The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

Hjordis ordered her bondwoman to exchange clothes with her, and to declare that she was the king’s daughter. When Alf returned with the women, still disguised, to his own country the truth of the subterfuge emerged. Alf promised to marry Hjordis after her child was born, and so it came about that Sigurd was brought up in King Hjalprek’s household. In the Lay the curious story of the disguising of Sigrlinn (Hjordis) is reduced to the words ‘The bride of Sigmund / as a bondwoman / over sounding seas / sadly journeyed’.

11  ‘wanhope’: despair.

13  In the Saga Sigmund named the sword that should be made from the shards Gramr; this appears in the next section of the Lay, V.18.

V REGIN

The sources of the story in this section of the Lay are not only the Volsunga Saga but also poems of the Edda on which the Saga drew: the conclusion of Reginsmal (see the note to section I, p.188), and Fafnismal; the story is also briefly told by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, whereby he explains why ‘gold’ is called in poetry ‘the abode of Fafnir’ and ‘Grani’s burden’.

There is little, in strictly narrative terms, in this part of the Lay that is not found in these sources, and in places (notably in the dialogue between Sigurd and Regin after Fafnir’s death) the tenor of the verses of Fafnismal is followed; but only here and there do they correspond at all closely.

The legend of ‘Andvari’s gold’ as told in section I of the Lay does not extend beyond the departure of the ?sir from Hreidmar’s house after the payment of the ransom for his son Otr. In the note to that section (p.190) I have noticed that Snorri Sturluson in his version of the Volsung legend began with ‘Andvari’s gold’, whereas in the Saga it is not introduced until much later, and enters as a story told by Regin himself, son of Hreidmar, to Sigurd before his attack on the dragon. In this section of the Lay we reach that point.

After telling that Sigurd grew up in the house of King Hjalprek the Saga says no more than that Regin became his fosterfather, and that he taught Sigurd many accomplishments, including a knowledge of runes and many languages (see stanza 2). Snorri, on the other hand, continues the story of Hreidmar and the gold of Andvari beyond the point where my father left it at the end of section I of the Lay.

‘What more is to be said of the gold?’ Snorri wrote, and then told this story. Hreidmar took the gold, but his other sons Fafnir and Regin claimed for themselves some part of the blood-money paid for their brother. Hreidmar would give them nothing (‘Redgolden rings I will rule alone’, I.15); and Fafnir and Regin slew their father. Then Regin demanded that Fafnir should share the treasure with him equally, but Fafnir replied that there was small chance of that, since he had killed his father for the sake of it; and he told Regin to be gone, or else he would suffer the same fate as their father.

Then Fafnir took the helm which Hreidmar had owned, and set it upon his head – the helm which is called ?gishjalmr, Helm of Terror: all living things fear it. Then Fafnir going up onto Gnitahei?i made himself a lair; and he turned himself into a dragon, and laid himself down upon the gold (as Glaurung did in Nargothrond). But Regin fled away, and came to King Hjalprek, and became his smith; Sigurd was his fosterson.

Having already told the story of the origin of the hoard, Snorri continued now with the story of Regin’s dealings with Sigurd and the slaying of Fafnir. With that story this section of the Lay is concerned; but before reaching it, as noted earlier (see pp.190–91), my father followed the Saga in introducing here the story of Andvari’s gold (or, in the case of the Lay, reintroducing it) as a story told by Regin in answer to Sigurd’s demanding why he egged him on to slay Fafnir. In this second appearance of the story in the Lay verse-lines are repeated or nearly repeated in a characteristic way (compare I.2–6, 9 with V.7–11), but the ?sir are excluded, and Loki is replaced by a nameless ‘robber roving ruthless-handed’ (8). In V.12–14, however, Regin’s tale now brings in the slaying of Hreidmar (by Fafnir – that Regin had a part in it is not mentioned, either in the Saga or in the Lay), the strife between the sons, and the transformation of Fafnir into a dragon ‘on Gnitahei?i’.

An important element in the story as told in the Saga is entirely absent from this section of the Lay. After the making of the sword Gram and the acquisition of the horse Grani, Sigurd declared to Regin that he would not attack Fafnir until he had avenged his father; and setting out with a great host and fleet provided by King Hjalprek he achieved this in a bloody battle in which he slew King Lyngvi. But a form of the story of Sigurd’s revenge appears in the Lay at a later point in the narrative (VII.24–29).

14  Gnitahei?i: this name in Old Norse is Gnitahei?r, of which the second element is Old Norse hei?r ‘heath’, and it is variously anglicized as ‘Gnitaheid’, ‘Gnitaheith’, or ‘Gnitaheath’. In my father’s poems it appears several times but always in the combination ‘on Gnitahei?i’. This may be a retention of the dative case, or it may be a use of the modern Icelandic form of the word, which is hei?i.

17–18   It was Sigurd who broke the two swords by striking them on an anvil; whereupon, according to the Saga, he went to his mother and asked whether it were true that Sigmund had entrusted to her the fragments of his sword, and she gave them to him. On the name Gram (Gramr) see the note to IV.13.

20  Both Snorri Sturluson and the Saga know of Sigurd’s testing of the sharpness of Gram by its cutting of the tuft of wool when it drifted in the water onto the sword’s edge; but only in the Lay is the river called the Rhine (Rin in Norse).

‘sheer’: clear.

21  ‘Now rede me’: Now give me counsel.

22–24   Only in the Saga is this story found of how Sigurd came to possess his grey horse Grani (very frequently named in poems of the Edda). The old man is once again Odin (with the description here compare II.12, III.12, IV.8).

      The name Busiltarn is derived from the Saga; the Norse form is Busiltjorn, which was the form first written by my father in the manuscript of the Lay, later corrected in pencil. The English word tarn, a small lake, is derived from the Norse word; but in the Saga the Busiltarn is said to be a river, as it clearly is also in the Lay.

      Sleipnir was the name of Odin’s eight-legged horse.

25  Gand: Regin’s horse is not named elsewhere, but this must be the Old Norse word gandr (contained in ‘Gandalf’). Its original or primary meaning is uncertain, but it has reference to sorcery and magic, both beings and things, and especially to the staff used in witchcraft; it is also use of wolves. The word gandrei? is used of the witches’ nocturnal ride.

      In a lecture on the text of Fafnismal my father remarked on the huge height of the cliff from which Fafnir drank as a good detail in the Saga absent from the poem, since Sigurd thus ‘first got a notion of what he was in for.’