The Story of Sigurd the Volsung | Page 5

Iceland.
There they settled, built themselves wooden houses, planted such crops
as would grow in that bleak land, and founded a commonwealth. Little
by little they left the old Viking life, and it lived only in their songs and
stories.
They had come to Iceland with a vast stock of tales in poetry, which
were related or sung by professional poets, called skalds, at all kinds of
feasts and gatherings. The skalds arranged and improved the old stories,

but they were not written down until about the time of our King
Stephen, when some unknown writer collected them into one book
called the Elder Edda. Very soon after this another book was written
containing the same stories in prose and called the Younger or Prose
Edda. In this way many of the old poems, and a great many stories
containing much information about the religion which the people took
with them to Iceland, have been preserved.
But it was from neither of the Eddas that William Morris took his story
of Sigurd.
All through the period from 800 A.D. till about the time of Henry III.
of England, the skalds had been re-telling many of the poetic stories in
prose, and as the people grew more civilised, one tale after another was
written down in its new form.
These prose tales were called Sagas, and among the very greatest is the
Volsunga Saga, or Story of Sigurd. It is a tale which has been told in
other lands besides Iceland. We read part of the same story in the Old
English poem of Beowulf, and in Germany it was made into a great
poem called the Nibelungenlied. The German musician, Richard
Wagner, set it to music in a famous series of operas called the
Nibelungen Ring. But his tale differs in many points from that
contained in Morris's poem, for Morris chose the old saga as it was
written in Iceland, not the German story. On this he founded his poem,
adding much beautiful description, and greatly lengthening the whole.
The story deals first with a certain King Volsung, to whose son,
Sigmund, Odin presented a magic sword.
But Siggeir, the jealous king of the Goths, slew Volsung, and took
Sigmund prisoner that he might have the sword for himself. Only after
many toils and perils did Sigmund win it back and reign in his father's
kingdom. At last in his old age he fell in battle and the sword of Odin
was shattered. But his wife, Queen Hiordis, kept the fragments for the
son who was born to her soon after in Denmark, whither she fled for
safety. This son of Sigmund and Hiordis was Sigurd the Volsung. He
was brought up in Denmark and grew strong and beautiful, brave, kind
of heart, and utterly truthful in word and deed.
When he became a man he longed to win fame and kingship by mighty
deeds, and when his tutor told him of a great dragon that guarded a
hoard of ill-gotten gold in the mountains, he resolved to kill it. So the

fragments of Odin's sword were forged into a new blade, and Sigurd
slew the dragon and took the gold, but with it he brought on himself a
curse which had been put upon the treasure by the dwarf from whom it
had been stolen.
Sigurd then found and wakened Brynhild, a maiden who lay in an
enchanted sleep upon a high mountain. They loved one another, and
Sigurd gave her a ring from the dragon's treasure, promising to return
and marry her.
Then the curse led him to join with the fierce and treacherous Niblungs
or Cloudy People. Their king and his mother grew jealous when they
saw Sigurd more mighty and more beloved than themselves, and by
enchantments they caused him to forget Brynhild, to wed the princess
Gudrun, and at last to aid the Niblung king, Gunnar, to win Brynhild
for his own wife.
Then the curse of the gold brought death to many, for Sigurd and
Brynhild discovered all the treachery of the Niblungs, who, in their
anger, slew Sigurd, and Brynhild killed herself that she might not live
and sorrow for him.
Such is the story of Sigurd as it was told a thousand years ago in distant
Iceland, and as it is retold in this poem by William Morris.

THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG.
BOOK I.
SIGMUND.
_Of the dwelling of King Volsung, and the wedding of Signy his
daughter._
There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old; Dukes
were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold: Earls
were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors; Earls'
wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors,
And the masters of its song-craft