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Updated: June 12, 2025
In the old Scandinavian civilization, where the Viking is surrounded and served by clansmen, the feeling of blood relationship is the strongest in people's hearts; strangely and fearfully shown in the introductory tale of Signy, who, in order to avenge her father Volsung, killed by her husband, murders her children by the latter, and then, altered in face by magic arts, goes forth to the woods to her brother Sigmund, that, un-wittingly, he may beget with her the only man fit to avenge the Volsungs.
Heimskringla, a thirteenth century history of the royal races of Scandinavia, traces the descent of the Norse kings from her. This Ermanric story, which belongs to legendary history rather than myth, is in reality quite independent of the Volsung or Nibelung cycle.
But in the half light of the dawn one came to the Volsung ship. A cloak and hood covered the figure, but Sigmund, who was the watcher, knew who it was. "Signy!" he said, and Signy asked that her father and her brothers be awakened until she would speak to them of a treason that was brewed against them. "King Siggeir has made ready a great army against your coming," she told them.
Sigurd of yore, Sought the dwelling of Giuki, As he fared, the young Volsung, After fight won; Troth he took From the two brethren; Oath swore they betwixt them, Those bold ones of deed. A may they gave to him And wealth manifold, Gudrun the young, Giuki's daughter: They drank and gave doom Many days together, Sigurd the young, And the sons of Giuki.
Here at first he was full of Brynhildr, and all for going back to fetch his lovely bride from the lone fell. But Grimhildr was given to dark arts; she longed for the brave Volsung for her own daughter, she brewed him the philtre of forgetfulness, he drained it off, forgot Brynhildr, swore a brother's friendship with Gunnar and Hogni, and wedded the fair Gudrun.
The next fragment brings Regin and Sigurd together, and the smith takes the young Volsung for his foster-son. A speech of Sigurd's follows, in which he refuses to seek the treasure till he has avenged his father on Hunding's sons. The rest of the poem is concerned with the battle with Hunding's race, and Sigurd's meeting with Odin by the way.
That the defeated side sometimes consoled themselves with this explanation of a notable warrior's fall is proved by the tenth-century dirge on Eirik Bloodaxe, where Sigmund the Volsung asks in Valhalla: "Why didst thou take the victory from him, if thou thoughtest him brave?" and Odin replies: "Because it is uncertain when the grey Wolf will come to the seat of the Gods."
That strange scene where Siegmund lies on the hearth again, and, realising his desperate situation, calls on his father the Volsung for aid, is musically and dramatically splendid in its colour and force. As he thinks of Sieglinda a feeling of spring again comes into the music; thus is strengthened the beautiful music she is given; then comes the avowal of love, and the flying open of the door.
Travels in Iceland led to the writing of Three Northern Love Stories, and the epic of Sigurd the Volsung . His translation of the Odyssey in verse appeared 1887.
The Anglo-Saxon gives Völund and Bödvild a son, Widia or Wudga, the Wittich who appears as a follower of Dietrich's in the Continental German sources. The Volsungs. No story better illustrates the growth of heroic legend than the Volsung cycle.
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