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Updated: June 15, 2025
The time has come, mother, when thou must put into my hands the broken pieces of Gram, the sword of Sigmund and the Volsungs." Hiordis measured him with the glance of her eyes, and she saw that her son was a mighty youth and one fit to use the sword of Sigmund and the Volsungs. She bade him go with her to the King's Hall.
As he rode toward the forest he thought of Sigmund, his father, whose slaying he had avenged, and he thought of Sigmund's father, Volsung, and of the grim deeds that the Volsungs had suffered and wrought. Rerir, the son of Sigi who was the son of Odin, was the father of Volsung. And Volsung when he was in his first manhood had built his hall around a mighty tree.
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.
Regin said, "Nay it is not so, the fashion and the growth of him is even as of other lingworms, and an over great tale men make of it; and even so would thy forefathers have deemed; but thou, though thou be of the kin of the Volsungs, shalt scarce have the heart and mind of those, who are told of as the first in all deeds of fame."
Because a King sought for me I changed clothes with my serving-maid, my wish being to baffle those who might be sent to carry me away. "Know that I am Hiordis, a King's daughter. Many men came to my father to ask for me in marriage, and of those that came there were two whom I heard much of: one was King Lygni and the other was King Sigmund of the race of the Volsungs.
"Now thou wilt have renown," he cried. "Forever wilt thou be called Sigurd, Fafnir's Bane. More renown than ever any of thy fathers had wilt thou have, O Prince of the Volsungs." So he spoke, saying fair words to him, for now that he was left alive there was something he would have Sigurd do. "Fafnir is slain," Sigurd said, "and the triumph over him was not lightly won.
In this sore emergency the hero appears. He belongs to an heroic race of men, the Volsungs. The unnatural union of the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, born of this race, produces the real hero, Siegfried. The parents pay the penalty of incest with their lives; but Siegfried remains, and Wotan watches his growth and magnificent development with eager interest.
Let him feast with us this night in the Hall of the Branstock and let Signy go from us with him as his wife." Then they looked to her and they saw Signy's face and it was white and stern. "Let it be as ye have said, my father and my brothers," she said. "I will wed King Siggeir and go with him overseas." So she said aloud. But Sigmund heard her say to herself, "It is woe for the Volsungs."
She went within the Hall; then the flames burst over it and all who were within perished. Thus the vengeance of the Volsungs was wrought. And Sigurd thought on the deed that Sigmund, his father, and Sinfiotli, the youth who was his father's kinsman, wrought, as he rode the ways of the forest, and of the things that thereafter befell them.
The day widens now, and we shall go to the Hall." Signy would have spoken of the great army King Siggeir had gathered, but she knew that the Volsungs never harkened to talk of odds. She spoke no more, but bowed her head and went back to King Siggeir's hall. Siggeir knew that Signy had been to warn her father and her brothers.
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