The Edda, Volume 2 | Page 4

faults, a
priceless treasure-house for the real features of the legend.
There are two main elements in the Volsung story: the slaying of the
dragon, and the awakening and desertion of Brynhild. The latter is
brought into close connexion with the former, which becomes the real
centre of the action. In the Anglo-Saxon reference, the fragment in
Beowulf, the second episode does not appear.
In this, the oldest version of the story, which, except for a vague
reference to early feats by Sigmund and Sinfjötli, consists solely of the
dragon adventure, the hero is not Sigurd, but Sigemund the Waelsing.
All that it tells is that Sigemund, Fitela (Sinfjötli) not being with him,
killed the dragon, the guardian of the hoard, and loaded a ship with the
treasure. The few preceding lines only mention the war which Sigmund

and Sinfjötli waged on their foes. They are there uncle and nephew, and
there is no suggestion of the closer relationship assigned to them by
_Völsunga Saga_, which tells their story in full.
Sigmund, one of the ten sons of Volsung (who is himself of miraculous
birth) and the Wishmaiden Hlod, is one of the chosen heroes of Odin.
His twin-sister Signy is married against her will to Siggeir, an
hereditary enemy, and at the wedding-feast Odin enters and thrusts a
sword up to the hilt into the tree growing in the middle of the hall. All
try to draw it, but only the chosen Sigmund succeeds. Siggeir, on
returning to his own home with his unwilling bride, invites her father
and brothers to a feast. Though suspecting treachery, they come, and
are killed one after another, except Sigmund who is secretly saved by
his sister and hidden in the wood. She meditates revenge, and as her
two sons grow up to the age of ten, she tests their courage, and finding
it wanting makes Sigmund kill both: the expected hero must be a
Volsung through both parents. She therefore visits Sigmund in disguise,
and her third son, Sinfjötli, is the child of the Volsung pair. At ten years
old, she sends him to live in the wood with Sigmund, who only knows
him as Signy's son. For years they live as wer-wolves in the wood, till
the time comes for vengeance. They set fire to Siggeir's hall; and Signy,
after revealing Sinfjötli's real parentage, goes back into the fire and dies
there, her vengeance achieved:
"I killed my children, because I thought them too weak to avenge our
father; Sinfjötli has a warrior's might because he is both son's son and
daughter's son to King Volsung. I have laboured to this end, that King
Siggeir should meet his death; I have so toiled for the achieving of
revenge that I am now on no condition fit for life. As I lived by force
with King Siggeir, of free will shall I die with him."
Though no poem survives on this subject, the story is certainly
primitive; its savage character vouches for its antiquity. _Völsunga_
then reproduces the substance of the prose _Death of Sinfjötli_
mentioned above, the object of which, as a part of the cycle, seems to
be to remove Sinfjötli and leave the field clear for Sigurd. It preserves a
touch which may be original in Sinfjötli's burial, which resembles that

of Scyld in _Beowulf_: his father lays him in a boat steered by an old
man, which immediately disappears.
Sigmund and Sinfjötli are always close comrades, "need-companions"
as the Anglo-Saxon calls them. They are indivisible and form one story.
Sigurd, on the other hand, is only born after his father Sigmund's death.
_Völsunga_ says that Sigmund fell in battle against Hunding, through
the interference of Odin, who, justifying Loki's taunt that he "knew not
how to give the victory fairly," shattered with his spear the sword he
had given to the Volsung. For this again we have to depend entirely on
the prose, except for one line in _Hyndluljod_: "The Father of Hosts
gives gold to his followers;... he gave Sigmund a sword." And from the
poems too, Sigurd's fatherless childhood is only to be inferred from an
isolated reference, where giving himself a false name he says to Fafni:
"I came a motherless child; I have no father like the sons of men."
Sigmund, dying, left the fragments of the sword to be given to his
unborn son, and Sigurd's fosterfather Regin forged them anew for the
future dragon-slayer. But Sigurd's first deed was to avenge on
Hunding's race the death of his father and his mother's father.
_Völsunga_ tells this story first of Helgi and Sinfjötli, then of Sigurd,
to whom the poems also attribute the deed. It is followed by the
dragon-slaying.
Up to this point, the story of Sigurd consists roughly of the same
features which