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I killed them, and of their bones made vessels for your table. Your daughter Badhild is my wife. So have I repaid evil with evil, and our connection is ended." With these words he flew away, while Nidung in great anger cried: "Eigil, shoot at Wayland." "I cannot harm my own brother," replied Eigil. "Shoot," cried the king, "or I will kill you."
The smith slipped the jewel on her finger, gazed into her eyes and said, "This ring you shall keep as well as your own, if you will be my bride." The maiden could not refuse, and so the two were married, agreeing to keep their union a secret. About this time Eigil, the brother of Wayland, came to the court of Nidung.
Then Nidung sent his servants far and wide throughout the country, and when the boys were nowhere to be found, he concluded that they must have been devoured by wild animals.
"My sons!" cried Nidung. "Oh, tell me what you know of them." "I will tell you, but first you must swear to me by the deck of the ship and the edge of the shield, by the back of the horse and the blade of the sword that you will do no harm to my wife and child." Nidung swore and Wayland began his speech: "Go to my smithy, and there in the cave you will find the remains of your sons.
A long time later, Badhild, the king's daughter, while playing with her companions in the garden one day, broke a costly ring that Nidung had given her. She was greatly vexed and feared to tell her father. "Why not take it to Wayland to mend?" suggested one of her trusted maidens. So Badhild gave the trinket to the girl and bade her take it to Wayland. She brought it back with her.
Like legends are also related of Olaf, Eindridi, and an almost identical one to that of William Tell of Egil, who, being ordered by King Nidung to shoot an apple off the head of the son of the former, took two arrows from his quiver and prepared to obey. On the King asking why he had selected two arrows, Egil replied, "To shoot thee, tyrant, with the second, should the first fail."
But their vulcan was the Germanic Wieland, the master-smith captured and hamstrung lame of a leg by Nidung, the kind of the Nids. But before that he was our master-smith, our forger and hammerer, whom we named Il-marinen. And him we begat of our fancy, giving him the bearded sun-god for father, and nursing him by the stars of the bear.
"Behold your king," he cried, "and until he is grown to manhood I will stand beside him." So Frithiof married his beloved Ingeborg, and later, so the story runs, he returned to his own country and built again the temple of Balder, more beautiful by far than any before. King Nidung had one daughter and three sons.
That once on a time old Nidung, the king of that land, in order to test his skill with the bow, bade him shoot an apple, or, as some say, an acorn, from the head of his own little son. And Eigill did this; but two other arrows, which he had hidden beneath his coat, dropped to the ground.
Nidung, meantime, was sad and unhappy, and it was not long before he died and Otvin, his son, succeeded to the throne. Otvin was soon loved and honored throughout the kingdom because of his great justice and kindness. His sister lived with him at court, and there her son, Widge, was born.
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