Níðuðr

Níðuðr is the cruel, greedy king whose cruelty calls down one of the most savage revenges in the Edda. Coveting the matchless work of the smith Völund, he seizes the craftsman, robs him of his treasures and his magic ring, and — to keep him captive at the forge forever — has him hamstrung, crippled so he cannot escape, and set on a lonely island to make wealth for his captor. It is a calculated, profitable cruelty: maim the genius, keep the genius working. But Völund's revenge is total and exact — he kills the king's two young sons, makes treasures of their skulls and eyes and teeth and sends them to the unknowing royal parents, violates the king's daughter, and then flies away on wings of his own forging to taunt the man he has ruined. Níðuðr is left with everything: the smith's gold, his sons dead in his hands, his line poisoned. The corpus's portrait of greed that maims what it wants to own, and is destroyed by the very genius it tried to cage.