Part 5

When Völund and Egil, angry at the gods, abandoned Frey to the power of the giants and set out for the Wolfdales, they were unable to take with them their immense treasures inherited from their father and augmented by themselves. Nor did they need them for their purposes. Völund carried with him a golden fountain in his wealth-bringing arm-ring (see Nos. 87, 98, 101) from which the seven hundred rings, that Nidad to his astonishment discovered in his smithy, must have come. But the riches left by the brothers ought not to fall into the hands of the gods, who were their enemies. Consequently they were concealed. Saxo (Book V, p. 123) says of the father of Svipdag-Ericus, that is to say, of Örvandil-Egil, that he long had had great treasures concealed in earth caves (gazæ, quas diu clausæ telluris antra condiderant). The same is true of Gjuki-Slagfinn, who went with his brothers to the Wolfdales. Vilkinasaga (see below) has rescued an account of a treasure which was preserved in the interior of a mountain, and which he owned. The same is still more and particularly applicable to Völund, as he was the most famous smith of the mythology and of the heroic saga. The popular fancy conceived these treasures left and concealed by Völund as being kept in earth caves, or in mountain halls, guarded and brooded over by dragons. Or it conceived them as lying on the bottom of the sea, or in the bottom of deep rivers, guarded by some dwarf inhabiting a rocky island near by. Many of the songs and sagas of heathendom and of the older days of Christianity were connected with the refinding and acquisition of the Niblung hoard by some hero or other as the Volsung Sigmund, the Borgar descendant Hadding-Dieterich, and Siegfried-Sigurd Fafnisbani. The Niflung treasure, hodd Niflunga (Atlakviða 26), Nibelunge Hort, is in its more limited sense these Völund treasures, and in its most general signification the golden wealth left by the three brothers. This wealth the saga represents as gathered again largely in the hands of the Gjukungs, after Sigurd, upon the victory over Fafnir, has reunited the most important one of Völund's concealed treasures with that of the Gjukungs, and has married the Gjukung sister Gudrun. The German tradition, preserved in middle-age poems, shows that the continental Teutons long remembered that the Nibelunge Hort originally was owned by Völund, Egil, and Slagfinn-Gjuki. In Lied von Siegfried the treasure is owned by three brothers who are "Niblungs". Only one of them is named, and he is called King Euglin, a name which, with its variation Eugel, manifestly is a variation of Eigel, as be is called in the Orentel saga and in Vilkinasaga, and of Egil as he is called in the Norse records. King Euglin is, according to Lied von Siegfried, an interpreter of stars. Siegfried bids him Lasz mich deyner kunst geniessen, Astronomey genannt. This peculiar statement is explained by the myth according to which Örvandil-Egil is a star-hero. Egil becomes, like Atlas of the antique mythology, a king versed in astronomy in the historical interpretation of mythology. In Nibelunge Noth the treasure is owned by "the valiant" Niblungs, Schilbunc and Niblunc. Schilbunc is the Norse Skilfingur, and I have already shown above that Ivaldi-Svigdir is the progenitor of the Skilfings. The poem Biterolf knows that the treasure originally belonged to Nibelót, der machet himele guldin; selber wolt er got sin. These remarkable words have their only explanation in the myths concerning the Niflung Völund, who first ornamented Asgard with golden works of art, and subsequently wished to destroy the inhabitants of Asgard in order to be god himself. The Norse heroic saga makes the treasures brooded over by Fafnir to have been previously guarded by the dwarf Andvari, and makes the latter (Reginsmál 5) refer to the first owner. The saga characterises the treasure guarded by him as það gull, er Gustur átti. In the very nature of the case the first maker and possessor of these works must have been one of the most celebrated artists of the mythology; and as Gustur means "wind," "breath of wind"; as, again, Völund in the mythology is the only artist who is designated by a synonym of Gustr, that is, by Byr, "wind" (Völundarkviða 13), and by Loptur, "the airy one" (Fjölsvinnsmál 26); as, furthermore, the song cycle concerning Sigurd Fafnisbani is connected with the children of Gjuki, Völund's brother, and in several other respects strikes roots down into the myth concerning Ivaldi's sons; and as, finally, the German tradition shows an original connection between Nibelunge Hort