Böðvild

Böðvild is the broken seal on Völund's revenge. The daughter of the cruel King Níðuð, who had the smith Völund hamstrung and imprisoned on an island to forge treasures for him, she comes to the captive craftsman to have a broken ring mended — and he drugs her, and lies with her, leaving her with child. It is the last and most intimate stroke of his vengeance: having already killed Níðuð's young sons and made their skulls and eyes and teeth into jewels for the royal family, Völund violates the daughter too, and then rises on wings he has secretly forged and flies away, calling down from the air all that he has done. Böðvild's halting confession that she was on the isle with Völund and could not resist him is one of the rawest moments in the Eddic poems — the innocent caught in another's revenge, whose grief is real even as it completes the smith's terrible justice.