Heroes & Legends · free to read
Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer
The sword in the tree
The Völsung line is marked from the start as half-divine and wholly doomed. At a great feast in King Völsung's hall, built around a living tree called the Branstock, a one-eyed stranger in a grey cloak strode in, drove a sword to the hilt into the trunk, and declared it the prize of whoever could pull it free. The stranger was Óðinn, and the sword was his gift and his test.[1]
One man after another tried and failed. Only Sigmundr, Völsung's son, drew it out — clean, as though it had waited for his hand alone. It is the deep root of a story the whole world half-knows: the god-given blade, the chosen man, the weapon that will pass down a bloodline of heroes. But a Völsung gift is never free. The same Óðinn who gave the sword would one day, in another battle, shatter it against his own spear — and Sigmundr would fall.
The source text · 1
The tale tells that great fires were made endlong the hall, and the great tree aforesaid stood midmost thereof; withal folk say that, whenas men sat by the fires in the evening, a certain man came into the hall unknown of aspect to all men; and suchlike array he had, that over him was a spotted cloak, and he was bare-foot, and had linen-breeches knit tight even unto the bone, and he had a sword in his hand as he went up to the Branstock, and a slouched hat upon his head: huge he was, and seeming-ancient, and one-eyed. (2) So he drew his sword and smote it into the tree-trunk so that it sank in up to the hilts; and all held back from greeting the man. Then he took up the word, and said—— volsunga saga
The reforged blade
Sigmundr's son Sigurð was born after his father's death, fostered at a king's court, and raised by a cunning smith named Reginn — who had his own designs. Reginn told Sigurð a dark family tale: of the otter's-ransom gold, of the dwarf Andvari whose hoard was seized with a curse laid on every future owner, and of how Reginn's own brother had turned dragon to brood over it.[1]
Reginn wanted that gold, and wanted Sigurð to win it for him. He forged sword after sword, but Sigurð shattered each on the anvil — until they took the broken shards of Sigmundr's own god-given blade and welded them anew. This was Gram: so keen it split the anvil and sheared a tuft of wool drifting down a stream. With his father's reforged sword and a horse of Óðinn's own breeding, Sigurð was ready. Reginn pointed him at the dragon.[2]
The source text · 2
"The tale begins," said Regin. "Hreidmar was my father's name, a mighty man and a wealthy: and his first son was named Fafnir, his second Otter, and I was the third, and the least of them all both for prowess and good conditions, but I was cunning to work in iron, and silver, and gold, whereof I could make matters that availed somewhat. Other skill my brother Otter followed, and had another nature withal, for he was a great fisher, and above other men herein; in that he had the likeness of an otter by day, and dwelt ever in the river, and bare fish to bank in his mouth, and his prey would he ever bring to our father, and that availed him much: for the most part he kept him in his otter-gear, and then he would come home, and eat alone, and slumbering, for on the dry land he might see naught. But Fafnir was by far the greatest and grimmest, and would have all things about called his.— volsunga saga
"Behold thy smithying, Regin!" and therewith smote it into the anvil, and the sword brake; so he cast down the brand, and bade him forge a better.— volsunga saga
The slaying of Fáfnir
Sigurð rode to Gnitaheiðr, where the dragon Fáfnir — once a man, now a monstrous venom-spouting worm — crawled each day to drink, his bulk so vast his track astonished even Sigurð. Reginn's counsel was to dig a single pit and stab upward as the dragon passed over. But a grey old man — Óðinn again, unnamed — appeared and gave better advice: dig many pits, so the scalding venom-blood could drain away and not drown the slayer.[1]
So Sigurð waited in the pit while the earth shook and the worm came on snorting poison, unflinching, and drove Gram up under the left shoulder to the hilt, into the heart. The dying Fáfnir, in the long uncanny exchange that follows, asks his slayer's name and lineage, speaks of the Norns and fate — and gives the warning that is the whole engine of the tragedy: the gold he has guarded will be Sigurð's bane, and the bane of everyone who ever owns it.[2] Sigurð answers that every brave man wants his hand on wealth till his last day, and takes the hoard regardless. The curse now rides with him.
