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Then Fafni, one of the two remaining sons, killed his father, first victim of the curse, for the sake of the gold. He carried it away and lay guarding it in the shape of a snake. But Regin the smith did not give up his hopes of possessing the hoard: he adopted as his foster-son Sigurd the Volsung, thus getting into his power the hero fated to slay the dragon.
The fight with Fafni is not described in verse, very little of this poetry being in narrative form; but Fafnismal gives a dialogue between the wounded dragon and his slayer. Fafni warns the Volsung against the hoard: "The ringing gold and the glowing treasure, the rings shall be thy death."
The bright-haired lady will offer thee her daughter." Völsunga gives additional details: Brynhild knows her deliverer to be Sigurd Sigmundsson and the slayer of Fafni, and they swear oaths to each other.
On one side we see emblems of the Four Evangelists and the figures of saints; on the other are scenes from the Sigurd legend. Sigurd sits at the anvil with hammer and tongs and bellows, forging a sword. Above him is shown the magic blade completed, with hammer and tongs, while Fafni writhes in the knotted throes that everywhere signify his death. Sigurd is seen toasting Fafni's heart on a spit.
Sigurd disregards the warning with the maxim "Every man must die some time," and asks questions of the dragon in the manner of Vafthrudnismal. Fafni, after repeating his warning, speaks of his brother's intended treachery: "Regin betrayed me, he will betray thee; he will be the death of both of us," and dies. Regin returning bids Sigurd roast Fafni's heart, while he sleeps.
For this again we have to depend entirely on the prose, except for one line in Hyndluljod: "The Father of Hosts gives gold to his followers;... he gave Sigmund a sword." And from the poems too, Sigurd's fatherless childhood is only to be inferred from an isolated reference, where giving himself a false name he says to Fafni: "I came a motherless child; I have no father like the sons of men."
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