The Story of Sigurd the Volsung | Page 3

to prose composition. For several years
he was too busy with other things, which he thought more important, to
spend time on storytelling; but his instinct forced itself out again, and
in 1886 he began the series of romances in prose or in mixed prose and
verse which went on during the next ten years. The chief of these are,
"A Dream of John Ball," "The House of Wolfings," "The Roots of the
Mountains," "News from Nowhere," "The Glittering Plain," "The
Wood beyond the World," "The Well at the World's End," "The Water
of the Wondrous Isles," and "The Sundering Flood." During the same
years he also translated, out of Icelandic and old French books, more of
the stories which he had long known and admired. "The Sundering
Flood" was written in his last illness, and finished by him within a few
days of his death, in the autumn of 1896.

INTRODUCTION TO SIGURD
By The Editors
The story of Sigurd is important to English people not only for its
wondrous beauty, but also on account of its great age, and of what it
tells us about our own Viking ancestors, who first knew the story.
The tale was known all over the north of Europe, in Denmark, in
Germany, in Norway and Sweden, and in Iceland, hundreds of years
before it was written down. Sometimes different names were given to
the characters, sometimes the events of the story were slightly altered,
but in the main points it was one and the same tale.
If we look at a map of Europe showing the nations as they were rather
more than a thousand years ago, we see the names of Saxons, Goths,
Danes, and Frisians marked on the lands around the Baltic Sea. Those
who bore these names were the makers of the tale of Sigurd. The name
of the Saxons is, of course, the best known to us, and next in
importance come the people we call Danes, or Northmen, or Vikings,
who attacked the coasts of the Saxon kingdoms in England. The Saxons
came from part of the land that is now known as Germany, and the
Vikings from Denmark and from Scandinavia.
A third important tribe was that of the Goths, who dwelt first in South

Sweden, and then in Germany.
All these people resembled one another in their way of life, in their
religion, and in their ideas of what deeds were good and what were evil.
Their lands were barren--too mountainous or too cold to bring forth
fruitful crops, and their homes were not such as would tempt men never
to leave them. So, though they built their little groups of wooden
houses in the valleys of their lands, and made fields and pastures about
them, these were often left to the care of the women and the feeble men,
while the strong men made raids over the sea to other countries, where
they engaged in the fighting which they loved, and whence they
brought back plunder to their homes. North, South, East, and West they
went, till few parts of Europe had not learnt to know and fear them.
Their ships were long and narrow, driven often by oars as well as sails,
and outside them, along the bulwarks, the crew hung their round
shields made of yellow wood from the lime-tree. The men wore byrnies
or breast-plates, and helmets, and they were armed with swords, long
spears, or heavy battle-axes. They were enemies none could afford to
despise, for they had great stature and strength of body, joined to such
fierceness and delight in war that they held a man disgraced if he died
peacefully at home. Moreover, they knew nothing of mercy to the
conquered.
Courage, not only to fight, but also to bear suffering without
impatience or complaint, and the virtue of faithfulness were the
qualities they most honoured. To be wanting in courage was
disgraceful in their eyes, but it was equally disgraceful to refuse to help
kinsfolk, to lie, to deceive, or to desert a chief.
If they put their enemies to death with fearful tortures, they did not treat
them more severely than the traitors they discovered among themselves,
and if they had no pity for those they conquered, yet they knew well
how to admire great leaders, and how to serve them faithfully. But we
can best realise their ideas on these matters by considering their
religion and their stories.
They worshipped one chief god, Odin, and other gods and goddesses
who were his children. Odin was often called All-father because he was
the helper and friend of human beings, and appeared on earth in the
form of an old man, "one-eyed and seeming ancient," with cloud-blue
hood and grey cloak. He had courage, strength, and wondrous