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But Fafnir was by far the greatest and grimmest, and would have all things about called his.
"Hreidmar was my father's name, a mighty man and a wealthy: and his first son was named Fafnir, his second Otter, and I was the third, and the least of them all both for prowess and good conditions, but I was cunning to work in iron, and silver, and gold, whereof I could make matters that availed somewhat.
So Sigurd understands the language of birds, after eating the blood of Fafnir the Worm. But all this throws little light upon the story itself. Bolte gives, i., 323-4, many folk-tales in which the hero becomes not a pope but a king and compares the story of Joseph in the Bible as possibly a source of the Prophetic Dream of the father and mother waiting upon the son.
No sooner were the strange huntsmen well out of sight than Fafnir and Regin began to ask their father to divide the glittering hoard with them. "By our strength and through our advice," said they, "this great store has come into your hands. Let us place it in three equal heaps, and then let each take his share and go his way."
The full story of Sigurds ancestry it is unnecessary to deal with here, as it has little influence on the connexion of the story of the Volsungs with the Nibelungenlied. Sigurd came under the tutelage of Regin, the son of Hreithmar and brother of Fafnir, received the magic steed Grani from the king, and then was requested by Regin to assist him in obtaining the treasure guarded by Fafnir.
The word originally means sister, and is used throughout the Eddaic poems as a dignified synonym for woman, lady. Now Sigurd and Regin ride up the heath along that same way wherein Fafnir was wont to creep when he fared to the water; and folk say that thirty fathoms was the height of that cliff along which he lay when he drank of the water below.
At this the farmer waxed very angry; and he loudly declared that he would keep all the treasure for himself, and that his sons should not have any portion of it whatever. So Fafnir and Regin, nursing their disappointment, went to the fields to watch their sheep; but their father sat down to guard his new-gotten treasure.
Then will Fafnir be slain and the hoard will be left guardless." "What thou sayst is wise, Regin," Sigurd answered. "We will make this pit and I will strike Fafnir in the way thou sayst." Then Sigurd went and he rode upon Grani, his proud horse, and he showed himself to King Alv and to Hiordis, his mother.
First Fafnir, the Dragon, killed his own father, and then he went and wallowed on the gold, and would let his brother have none, and no man dared go near it. When Sigurd heard the story he said to Regin: 'Make me a good sword that I may kill this Dragon. So Regin made a sword, and Sigurd tried it with a blow on a lump of iron, and the sword broke.
And having come as far as those hills he bade his men return to King Alv's hall with the spoils he had won. They went, and Sigurd stayed upon the hills and looked across Gnita Heath to where Fafnir the Dragon had his lair. All blasted and wasted was the Heath with the fiery breath of the Dragon. And he saw the cave where Fafnir abode, and he saw the track that his comings and goings made.
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