose their lives, I went to Sigmund in the shape of a witch,
and Sinfjotli is his son and mine. I have done all in my power to end the
days of Siggeir; now I will die with him as gladly as I once lived with him
unwillingly.” She kissed Sigmund and Sinfjotli, and then entered the hall
and allowed herself to perish in the flames together with Siggeir and his
whole retinue. Sigmund and Sinfjotli mustered a band of men, took ship
and set sail to the kingdom which Volsung once
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ruled over. There Sigmund took the government into his own hands and
came to be a mighty and a famous king.

HELGI HUNDINGSBANE

Sigmund took to wife Borghild of Bralund and with her had two sons,
Helgi and Hamund. Of Helgi we read in the Eddic poem:

In the morning of time,

While eagles screamed,
Holy rains fell
From the Mounts of Heaven:
Then was Helgi,
Proud of heart,
Borghild’s son,
Born in Bralund.

Night covered the court;

Then came the Norns,
Who for the atheling
Numbered his days:
Bade him become
Boldest of captains,
And among heroes
Hold highest renown.

Mighty they were:

They laid life’s threads,
While the towers
Broke in Bralund;
Forth they stretched
The golden cords,
Fixed them midmost
In the hall of the moon.

In the East, in the West,

The ends were hidden,
The lands of the king
Lay between them:
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Far to the North

Neri’s kinswoman (the Norn)
Fastened the one end,
Bade it hold firmly.

The ravens perched in the trees were already yearning for the time
when Helgi should become a man and give them their fill of carrion
corpses. Once Sigmund had been away from home fighting the battles of
the realm; on his return he went in to his son, gave him a leek, and dubbed
him Helgi, at the same time giving him as naming gifts Ringstad, Solfjall,
Snjofjall, Sigarsvoll, Ringstead, Hatun, and Himinvang, and a goodly sword
besides. Helgi was then given over as a foster child to a man named Hagal.
Sigmund presently became involved in warfare with king Hunding. When
Helgi reached the age of fifteen, Sigmund sent him out in disguise to spy
upon Hunding’s retinue. At first all went well with Helgi, but as he was
about to leave Hunding’s court he could not refrain from revealing his true
name. He asked a certain goatherd to say to Heming, Hunding’s son, that
he whom they had treated as a guest and whom they supposed to be
Hamal, Hagal’s son, was none other than Helgi himself. Hunding sent men
to Hagal’s estate to search for Helgi, and he had no other recourse than to
don the garb of a bondwoman and to busy himself in turning the mill. One
of Hunding’s men, to be sure, found that the bondwoman had rather sharp
eyes and that she put a good deal of force into her grinding; but Hagal said
that this was no wonder, since she was a shield-maiden before Helgi made
her a captive. Some
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time later Helgi set sail in his ships of war; engaging in battle with Hunding,
Helgi laid his enemy low, and thereby gained the surname of
Hundingsbane. After the victory he lay with his fleet in the bay of Brunavag.
Presently the Valkyrie Sigrun, daughter to king Hogni, came riding through
the air to his ship and entered into speech with him. She asked him his
name, and then told him that she already knew of the mighty deeds he had
done. “I saw you beforetime,” she said, “on the long ships, as you stood in
the blood-red prow and the cold waves played about you.” Sigrun then left
him; but the four sons of Hunding challenged Helgi to battle in order to
avenge the death of their father, and Helgi slew them all at the mountains
of Loga. Wearied from the struggle, he sat down to rest at the foot of
Arastein (Eagle Rock). There Sigrun came riding toward him a second
time, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and told him that she was
hard bestead. Her father Hogni had promised her in marriage to the hateful
Hodbrod, king Granmar’s son, of Svarinshaug. Helgi undertook to free her
from the compact and for that purpose gathered a great force of ships
against Hodbrod; Sinfjotli was one of the company. At sea they
encountered a perilous storm. Lightning played about them and shafts of
fire shot down on the ships. Then they saw Sigrun come riding through the
air with eight other Valkyries, and she stilled the tempest so that they made
land in safety. The sons of king Granmar were sitting on a mountain side
near Svarinshaug as the ships sailed in toward the shore. One of them,
named
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Gudmund, leaped on a horse and rode to spy on the strangers from a hill
overlooking the haven; he arrived just as the Volsungs were furling their
sails. Gudmund asked who they might be, and for answer Sinfjotli raised a
red shield aloft at the yardarm. They berated each other until at length
Helgi came forward and said that battle would be more becoming to them
than bandying words. Gudmund thereupon rode home with a summons to
war, and the sons of Granmar mustered a large army. Many kings made
common cause with the brothers, among them Hogni, Sigrun’s father, with
his sons Bragi and Dag; and Alf the Elder besides. The battle was joined at
Frekastein (Wolf Stone). All of the sons of Granmar fell and all of their
captains but Dag, who made his peace by swearing fealty to the Volsungs.
After the battle Sigrun went out among the slain and there found Hodbrod
at the point of death. She gave thanks to Helgi for the deed he had done.
Helgi was grieved to think that he had caused the death of her father and
her brother, and she herself wept; but he consoled her with the assurance
that no man could escape his destiny. Helgi took Sigrun to wife and made
Granmar’s kingdom subject to his own rule. But he did not reach old age.
Dag, the brother of Sigrun, offered sacrifice to Odin to obtain vengeance for
his father’s death, and Odin lent his own spear to him. With it he thrust
Helgi through the body at Fjoturlund and then rode home to tell Sigrun what
he had done. Sigrun put him in mind of the sacred vows he had
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sworn to Helgi and which he had now broken; then she spoke these words:

Let not the ship sail on

That glides beneath you,
Though the winds follow
Fair as your wishes!
Let not the horse run fleet
That runs beneath you,
Though he might carry you
Far from your foes!
Let not the sword be edged
That your arm lifts aloft,
Save when it sings
About your own head!
Meet would that vengeance be
For Helgi’s death,
If you were a wolf
In the forest wilderness,
Wanting all worldly goods,
Wanting all joys,
Finding no provender,
Filled with no carrion.