The source text · 2
Then answered the old man and said, "Thou doest after sorry counsel: rather dig thee many pits, and let the blood run therein; but sit thee down in one thereof, and so thrust the worm's heart through."— volsunga saga
"Ride there then," said Fafnir, "and thou shalt find gold enow to suffice thee for all thy life-days; yet shall that gold be thy bane, and the bane of every one soever who owns it."— volsunga saga
Dragon's blood, and the speech of birds
Reginn, who had hidden during the killing, now claimed his price — but he meant Sigurð's death as well as the gold. He bade Sigurð roast the dragon's heart for him. As Sigurð turned it on the fire he burned his thumb on the hot blood, put it to his mouth — and at the taste of Fáfnir's heart-blood he suddenly understood the speech of birds.[1]
The birds in the branches above were talking of him: that Reginn meant to betray him, and that the wise course was to kill the smith and keep the gold himself. Forewarned by the dragon's own blood, Sigurð struck off Reginn's head.[2] Then he loaded Gram's treasure — Andvari's cursed hoard — onto his horse and rode away the richest and most renowned man in the world, and the most surely doomed.
The source text · 2
Thereafter came Regin to Sigurd, and said, "Hail, lord and master, a noble victory hast thou won in the slaying of Fafnir, whereas none durst heretofore abide in the path of him; and now shall this deed of fame be of renown while the world stands fast."— volsunga saga
Thereafter came Regin to Sigurd, and said, "Hail, lord and master, a noble victory hast thou won in the slaying of Fafnir, whereas none durst heretofore abide in the path of him; and now shall this deed of fame be of renown while the world stands fast."— volsunga saga
The valkyrie behind the fire
Riding on, Sigurð came to Hindarfjall, a mountain ringed with a wall of flame. He rode Gram's horse through the fire and found within a sleeper in full armour. Cutting the byrnie away, he saw it was a woman — Brynhildr, a valkyrie whom Óðinn had pricked with a sleep-thorn and shut behind the fire as punishment, dooming her to wake only for a man who knew no fear.[1]
Sigurð woke her, and she taught him wisdom and runes, and they pledged themselves to each other — the fearless hero and the warrior-woman, the one match in the world fit for either. For a moment the legend holds the possibility of joy. But the cursed gold was on Sigurð's horse, and the curse does not allow joy. What should have been the great love of the age becomes, through a potion and a deception, the great betrayal.
The source text · 1
By long roads rides Sigurd, till he comes at the last up on to Hindfell, and wends his way south to the land of the Franks; and he sees before him on the fell a great light, as of fire burning, and flaming up even unto the heavens; and when he came thereto, lo, a shield-hung castle before him, and a banner on the topmost thereof: into the castle went Sigurd, and saw one lying there asleep, and all-armed. Therewith he takes the helm from off the head of him, and sees that it is no man, but a woman; and she was clad in a byrny as closely set on her as though it had grown to her flesh; so he rent it from the collar downwards; and then the sleeves thereof, and ever the sword bit on it as if it were cloth. Then said Sigurd that over-long had she lain asleep; but she asked—— volsunga saga
The potion and the deception
At the court of the Giukings, the queen gave Sigurð a potion of forgetfulness, and he forgot Brynhildr utterly and married the king's daughter Guðrún. Then, bound now to the family, he was drawn into their scheme: Gunnarr, Guðrún's brother, wished to win Brynhildr, but could not ride the wall of fire. So Sigurð, in Gunnarr's shape by magic, rode the flames a second time and won Brynhildr for another man — lying chastely beside her with his sword between them, but wooing her in Gunnarr's name.[1]
Brynhildr married Gunnarr believing he was the fearless rider who had braved the fire. The truth — that it was Sigurð, who had once been hers, now another woman's husband — surfaced in a bitter quarrel between the two queens over precedence. When Brynhildr understood how she had been deceived, that the one man worthy of her had won her for a lesser and then forgotten her, her love turned to a cold and absolute will for his death.[2]
The source text · 2
Now they array them joyously for their journey, and ride over hill and dale to the house of King Budli, and woo his daughter of him; in a good wise he took their speech, if so be that she herself would not deny them; but he said withal that so high-minded was she, that that man only might wed her whom she would.— volsunga saga
After this talk Brynhild lay a-bed, and tidings were brought to King Gunnar that Brynhild was sick; he goes to see her thereon, and asks what ails her; but she answered him naught, but lay there as one dead: and when he was hard on her for an answer, she said—— volsunga saga
The slaying of Sigurð
Brynhildr drove Gunnarr and his brothers to murder. Bound to Sigurð by sworn oaths, they set their younger brother — unsworn — to do the deed, and he killed Sigurð in his bed beside Guðrún (in some tellings out hunting), the cursed gold claiming its greatest owner exactly as the dragon foretold.[1]
And Brynhildr's triumph was her grief. Having compassed the death of the only man she had ever loved — destroyed him rather than endure that he lived as another's — she laughed once aloud, then gave away her treasure, lay down on Sigurð's funeral pyre, and ran herself through with a sword, to burn beside him in death as she could not live beside him in life.[2] The hoard passed on to the Giukings, carrying its curse forward into the next wave of slaughter; the bane of the gold was nowhere near spent.
