The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

      The ‘slumbering Serpent’ is Mi?sgar?sormr, the Serpent of Midgard, who lay coiled through all the seas encompassing Midgard, the world of Men. The Norse name Mi?gar?r corresponds to Old English Middan-geard, Middan- eard, which lie behind the later form Middle-earth.

      The ‘shadowy ship’ is Naglfar, made of dead men’s nails.

13  Frey (Freyr): the chief god of fertility, of peace and plenty, in Norway and Sweden; Freyja (stanza 17) was his sister.

      The ‘deep Dragon’ is the Serpent of Midgard: see note on stanza 12.

I ANDVARA- GULL (Andvari’s Gold)

For the story in §I of the Lay of the Volsungs the sources are the Eddaic poem known as Reginsmal, the Lay of Regin, which is indeed less a poem than fragments of old verse pieced together with prose; a passage in Snorri Sturluson’s version of the Volsung legend in the Prose Edda; and the Volsunga Saga. The few verses in Reginsmal that bear on this part of the narrative (dialogue between Loki and Andvari, and between Loki and Hreidmar after the gold had been paid over) are here and there a model for the Lay, but only lines 5–6 in stanza 8 are a translation (Andvari ek heiti, Oinn het minn fa?ir).

Apart from this, Andvara-gull in the Lay is a new poem. It is very allusive, and deliberately so, and I give here in abbreviated form the course of the story as it is known from the prose narratives: for the most part the two versions differ little.

It is told that three of the ?sir, Odin, H?nir, and Loki, went out into the world, and they came to a waterfall known as the Falls of Andvari, Andvari being the name of a dwarf who fished there in the form of a pike (Snorri says nothing of Andvari at this point). At that place there was an otter that had caught a salmon, and was eating it on the river bank; but Loki hurled a stone at the otter and killed it. Then the ?sir took up the salmon and the otter and went on their way until they came to the house of a certain Hreidmar. Snorri describes him as a farmer, a man of substance, greatly skilled in magic; in the Saga he is simply an important and wealthy man; whereas in the headnote to this section of the Lay he is ‘a demon’.

The ?sir asked Hreidmar for lodging for the night, saying that they had enough food with them, and they showed Hreidmar their catch; but the otter was Hreidmar’s son Otr, who took the form of an otter when he was fishing (the name Otr and the Norse word otr ‘otter’ being of course the same). Then Hreidmar called out to his other sons, Fafnir and Regin, and they laid hands on the ?sir and bound them, demanding that they should ransom themselves by filling the otter-skin with gold, and also covering it on the outside with gold so that no part of it could be seen.

Here the prose versions separate. According to Snorri (who had not previously mentioned Andvari) Odin now sent Loki to Svartalfaheim, the Land of the Dark Elves; it was there that he found the dwarf Andvari who was ‘as a fish in the water’, and Loki caught him in his hands. In the Saga, on the other hand, Loki’s errand was to seek out Ran, the wife of the sea-god ?gir, and get from her the net with which she drew down men drowning in the sea; and with that net he captured the dwarf Andvari, who was fishing in his falls in the form of a pike. This is the story that my father followed (stanza 7).

Andvari ransomed himself with his hoard of gold, attempting to keep back a single little gold ring; but Loki saw it and took it from him (stanza 9). In Snorri’s account only, Andvari begged to keep the ring because with it he could multiply wealth for himself, but Loki said that he should not have one penny left.

Andvari declared that the ring would be the death of any who possessed it, or any of the gold. According to Snorri, ‘Loki said that this seemed very well to him, and he said that this condition should hold good, provided that he himself declared it in the ears of those who should receive the ring.’ Then Loki returned to Hreidmar’s house, and when Odin saw the ring he desired it, and took it away from the treasure. The otter-skin was filled and covered with the gold of Andvari, but Hreidmar looking at it very closely saw a whisker, and demanded that they should cover that also. Then Odin drew out Andvari’s ring (Andvaranaut, the possession of Andvari) and covered the hair. But when Odin had taken up his spear, and Loki his shoes, and they no longer had any need to fear, Loki declared that the curse of Andvari should be fulfilled. And now it has been told (Snorri concludes) why gold is called ‘Otter’s ransom’ (otrgjold) or ‘forced payment of the ?sir’ (nau?gjald asanna): see p.36.

An important difference between the two prose versions is that Snorri began his account of the Volsung legend with ‘Andvari’s Gold’, whereas in the Saga this story is introduced much later, and becomes a story told by Regin (son of Hreidmar) to Sigurd before his attack on the dragon. But although my father followed Snorri in this, he nonetheless followed the Saga in giving a brief retelling of ‘Andvari’s Gold’ by Regin to Sigurd in the fifth section of the poem, with a number of verse-lines repeated from their first occurrence (see V.7–11).

1    Of all the Northern divinities Loki is the most enigmatic; ancient Norse literature is full of references to him and stories about him, and it is not possible to characterize him in a short space. But since Loki only appears here in these poems, and in my father’s words concerning him given on p.54, it seems both suitable and sufficient to quote Snorri Sturluson’s description in the Prose Edda:

‘Also counted among the ?sir is Loki, whom some call the mischief-maker of the ?sir, the first father of lies, and the blemish of all gods and men. Loki is handsome and fair of face but evil in his disposition and fickle in his conduct. He excels all others in that cleverness which is called cunning, and he has wiles for every circumstance. Over and over again he has brought the gods into great trouble, but often got them out of it by his guile.’

In this stanza he is called ‘lightfooted Loki’, and in Snorri’s version of the story of Andvari’s Gold it is said, as already noted, that after the payment of the ransom to Hreidmar Odin took up his spear ‘and Loki his shoes’. Elsewhere Snorri wrote of ‘those shoes with which Loki ran through air and over water’.

Of the god Hoenir no more is said in the Lay than that while Loki went on the left side of Odin, H?nir went on his right. In my father’s somewhat mysterious interpretation given on p.54 (iv) he calls the companion of Odin who walks on his right hand ‘a nameless shadow’, but this must surely be H?nir, or at least derived from him. However, if there is no end to what is told of Loki in the Norse mythological narratives, very little can now be said of H?nir; and to my understanding, there is nothing in the vestiges that remain that casts light on the ‘nameless shadow’ that walks beside Odin.

6    Asgard is the realm of the Gods (?sir).

7    Ran: the wife of the sea-god ?gir; see p.189.

8    ‘I bid thee’: I offer thee.

13–15   In these concluding stanzas the references to the hope of Odin, and Odin’s choice, have of course no counterparts in the Norse texts.

II SIGNY

This is a rendering in verse of elements of the narrative of the earlier chapters of the Volsunga Saga. No old poetry recounting or referring to this story exists apart from a single half-stanza (see the