Dag declared that his sister was mad thus to curse her own brother.
He laid the blame for all that had passed upon Odin and offered to give her
red gold rings and one half of his kingdom; but she answered that nothing
could atone for Helgi’s death. A cairn was thrown over the body of Helgi,
and when he entered into Valhalla Odin invited him to sit in counsel with
himself; but on Hunding, Helgi laid commands to carry out the meanest
tasks. One evening Sigrun’s handmaiden, chancing to pass Helgi’s mound,
saw him riding toward the cairn followed by many men; she asked whether
she was only seeing visions, whether the Twilight of the Gods had come
inasmuch as the
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dead were riding, or whether the Heroes had got leave to revisit the earth.
Helgi answered that the Heroes had been granted leave for their
homecoming, and these tidings the handmaiden brought back to Sigrun.
Sigrun went out to the cairn, glad of heart to see Helgi once more. “Yet,”
she asked him, “why is your hair covered with rime, why are you flecked
with blood, and why are your hands cold as ice?” “You alone are the
cause,” he replied, “since you weep such bitter tears each night before you
go to rest; each tear falls on my breast, icy cold, burning, freighted with
woe. But though we lack lands and joys, we shall yet drink with one another
costly drinks, and no man shall sing dirges for the wounds he sees in my
breast.” Sigrun now prepared a couch in the mound so that she might lie
down to rest in his arms. Then Helgi said: “Now nothing is beyond the
bounds of belief since you, fair, living daughter of a king, rest in my arms,
the arms of one who lives no more; but the time has come for me to ride
forth on the reddening roadway; westward I must journey across the bridge
of Heaven before Salgofnir (the cock of Valhalla) wakens the victorious
men (the Heroes).” Helgi then rode away, but the next evening Sigrun
awaited his return in vain. Sigrun lived no long time thereafter, so great was
her sorrow and affliction.
Helgi Hundingsbane and Sigrun were none other than Helgi
Hjorvardsson and Svava, Eylimi’s daughter, born again in other bodies. It is
said that Helgi Hundingsbane and Sigrun were likewise born anew. In this
reincarnation he bore the name of Helgi Haddingjaskati,
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and she bore the name of Kara, daughter of Halfdan.

SINFJOTLI

Sinfjotli, son of Sigmund, passed his time in continual warfare. Once

upon a time, happening to see a woman of uncommon beauty, he paid
court to her; but his stepmother Borghild’s brother had the same design;
enmity sprang up between the two, the end of which was that Sinfjotli killed
his rival. When he returned home, Borghild wanted to drive him away; but
Sigmund offered her wergild for her brother, and so she could do naught
else than come to terms. She then made a great banquet for her brother, to
which she invited many mighty men as guests. In the course of the banquet
she brought to Sinfjotli a large drinking horn, in which she had mingled
poison with the intent to take his life. On looking into the horn he said to
Sigmund, “The drink is muddied.” Sigmund, being immune to all poisons,
took up the horn and drained it. Borghild brought Sinfjotli a second horn;
once more he suspected evil, and Sigmund again drank in his stead. A
third time she brought a horn to him and bade him drink if he had the
courage of a Volsung. Sigmund, being by this time well drunken, said,
“Drain the drink through your beard.” Sinfjotli drank, and at once fell down
dead. Sigmund, lifting up his son’s body, bore it away with him; when he
had carried his burden a long distance he came at length to a narrow fjord,
where he found a boat and a
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man sitting in it. The man offered to ferry Sigmund across the water; but
when the body had been taken on board, the boat was incapable of
supporting an added weight, and so Sigmund was compelled to walk on
foot around to the other side. But no sooner had the man launched his boat
out from the shore than he was lost to sight, and the boat with him.
Sigmund on returning home drove Borghild away. Hitherto, during the
whole time he was wedded to her, he had lived in her own kingdom of
Denmark; now he took his departure, directed his course southward to a
kingdom of his own in the land of the Franks, and made his home there.