and the treasures of the Ivaldi sons, then every fact goes to show that in Gustur we have an epithet of Völund, and that the Niflung hoard, both in the Norse and in the German Sigurd-Siegfried saga was the inheritance and the works of Völund and his brothers. Vigfusson assumes that the first part of the compound Slagfinn is slagur, "a tone," "a melody," played on a stringed instrument. The correctness of this opinion is corroborated by the fact that Slagfinn-Gjuki's son, Gunnar, is the greatest player on stringed instruments in the heroic literature. In the den of serpents he still plays his harp, so that the crawling venomous creatures are enchanted by the tones. This wonderful art of his is explained by the fact that his father is "the stringed instrument's" Finn, that is, Slagfinn. The horse Grani, who carries Sigurd and the hoard taken from Fafnir, probably at one time bore Völund himself, when he proceeded to the Wolfdales. Grani at all events had a place in the Völund-myth. The way traversed by Völund from his own golden realm to the Wolfdales, and which in part was through the northern regions of the lower world (fyr nágrindur neðan - Fjölsvinnsmál 26) is in Völundarkviða 14 called Grani´s way. Finally, it must here be stated that Sigurdrifa, to whom Sigurd proceeds after he has gotten possession of Fafnir's treasure (Grípisspá 13-15), is a mythic character transferred to the heroic saga, who, as shall be shown in the second part of this work, held a conspicuous position in the myths concerning the Ivaldi sons and their swan-maids. She is, in fact, the heroic copy of Idunn, and originally she had nothing to do with Budli's daughter Brynhild. The cycle of the Sigurd songs thus attaches itself as the last ring or circle in the powerful epic to the myth concerning the Ivaldi sons. The Sigurd songs arch themselves over the fateful treasures which were smithied and left by the fallen Lucifer of the Teutonic mythology, and which, like his sword of revenge and his arrow of revenge, are filled with curses and coming woe. In the heroic poems the Ivaldi sons are their owners. The son's son Svipdag wields the sword of revenge. The son's sons Gunnar and Högni go as the possessors of the Niblung treasure to meet their ruin. The myth concerning their fathers, the Ivaldi sons, arches itself over the enmity caused by Loki between the gods on the one hand, and the great artists, the elf-princes, the protectors of growth, the personified forces of the life of nature, on the other hand. In connection herewith the myth about Ivaldi himself revolves mainly around "the mead," the soma, the strength-giving saps in nature. He too, like his sons afterwards, gets into conflict with the gods and rebels against them, seeks to deprive them of the soma sap which he had discovered, allies himself with Suttung's sons, in whose keeping the precious liquid is rediscovered, and is slain outside of their door, while Odin is within and carries out the plan by which the mead becomes accessible to gods and to men (see No. 89). This chain of events thus continues through three generations. And interwoven with it is the chain of events opposed to it, which develops through the generations of the other great mythic race of heroes: that of the Heimdall son Borgar, of the Borgar son Halfdan, and of the Halfdan sons Hadding and Guthorm (Dieterich and Ermenrich). Borgar fights and must yield to the assault of Ivaldi, and subsequently of his sons from the North in alliance with the powers of frost (see Nos. 22, 28). Halfdan contends with Ivaldi's sons, recaptures for vegetation the Teutonic country as far as to "Svarin's mound," but is slain by Ivaldi's grandson Svipdag, armed with the Völund sword (see Nos. 32, 33, 102, 103). In the conflict between Svipdag and Guthorm-Ermenrich on the one side, and Hadding on the other, we see the champions divided into two camps according to the mythological antecedents of their families: Amalians and Hildings on Hadding's side, the descendants of Ivaldi on the other (see Nos. 42, 43). Accordingly, the Gjukungs, "the kings on the Rhine," are in the German tradition on Ermenrich's side. Accordingly, Vidga Völund's son, in spite of his bond of friendship with Hadding-Dieterich, also fights under Ermenrich's banner. Accordingly, Vildebur-Egil is again called to life in the heroic saga, and there appears as the protector and helper of the Völund son, his own nephew. And accordingly, Vati-Walther, too (see No. 123), identical with Ivaldi, Völund's father, is reproduced in the heroic saga to bear the banner of Ermenrich in the battles (cp. No. 43).