The source text · 2
So Guttorm went in to Sigurd the next morning as he lay upon his bed, yet durst he not do aught against him, but shrank back out again; yea, and even so he fared a second time, for so bright and eager were the eyes of Sigurd that few durst look upon him. But the third time he went in, and there lay Sigurd asleep; then Guttorm drew his sword and thrust Sigurd through in such wise that the sword point smote into the bed beneath him; then Sigurd awoke with that wound, and Guttorm gat him unto the door; but therewith Sigurd caught up the sword Gram, and cast it after him, and it smote him on the back, and struck him asunder in the midst, so that the feet of him fell one way, and the head and hands back into the chamber.— volsunga saga
"Such a dream I had, Gunnar, as that my bed was acold, and that thou didst ride into the hands of thy foes: lo now, ill shall it go with thee and all thy kin, O ye breakers of oaths; for on the day thou slayedst him, dimly didst thou remember how thou didst blend thy blood with the blood of Sigurd, and with an ill reward hast thou rewarded him for all that he did well to thee; whereas he gave unto thee to be the mightiest of men; and well was it proven how fast he held to his oath sworn, when he came to me and laid betwixt us the sharp-edged sword that in venom had been made hard. All too soon did ye fall to working wrong against him and against me, whenas I abode at home with my father, and had all that I would, and had no will that any one of you should be any of mine, as ye rode into our garth, ye three kings together; but then Atli led me apart privily, and asked me if I would not have him who rode Grani; yea, a man nowise like unto you; but in those days I plighted myself to the son of King Sigmund and no other; and lo, now, no better shall ye fare for the death of me."— volsunga saga
The curse that outruns the hero
Sigurð's death is not the end but the hinge. The cursed gold passes to Guðrún's kin and then, when she is later wedded against her will to Atli (Attila the Hun), draws the Giukings to their doom in his hall — a second cycle of treachery, slaughter and revenge that the saga carries on long after its hero is ash.[1]
That is the deep shape of the Völsung legend, and what sets it apart from the historical sagas: it is governed not by feud-law and honour but by fate — a curse laid on gold at the world's mythic dawn, working itself out across generations no matter what any hero does. Sigurð is the brightest figure in all Norse story, and he cannot escape it any more than the dragon could. This is the tale that flowed down into the German Nibelungenlied, into Wagner's Ring, into the dragon and the cursed ring of Tolkien — and here, in the Völsunga saga, is its cold northern source.
The source text · 1
Now so it is, that whoso heareth these tidings sayeth, that no such an one as was Sigurd was left behind him in the world, nor ever was such a man brought forth because of all the worth of him, nor may his name ever minish by eld in the Dutch Tongue nor in all the Northern Lands, while the world standeth fast.— volsunga saga
Walk this journey on the map
Follow Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer location by location across the Norse world, and unlock every other journey and thread in the full atlas.
Open it in the atlas →