THE DEATH OF SIGMUND

There was a great and powerful king named Eylimi; to his fair
daughter Hjordis Sigmund paid court after he had put Borghild away. King
Lyngvi, son of Hunding, who had escaped from the field at Frekastein, also
sought her hand. King Eylimi permitted his daughter to make her own
choice, and she chose Sigmund for his fame, in spite of his years. He
wedded Hjordis and took her home with him, king Eylimi bearing them
company. King Lyngvi and his brothers marshaled their forces and
marched against Sigmund to summon him to battle. Sigmund at once
accepted the challenge; but before taking the field he transported Hjordis
with her serving maid and a great store of goods into a forest to keep her
safe from the enemy. Sigmund bore himself bravely in the battle,
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and no one was able to stand against him until an old one-eyed man,
dressed in a broad-brimmed hat and a blue cloak, and carrying a spear in
his hand, entered Lyngvi’s ranks. He advanced upon Sigmund, whose
strokes he warded off with his spear, and Sigmund’s splendid sword shortly
broke asunder. From that moment the fortunes of war took a turn, the
outcome of which was that Sigmund and Eylimi fell, and with them the
greater part of their men. Lyngvi hastened to the king’s palace, meaning to
take Hjordis captive, but found neither her nor any of the goods; so,
contenting himself perforce with laying the kingdom under his own sway, he
returned home. The night after the battle Hjordis went out onto the field and
found Sigmund still among the living. She asked him if he had any hope of
being healed of his wounds. But he would not so much as try, since luck
had forsaken him. “Yet you shall give birth to a son,” he said, “who shall
become the greatest of our race. Keep for him the two pieces of my sword;
from them a goodly sword can be forged, which shall be called Gram. That
sword he shall bear at his side and with it do many a deed of passing
prowess.” Hjordis remained sitting by Sigmund until he died; then she took
up the fragments of the sword, changed her own clothing for that of her
handmaiden, and made her way to the seashore. There certain Viking
ships were lying, under the command of Alf, the son of king Hjalprek of
Denmark. He received them well. The hand maiden told the story of
Sigmund’s death and showed Alf where the treasure lay hidden;
accordingly he
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sailed with them to Denmark, believing all the while that Hjordis was the
handmaiden and that the handmaiden was a princess. But his mother
noticed that Hjordis was the more beautiful and had more courtly manners
than the other, and so Alf determined to put them to the test. When the
occasion came he asked them a question: “By what token can you mark
the coming of morning when neither moon nor stars are visible?” The
handmaiden answered: “As a child I was accustomed to drinking a great
deal toward dawn and therefore I have formed the habit of waking at that
time; this is the sign I am governed by.” The king laughed and said, “The
king’s daughter was not brought up as well as might be.” Hjordis said: “My
father gave me a gold ring that had the property of turning cold on my
finger as dawn drew near; that is a sure sign to me.” The king replied: “Gold
there must have been in plenty since bondwomen were in the habit of
wearing it; now I know that you have deceived me, and of that you had no
need; nevertheless you shall become my wife as soon as your child is
born.” She then confessed all that she had done and gladly entered into
accord with him.

SIGURD FAFNIRSBANE

Hjordis bore a son who got the name Sigurd. He proved to have
inherited the sharp eyes of his father; and as he grew to manhood it soon
appeared that he excelled all others in height and in bodily prowess. He
received his early nurture in the court of king
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Hjalprek, his foster father being a cunning smith named Regin, who was
skilled in all manner of manly exercises, in magic runes, and in speaking
with tongues, in all of which arts Sigurd came under his tutelage.
Regin, the son of a wealthy man named Reidmar, had two brothers,
Oter and Fafnir.1 Oter often took the shape of an otter and passed his time
in catching salmon in a waterfall not far from Reidmar’s house. The
waterfall bore the name of the Cascade of Andvari, because the Dwarf
Andvari frequented the waters in the guise of a pike. Once upon a time
Odin, Loki, and Hœnir, being on a journey, came to the waterfall and there
saw an otter feeding on a salmon; in eating, it closed its eyes, not being
able to endure seeing the fish grow smaller and smaller. Loki picked up a
stone, threw it at the otter, and killed it. Then he boasted of having bagged
an otter and a salmon with one stone. Taking their catch with them they
went on to Reidmar’s house, where they asked for a night’s lodging, at the
same time showing him their booty. Reidmar at once recognized the otter’s
pelt, which they had flayed off; and with the aid of Regin and Fafnir he took
the Æsir captive and put them in bonds. The Æsir offered in ransom for
their lives anything that he might choose to demand, whereupon he
decreed that they were to fill the otter’s skin with gold and to cover its
surface with gold besides. Having sealed their promise with an oath, they
were released from their bondage. Loki hastened to Ran and borrowed her
net, with which he then returned to the waterfall

1
Or Faðmir, that is, “the embracing one.”
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and caught the Dwarf Andvari. Loki threatened to put Andvari to death if he
did not at once surrender all the gold in his possession. The Dwarf yielded
up his hoard under compulsion; but Loki, noticing that he kept back a small
gold ring, forced him to give that as well. All of the Dwarf’s entreaties
availed him not a whit; Loki took the ring. But as the Dwarf darted back into
his rock, he stood at the opening long enough to say these words: “The
Dwarf’s gold shall be the death of two brothers and a sign of division to
eight athelings; no one shall find joy in the holding of my hoard.” Thus was
a curse fastened upon the gold, above all upon the ring — just as on the
sword Tyrfing1 — and Loki rejoiced that the treasure would bring no good
to Reidmar. When Loki returned with the hoard, Reidmar first filled the skin
and raised it on end, and then covered it over on the outside; in this way all
of the gold was spent with the exception of the ring, which Odin kept for
himself. Reidmar, however, discovered that a single hair near the mouth
had not been covered up. Odin was compelled to surrender the ring of
Andvari; Loki, for his part, reiterated the curse spoken over the Dwarf’s
hoard.
Regin and Fafnir now asked their father for a share of the gold in
wergild for their brother; on his denying their request, Fafnir killed him as he
lay asleep. Fafnir then took all of the gold as his own patrimony. Regin,
bereft of his inheritance, removed to the court of king Hjalprek and there
took service as the king’s smith. Fafnir had in his possession also a
forbidding

