The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga)

Summary

The Story of the Volsungs is a thirteenth-century Icelandic prose saga that tells, from beginning to end, the legend of the Volsung kindred, the dragon-slayer Sigurd and the fall of the Niflungs. The library text is the translation by Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris, first published in 1870, in the 1888 edition, with an introduction, the translators' preface, notes, and an appendix of Morris and Magnússon's versions of related Eddic lays, from the Second Lay of Helgi Hundings-bane to the Lament of Oddrun. The saga begins with Sigi, a son of Odin, and his descendant Volsung, who builds his hall around the oak called the Branstock. At the wedding of Volsung's daughter Signy to King Siggeir of Gothland, a one-eyed stranger thrusts a sword into the tree; only Sigmund, Volsung's son, can draw it. Siggeir resents this, invites the Volsungs to visit, and kills Volsung and all his sons except Sigmund. Signy, bent on vengeance, takes another woman's shape and secretly conceives a son, Sinfjotli, by her brother. Sigmund and Sinfjotli live as outlaws, for a time in wolf-skins, before burning Siggeir in his hall; Signy chooses to die with her husband. Sinfjotli is later poisoned by Sigmund's queen Borghild, and Sigmund falls in his last battle when Odin breaks the sword. Sigmund's son Sigurd is raised at the Danish court of King Hjalprek and fostered by the smith Regin, who tells how the gods paid a ransom of gold for killing his brother Otter, and how Fafnir murdered their father for it and became a dragon. Regin reforges the shards of Sigmund's sword as Gram. Sigurd avenges his father, kills Fafnir from a pit, tastes the dragon's heart-blood and understands the birds, who warn him to kill the treacherous Regin. He wakes the Valkyrie Brynhild on Hindfell, who teaches him runes and counsel, and they pledge themselves to each other. At the court of King Giuki, Queen Grimhild gives Sigurd a drink that makes him forget Brynhild. He marries Gudrun and swears brotherhood with Gunnar and Hogni, then rides through the flames in Gunnar's likeness to win Brynhild for him. When the queens quarrel and the deception comes out, Brynhild demands Sigurd's death; the youngest brother Guttorm kills him, and Brynhild dies on his pyre. Gudrun, given a drink of forgetfulness, marries King Atli, who lures her brothers to his hall for the gold. Hogni laughs as his heart is cut out, and Gunnar, refusing to reveal the hoard, dies in the snake-pit playing his harp. Gudrun takes a terrible revenge on Atli. Her daughter Swanhild is later trampled to death by King Jormunrek, and her last sons, Hamdir and Sorli, die avenging her.

Top Lessons

• The curse that follows the gold

  Andvari's hoard passes from the dwarf to the gods, to Hreidmar, Fafnir, Sigurd and the Giukings, and each owner dies for it. Fafnir warns Sigurd that the gold will be his bane, and the saga bears him out. The story makes greed a force that binds generations into killing, though Gunnar's last refusal to give the gold to Atli turns the hoard into a point of honour.

• Oaths and the price of breaking them

  Sigurd and Brynhild plight their troth; Sigurd, under Grimhild's potion, swears brotherhood with Gunnar and Hogni; the brothers then arrange his killing through Guttorm, who alone has sworn no oath. The saga shows how a society held together by sworn faith collapses when deception and pride set one oath against another.

• Counsel for a hero: Brynhild's wise words

  In Chapters XX-XXI Brynhild gives Sigurd a string of counsels: be kindly to kin and forgive their trespasses, avoid quarrels with fools, keep from strong drink and beguiling women, bury the dead with care. Her advice is the saga's clearest statement of a Northern ethic of prudence and restraint, and much of the later tragedy follows from its neglect.

• Courage facing a known fate

  Grifir tells Sigurd his whole life in advance; dying, Sigurd says no one may fight against his fate and prevail; the Giukings ride to Atli despite runes and dreams of warning. The saga's heroes do not escape fate but meet it with steadiness, as Hogni's laughter and Gunnar's harp show.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The saga is not a medical text, but it is full of poisons, potions, wounds and charms, and the 1888 edition's own note points readers to Cockayne's Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of the Anglo-Saxons for parallel beliefs about spells, dreams and drinks. Sigmund can drink venom unharmed while Sinfjotli dies of Borghild's poisoned horn; Sigmund heals Sinfjotli's bitten throat with a leaf he has seen a weasel use; Grimhild's mingled drinks make first Sigurd and then Gudrun forget, a literary picture of a drug acting on memory and will. Brynhild's rune-lore includes help-runes to loosen a child from its mother and bough-runes for those who love leech-lore, wound-healing charms comparable to Old English charm texts. Brynhild's lying abed as one dead after she learns of the deception, and Gudrun's dry-eyed grief over Sigurd, belong to the literature of grief; a modern reading of either as depressive illness would be an interpretation, not something the saga states. The wolf-skin episode of Sigmund and Sinfjotli shows the Norse idea of shape-changing warriors, later discussed by scholars alongside berserkers.

• Chapter VIII

  Sigmund can eat venom without harm, while Sinfjotli can bear it only on his skin; later, after the wolf-skin fight, Sigmund sees a weasel heal its fellow with a leaf and uses the same herb on Sinfjotli's throat.

• Chapter X

  Queen Borghild offers Sinfjotli the horn three times; Sigmund, by then very drunk, tells him to strain the venom out with his lip, and he dies at once.

• Chapter XII

  Sigmund, mortally wounded on the battlefield, refuses Hjordis's offer of healing because his luck and Odin's favour have left him.

• Chapters XX-XXI

  Brynhild teaches help-runes for childbirth and bough-runes for leech-lore and wound-searching, and counsels careful washing and burial of the dead.

• Chapter XXVI

  Grimhild gives Sigurd a horn of drink, and he forgets Brynhild entirely and remains at the Giuking court.

• Chapter XXIX

  Brynhild lies abed as one dead, will not answer Gunnar, and speaks only of her wrongs before she demands Sigurd's death.

• Chapters XXXV-XXXVI

  Kostbera and Glaumvor recount ominous dreams to their husbands before the ride to Atli, and the men explain each one away.