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Updated: June 26, 2025
Sigmund and Sinfjötli are always close comrades, "need-companions" as the Anglo-Saxon calls them. They are indivisible and form one story. Sigurd, on the other hand, is only born after his father Sigmund's death.
"Lo ye! These younglings have bewrayed you; come now therefore and slay them!" Sigmund says, "Never will I slay thy children for telling of where I lay hid." But Sinfjotli made little enow of it, but drew his sword and slew them both, and cast them into the hall at King Siggeir's feet. Then up stood the king and cried on his men to take those who had lain privily in the porch through the night.
And then she sends the boy Sinfjotli to the man he has hitherto considered merely as his uncle, bidding the latter kill him if he prove unworthy of his incestuous birth, or train him to vengeance.
In each case there is the usual irregular birth, in different forms, both familiar; a third type, the miraculous or supernatural birth, is attributed by Völsunga to Sigmund's father Volsung. Each story again includes a deed of vengeance, and a dragon and treasure. The sword which the hero alone could draw, and the wer-wolf, appear only in the Sigmund and Sinfjötli version.
She meditates revenge, and as her two sons grow up to the age of ten, she tests their courage, and finding it wanting makes Sigmund kill both: the expected hero must be a Volsung through both parents. She therefore visits Sigmund in disguise, and her third son, Sinfjötli, is the child of the Volsung pair.
Now when Sinfjotli was come to man's estate, Sigmund deemed he had tried him fully, and or ever a long time has gone by he turns his mind to the avenging of his father, if so it may be brought about; so on a certain day the twain get them gone from their earth-house, and come to the abode of King Siggeir late in the evening, and go into the porch before the hall, wherein were tuns of ale, and there they lie hid: now the queen is ware of them, where they are, and is fain to meet them; and when they met they took counsel, and were of one mind that Volsung should be revenged that same night.
The prose-piece Sinfjötli's Death also makes Helgi half-brother to Sinfjötli; it is followed in this by Völsunga Saga, which devotes a chapter to Helgi, paraphrasing Helyi Hundingsbane I. There is, of course, confusion over the Hunding episode; the saga is obliged to reconcile its conflicting authorities by making Helgi kill Hunding and some of his sons, and Sigurd kill the rest.
If the theory stated below as to the original Helgi legend be correct, the feud with Hunding's race, as told in these poems, must be extraneous. I conjecture that it belonged originally to the Volsung cycle, and to the wer-wolf Sinfjötli.
The brother of King Hodbrod, lord of a land called Swarin's Cairn, cried out to them, and asked them who was captain over that mighty army. Then up stands Sinfjotli, with a helm on his head, bright shining as glass, and a byrny as white as snow; a spear in his hand, and thereon a banner of renown, and a gold-rimmed shield hanging before him; and well he knew with what words to speak to kings
But ere Sinfjotli has fared long through the woods, eleven men meet him, and he wrought in such wise that he slew them all, and was awearied therewith, and crawls under an oak, and there takes his rest. Then came Sigmund thither, and said "Why didst thou not call on me?" Sinfjotli said, "I was loth to call for thy help for the slaying of eleven men."
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