1
p. 130 ff.
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helmet1 and a costly sword named Rotti. Transforming himself into a

venomous serpent, he made a lair for himself on Gnita Heath, and there
remained brooding over his hoard.
Regin egged Sigurd on to kill Fafnir and seize the treasure, by which
means he would be able to win great renown for himself. From Hjalprek
Sigurd got the excellent horse Grani, of the race of Sleipnir, on whose back
no man before himself had ever ridden; and Regin wrought a sword for
him. But when Sigurd came to try the sword and brought it down on Regin’s
anvil, it broke in two; the same thing happened with a second sword forged
for him by Regin. Then Sigurd’s mother gave him the pieces of Sigmund’s
sword, from which, at his command, Regin forged a marvelous blade to
which was given the name Gram. Gram stood the test of the anvil; Sigurd
cleft it from top to bottom without so much as turning the edge of the sword.
Then, carrying the weapon down to the river Rhine, he let a ball of wool
float with the stream against the edge of the sword, and Gram cut it in two.
Regin now bade him set forth without delay against Fafnir; but Sigurd
declared his determination of first avenging his father’s death. On seeking
counsel from a wise man named Gripir, brother of queen Hjordis, he
learned the whole course of his destiny. He now besought Hjalprek for men
and ships with which to make head against the sons of Hunding. His every
wish was fulfilled. It was a gallant sight to see his

1
Literally, “terror-helmet.” —Translator’s note.
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ship as he set sail. Presently a severe storm came upon them, which
compelled them to lay by in the shelter of a headland. At the edge of the
cliff stood a man who hailed the ships to ask who the voyagers might be.
Regin answered that the fleet was under the command of Sigurd and then
in turn asked the man to tell his own name. His name was Nikar, came the
reply, but they might call him Old Man of the Mountain, or Feng, or Fjolnir,
whatsoever they pleased. They took him aboard, and at once the winds
began to blow from the right quarter. On Sigurd’s asking him what were the
most favorable auguries for one who was going forth to battle, he
answered: “It is a good sign to be followed by a black raven. It is a good
thing to meet, as you set out on your journey, two heroes whose thoughts
are fixed on fame. It is good to hear the wolf howling beneath the ash tree.
Luck will attend you against your enemies if you see them before they
catch sight of you. No man should fight with the setting sun in his eyes, for
they who can see to carry on the battle shall enjoy the victory. It is a great
mischance if a man stumbles on his way to the field. Every man should
take care that he is combed and washed and filled with food in the morning,
for no one knows what the evening may bring in its train.” They now
continued on their course, and before long a battle to the death was fought
between Sigurd and the sons of Hunding. Lyngvi was taken captive, and
his brothers were killed. As for Lyngvi himself, a blood eagle was carved on
his back, which is as much as to say that his ribs were shorn from
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his back and his lungs were pulled out through the aperture.
When all these things were done, Sigurd and Regin made their way
to Gnita Heath bent on the killing of Fafnir. Regin gave the counsel that a
trench should be dug straight across the path along which Fafnir was in the
habit of creeping in quest of water; Sigurd did so, Regin meanwhile hiding
himself away in terror. Just then an old man, with a long beard came to
Sigurd and persuaded him to dig a number of trenches. In one of these he
was to lie in wait himself, while the others were to provide an outlet for the
overflow of venom spewed out by the serpent; if he failed to take such a
precaution, he might come to grief. Herewith Sigurd got his first inkling that
Regin meant to play him false. After digging a number of trenches, Sigurd
hid himself in one of them. When Fafnir came, spitting venom and rolling so
violently that the earth shook, Sigurd lost no time in thrusting his sword into
the serpent’s left side up to the very hilt. Sigurd then sprang to his feet, and
the serpent, feeling that the wound was mortal, asked him to reveal his
name; for if Fafnir could succeed in learning that secret and in cursing the
slayer by name, he would have his revenge. Sigurd at first thought to
conceal his true name, but on the serpent’s taunting him, he told the truth.
Fafnir reiterated the curses once fastened upon the gold, which was now to
pass into Sigurd’s keeping. Sigurd put a number of questions to Fafnir on
divers matters pertaining to the gods; after giving answers to these
questions, Fafnir died. While
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Sigurd stood wiping the blood from the sword, Regin came to him and
prayed good fortune to attend the mighty deed he had done, but added the
hint that since Fafnir was his own, brother, Sigurd owed Regin something
by way of wergild for the life he had taken; he would ask no more than the
heart of Fafnir, which Sigurd was to roast for him. Regin now cut the
serpent’s heart out with his sword Ridil, drank of Fafnir’s blood, and lay
down to sleep. Sigurd kindled a fire and set about roasting the heart on a
spit; but as he touched it with his finger to see if it was done, he burned
himself. He therefore put the finger in his mouth; when Fafnir’s heart’s
blood touched his tongue, he became aware that to had learned to
understand the song of birds. He heard the tomtits twittering in the bushes:
“Sigurd would do more wisely in eating the heart himself; he would do well
to kill Regin, who is plotting to betray him, and to seize Fafnir’s hoard and
ride away with it.” Sigurd accordingly cut off Regin’s head, ate Fafnir’s
heart, and drank his blood. Then he heard the birds singing once again: “It
behooves him to ride to the top of Mount Hindarfjall, to a hall standing
swathed in flames, there to force an entrance and to awaken a shield-
maiden who lies entranced by magic arts.” Sigurd now made his way to
Fafnir’s lair, which he found to be a house of beams and doors, all wrought
out of iron. The gold lay buried in the earth; he took the whole hoard and
also Fafnir’s other treasures, the forbidding helmet, a gold byrnie, and the
sword Rotti. Filling two huge chests he bound them to a packsaddle urn
Grani’s back, one on each
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side; he meant to drive the horse before him, but Grani would not move a
foot before Sigurd himself mounted. From this time forth Sigurd bore the
name Fafnirsbane.

THE NIFLUNGS — THE SLAYING OF SIGURD

Sigurd now rode south toward Frankland and up to the top of Mount
Hindarfjall. On the mountain he saw a great light, as if a fire were burning
there; when he drew nearer he caught sight of a stronghold of shields,
above which was reared a standard. On going within the stronghold he
found a woman fully panoplied lying asleep. He attempted to remove the
armor; but the byrnie clung tight as if it had grown fast to the flesh itself,
and so he had to cut it loose with Gram. Sitting up, the woman asked who it
was that had roused her from so profound a sleep. Sigurd told his own
name and asked what her name might be. She was called Sigrdrifa and
was a Valkyrie; on a certain occasion she had laid low a king to whom Odin
had given a pledge of victory, and in punishment Odin had stung her with
sleep-thorns, had declared that she should never more win victory in battle,
and had foretold that in due time she should wed. She had vowed, for her
part, that she would never wed a man capable of feeling fear. Thereupon
she had sunk into her deep magic trance, from which Sigurd was the first to
waken her. Sigurd now asked her to teach him wisdom, what lore she
might have learned from all the worlds that be. Taking a horn filled with
mead and turning her face toward the song of Day and the daughters of
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Night, toward the Æsir and the goddesses, she besought their favor; then
she gave the horn into his hand, and said: “I bring you a drink, warrior
champion, in which are blended power and glory; it is filled with songs and
with tokens of strength, with goodly incantations and with gladdening runes.
“Runes of victory you must carve if you desire to be victorious, some
on the blade and some on the haft; and twice you must speak the name of
Tyr” (that is, the name of the rune for the letter T).
“Ale-runes you must know if you would not have the wife of another
betray your trust; carve them on the horn and on the back of your hand,
and mark on your finger nail the word ’need’” (that is, the rune for the letter
N). “Bless the beaker, stand on guard against deceit, lay a leek in the
liquor; then can mischance never be mingled with your mead.
“Birth-runes you must know if you would lend aid to a woman bearing
a child; carve them on the palms of your hands, clasp the woman about her
waist, then pray to the Disir to help her.
“Wave-runes you must know if you would save ships at sea; carve
them on the prow and rudder and burn them into the oars; then will the
waves never be so steep or the seas so black but that you shall safely
reach the shore.
“Branch-runes you must know if you would learn healing and the
treating of wounds; carve them on the bark and on the trunk of a tree
whose branches lean to the east.
“Speech-runes you must know if you would take
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vengeance for your harms; twist them, twine them, wind them all together,
at the judgment seats where all the counselors are assembled in judgment.
“Thought-runes you must know if you would be wiser than all other
men; them Odin devised from the sap that ran from Heiddraupnir’s head
and Hoddrofnir’s horn. On the mountain he stood with Brimir’s sword and
with a helmet on his head. Then spoke the head of Mimir for the first time
and gave utterance of trusty tokens: these were carved on the shield that
stands before the shining god, on Arvak’s ear, and on Alsvin’s hoof, on the
wheel under Rognir’s (Odin’s) wagon, on Sleipnir’s teeth, on the runners of
the sledge, on the paw of the bear and on Bragi’s tongue, on the claws of
the wolf and the beak of the eagle, on bloody wings and on the bridge’s
head, on freeing hand and on healing footprints, on glass, on gold, and on
amulets, in wine, in simples, and on seats of joy, on Gungnir’s point and on
Grani’s breast, on the Norn’s nail and on the owl’s beak. All those that were
carved were shaven off again, mingled with holy mead, and sent forth on
far ways; some are with the Elves, some with the Æsir, some with the wise
Vanir, and some with the race of men. There are book-runes, birth-runes,
ale-runes, and excellent magic-runes for every one who is able to use them
without mischance, without misadventure. Turn them to your happiness if
you have understood them, time without end. Now make your choice
further, between speech and silence; for all harms have their destined
bounds.” “I should not flee even if you knew me to be fated to die,” said
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Sigurd, “for I was born without fear.” Then she continued her discourse: “Be
free from fault in your dealings with kinsmen, and seek not revenge if they
wrong you. Swear no false oaths. At the assembly dispute not with fools,
for the unwise man often speaks words of worse meaning than he is aware;
yet there is danger in all things if you keep silence, for so you will appear to
be afraid, or what is said will have the color of truth: rather kill him the next
day, and thus reward men for their lies. Never take lodging with a witch,
even if night has come upon you unawares. Let not fair women deceive
you. Contend not with drunken men. Yet with brave men you must fight,
rather than let them burn the roof over your head. Entice no maiden and no
man’s wife. Give seemly burial to the dead. Put no faith in him who has lost
a kinsman at your hand: a wolf lurks in a young son, even though he have
accepted gold for wergild. Beware of guile in your friends.”
From Hindarfjall Sigurd journeyed to the home of Heimir in the Dales
of Lym and abode there for a time. Here he chanced to see Brynhild,
daughter of king Budli and foster daughter of Heimir, and was taken with an
overpowering love for her. She was a shield-maiden, and when Sigurd paid
court to her she answered that the fates would not permit them to live
together; yet at length she gave her consent, and he placed the ring of
Andvari on her finger. Afterward she bore him — according to a late
legend1 — a daughter, who was named Aslaug.

1
p. 246.
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Thereafter Sigurd rode farther on his way until he came to the court of
king Gjuki, whose kingdom lay south of the Rhine. The children of Gjuki,
the Gjukungs, were fairer and stronger than all others; the sons were
named Gunnar, Hogni, and Guttorm, and the daughter’s name was
Gudrun. Gjuki’s wife, a woman skilled in magic, was called Grimhild. Here
Sigurd was received as a welcome guest; it was Grimhild’s greatest wish
that he should become her son-in-law, but he loved Brynhild too dearly and
all his thoughts were bent upon her. Grimhild accordingly had recourse to
magic; she made a drink capable of stealing memory away, and this he
gave to Sigurd. No sooner had he drunk of it than he remembered Brynhild
no more; soon he came to love Gudrun instead, wedded her, and entered
into a compact of sworn brotherhood with her brothers. Sigurd gave
Gudrun to eat from Fafnir’s heart, which he had carried with him,
whereupon she grew even more grim of mood than before.
Grimhild now counseled her son Gunnar to pay court to Brynhild,
daughter of Budli. King Budli making no objection, the Gjukungs1 journeyed
together with Sigurd to the Dales of Lym, where Brynhild still had her
abode. Heimir, who received them kindly, declared that Brynhild should
choose according to her own desire. Round about her hall there burned a
ring of fire, and she had made known her intention to marry none but that
man who could ride through the flames. When Gunnar rode his horse Goti
toward the fire, the

1
Also called Niflungs.
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horse recoiled. Sigurd made him a loan of Grani, but Grani would not stir a
pace. Sigurd and Gunnar now each took upon him the likeness of the
other, whereupon Sigurd in the guise of Gunnar mounted Grani, with Gram
in his hands and golden spurs on his feet. Grani at once ran forward, while
the fire crackled, the earth shook, and flames darted up to the very
heavens. Sigurd thus made his way into Brynhild’s hall and there wedded
her, but during the night he laid the sword Gram between her and himself.
They exchanged rings, so that Sigurd once more got possession of the ring
of Andvari and gave her another ring in its stead. When three nights had
passed, he rode out again and restored Gunnar’s likeness in return for his
own. Brynhild gave into the charge of Heimir her own and Sigurd’s
daughter as a foster child; later she went with them to the realm of Gjuki,
where her wedding with Gunnar took place. Yet Sigurd’s deception brought
its revenge; he now remembered the oaths he had sworn to Brynhild, but in
no wise betrayed his true feelings.
Once upon a time Brynhild and Gudrun went out into the river Rhine
to wash their hair. Brynhild waded out the farther of the two, saying that
since she had the braver husband she would not wash herself in the
rinsings of Gudrun’s hair. Gudrun followed her, maintaining that it was her
right to stand the farther up stream, inasmuch as no man could compare
with Sigurd Fafnirsbane. “A braver deed it was,” said Brynhild, “of Gunnar
to ride through the fire, a thing which Sigurd dared not do.” Gudrun laughed
and
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answered, “Do you think it was Gunnar who rode through the fire? No, it
was Sigurd; he slept with you and took the ring of Andvari from your hand
— here it is.” Brynhild recognized the ring aid how understood all that had
happened; she grew pale but spoke no word. During that evening and
throughout the following day Brynhild was silent and downcast. Gudrun
bade her be of good cheer, but Brynhild replied, “You are passing cruel
toward me.” “What is it that troubles you?” Gudrun asked. “You shall pay
dearly for the winning of Sigurd in my stead, for I do not yield him to you
with good grace.” Gudrun answered, “You have made a better marriage
than you deserve.” “I might have rested content,” said Brynhild, “if your
husband had not surpassed my own; Sigurd has no peer, he won the
victory over Fafnir, and that deed is worth more than the whole of Gunnar’s
realm. Sigurd killed the serpent, and that stroke will be known as long as
the world shall stand; but Gunnar dared not ride through the flames.” “It
was Grani who would not stir with Gunnar on his back,” answered Gudrun;
“Gunnar himself had courage enough.” Brynhild said: “Grimhild alone is to
blame; may you find joy in Sigurd just so much as I shall find joy in a life
marred by treachery.”
Brynhild took to her bed sick at heart; Gunnar went to her side to
comfort her and prayed her to confide in him, but she would not. He then
asked Sigurd to try what he might do. Sigurd spoke with her, confessed his
love for her, and even promised to put Gudrun away and marry her instead.
But she
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was too proud to listen to his entreaties, whereat Sigurd was so stricken
with grief that the rings of his byrnie burst at both sides. Rather than wed
with him on such terms she would prefer to see him lying dead, so that
neither she nor Gudrun should rejoice in him again. She egged Gunnar on
to kill Sigurd; he had, as she said, betrayed them both. Gunnar, being
readily swayed to her purpose, sought counsel with his brother Hogni, but
Hogni was unwilling that they should lay violent hands themselves upon
Sigurd, since they were bound to him by oaths of brotherhood. He
proposed instead that they should persuade the thoughtless Guttorm to
undertake the deed, a youth who had no part in their oaths. To heighten his
courage, they gave him to eat the flesh of serpents and wolves. Having
eaten, he became so fell of mood that he was at once ready to do his
dastard’s work. Coming upon Sigurd asleep at Gudrun’s side, he pierced
his body with a sword. Sigurd always kept his own sword Gram by his side;
when he felt the wound, he threw the sword after Guttorm with such force
that it cleft him through the middle. The young son of Sigurd and Gudrun
lost his life at the same time.
Gudrun sat by the body of Sigurd, unable to weep, though her heart
was ready to burst. Men and women coming to comfort her could do
nothing. Not until Gullrond, daughter of Gjuki, drew aside the cloth that had
been spread over Sigurd, so that Gudrun once more beheld his glazed
eyes and his bloody head, did she sink back weeping; as the tears ran
down her cheeks, she found words to utter her grief. Brynhild
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on her part laughed when men told her of Sigurd’s death, till the whole
house rang with her mirth:

Long may you revel

In lands and men,
You who laid low
The boldest of princes.

Then she said furthermore: “Once I lived honored and glad with Atli,
my brother. No man did I desire until the Gjukungs rode into the courtyard.
Then gave I my troth to the hero who sat on the back of Grani; he was a
man, Gunnar, unlike you. This you shall know, that Sigurd was never false
to you; the sword Gram, its edge tempered in venom, he laid down
between me and himself; but you have broken your oath. Now I will live no
longer, for Sigurd alone did I love, and desperation drove me on all my
ways. My brother Atli will know what vengeance to take for me and my
sorrows; and he shall remain a mightier man than you.” Gunnar earnestly
prayed her not to seek death; but Hogni said that nothing could hold back
one born, like her, to misfortune. Brynhild then took a sword, turned the
point against her side, and sank down among the pillows. Before she died
she be sought Gunnar to lay her and Sigurd on one and the same funeral
pyre, and to deck it with draperies and shields, to cover it over with
splendid garments and with thralls. “Burn,” she said, “at Sigurd’s other side
my retainers, adorned with amulets, two at the head and two at the feet,
and my two falcons with them; once more lay Gram between us, even as
on the wedding night. In such wise shall Sigurd go forth
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proudly; since there follow him so many, five bondwomen and eight
henchmen, the portals of the hall shall never clang shut at his heels.” The
pyre was made ready as she had given command, and on it she and
Sigurd were burned. As Brynhild passed along the Hell-Ways in a
magnificent chariot, a certain Giantess meeting her on the road made as if
to deny her passage, and derided her for the life she had lived. But Brynhild
charged Gudrun with all the blame; Gudrun had egged her to evil, speaking
falsehoods of her and of Sigurd.

All too long

Life endures
For man, for woman,
Burdened with sorrows;

Yet shall we live

Our lives together,
Sigurd and I.
Sink, witch, from sight.

ATLI

Gunnar and Hogni fell heir to all Sigurd’s treasures after his death.
Atli, Brynhild’s brother, maintaining that the two men had caused the death
of Brynhild, threatened them with war. Peace was nevertheless established
between them on such terms that Atli was to have Gudrun as his wife.
Shortly after the death of Sigurd, Gudrun had given birth to a daughter,
whom she had named Svanhild and with whom she had fled to Denmark,
where for seven half years she took refuge with Thora, daughter of Hakon.
Gudrun’s mother Grimhild and her brothers now journeyed to Denmark for
the purpose of persuading her to marry Atli, but she curtly refused; Grimhild
then gave her a drink of forgetfulness and so gained her consent.
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With Atli, Gudrun had two sons, named Erp and Eitil. Atli, moved by a
desire to secure the rich possessions of his brothers-in-law, sent his crafty
servant Vingi, also called Knefrœd, to invite them to a festival. Gudrun,
however, knowing that some treachery lay at the bottom, charged the
messenger to carry with him warning runes which she had cut for her
brothers and at the same time to deliver to them a ring to which she had
bound a wolf’s hair. On the way Vingi read the runes and altered them so
that they bore a contrary message and gave them over thus changed to
Gunnar and Hogni. The two brothers made a great banquet and promised
to proceed without delay to take part in Atli’s festival. But during the night,
when all men had gone to bed, Kostbera, the cunning wife of Hogni, looked
at the runes and saw that at first something else had been written there
than was now to be read. She told Hogni what she had found, but he put no
faith in her words. Glaumvor, Gunnar’s wife, the same night, dreamed
foreboding dreams, and she likewise warned her husband against
undertaking the journey; notwithstanding he held to his purpose as stoutly
as his brother, and so they set forth on their visit to Atli’s court. Yet before
leaving home they hid Fafnir’s gold in the river Rhine. As they neared Atli’s
court, he came out to meet them in hostile array; a stubborn battle took
place, in which the Niflungs defended themselves bravely, but at last they
were overpowered and both brothers were taken prisoner. Atli came to
Gunnar, who was sitting apart from his brother, and tried to get him to say
where the hoard
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was hidden. Gunnar answered: “Not until Hogni’s heart shall lie in my hand,
bleeding, cut from the hero’s breast.” Atli went away and caused a thrall’s
heart to be cut from his body; but when Gunnar saw it he said: “This is the
heart of Hjalli, the weakling, quite unlike the heart of the hero Hogni; as
much as it trembles lying there on the platter, it trembled twice as much in
the breast of the thrall.” Atli now caused Hogni’s heart to be cut out in
earnest, but he only laughed as the knife drew near his heart. When they
brought this heart to Gunnar, he knew it to be his brother’s; “but,” he said, “I
alone now know where the gold lies hidden, and the river Rhine shall rule
over the hoard.” No one ever afterward uncovered Fafnir’s gold, and so
Atli’s treachery was bootless. In his wrath he threw Gunnar, whose hands
were bound, into a den of serpents. Gudrun sent her brother a harp, on
which he played so wondrous well with his toes that no man had ever
before heard the like. All of the serpents fell into a doze but one; this one
gnawed its way into his breast and struck its fangs into his heart.
When Gudrun heard of the death of her brothers, she gave no sign;
she let it appear as if she accepted Atli’s offer of renewed amity and the
wergild he paid for the lives of the slain. She held a funeral feast for her
brothers, but in her heart she meditated grim revenge. First of all she killed
the two small sons she had by Atli, made drinking vessels from their skulls,
and gave the king wine to drink from them, in which was blended the blood
of the children; she gave him
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also their hearts to eat. Afterward she told him all that she had done, and
he was filled with sorrow for the death of his sons and with fear for her
surpassing cruelty. But she went still farther in exacting vengeance.
Together with a young son and heir of Hogni she went by night to Atli’s
bedside and thrust a sword into the king’s breast, her brother’s son helping
her. Atli waked from his sleep at the stroke; and before he died, man and
wife held discourse together. Gudrun declared that she had never been
able to love him, that she had lived happier days with Sigurd, the greater
hero, and yet that she would give him befitting funeral obsequies. And she
kept her promise. But she set fire to Atli’s hall; and so his men too went to
their death.

JORMUNREK

When Gudrun had thus compassed her revenge, she had no desire
to live longer and so threw herself into the sea. Yet she was not drowned;
the waves bore her across the water to the land of king Jonaker, where she
became the wife of the king. They had three sons, Sorli, Hamdir, and Erp.
Jonaker also caused Svanhild, Gudrun’s daughter, to be brought before
him, and her he adopted as his foster daughter. She was like her father in
beauty and had the same sharp eyes, the gaze of which no man could
meet.
The fame of her loveliness, spreading abroad, reached the ears of a
mighty king named Jormunrek. He accordingly sent his son Randver and
his counselor Bikki
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to pay court to her on his behalf. Gudrun, to be sure, gave utterance to the
fear that the marriage would not prove happy; but Jonaker held that a man
like Jormunrek was not to be lightly dismissed, and so Svanhild was sent
away in the care of Randver. In the course of the journey the malicious
Bikki broached the suggestion that a man so old as Jormunrek was no
fitting match for a woman so young and fair as Svanhild, that in short it was
more meet that Randver, being young like herself, should have her to wife.
Randver found some reason in Bikki’s words. But as soon as they arrived
at home, Bikki told all that had happened to Jormunrek, who became so
wroth that he bade Bikki cause Randver to be hanged. As Randver was
being led away to the gallows, he plucked the feathers from his falcon and
sent them to his father. Jormunrek understood the token: old as he was,
and soon to be without an heir, he would be like a plucked bird, lacking in
all that might aid and sustain him. He at once commanded that Randver’s
life should be spared, but it was too late: Bikki had made all possible haste
in carrying out the king’s behest. Jormunrek’s wrath now turned in full
measure against Svanhild, whom he held to be the cause of his
misfortunes. As he came riding home from the hunt and found Svanhild
sitting at the gate drying her hair in the sun, he trampled her to death under
the hoofs of his horses. At first they dared not move upon her, but started
back before her piercing glances; then Bikki caused a sack to be drawn
down over her eyes, and so she lost her life.
When Gudrun learned of all these things, she egged
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her sons into wreaking vengeance on Jormunrek for his cruelty. They made
ready for the journey, and she gave them byrnies and helmets that no iron
could pierce. Then she gave them this counsel, that when they came into
the presence of Jormunrek, Sorli and Hamdir were to sever his hands and
feet and Erp was to cut off his head. As they rode on their way, the two
brothers asked Erp what aid he meant to give them. “Such help,” he
replied, “as the hand may give to the hand or the foot to the foot.” Thinking
such a promise a thing of naught, they put him to death. A moment later,
Hamdir stumbled and thrust out his hand to support himself; the like
happened to Sorli, who succeeded in checking his fall with his foot; in this
manner they learned that one hand may well help another, and the one foot
the other, and that therefore they had done evil toward Erp. Coming to the
hall of Jormunrek by night as he lay asleep, they cut off both his hands and
both his feet. Jormunrek started out of sleep and called to his men; then
Hamdir said: “His head would now have fallen had Erp been here.” The
men of the king’s bodyguard sprang up and rushed upon the intruders, but
found their weapons useless in their hands; an old one-eyed man now
came and told them to stone the brothers to death, and they did as he bade
them. The two brothers lost their lives, and with them the whole race of the
Gjukungs came to an end.