The Story of Siegfried. Baldwin James
care that no one should come near to despoil him of it. This was ages and ages ago; and still he wallows among his treasures on the Glittering Heath, and guards as of yore the garnered wealth of Andvari.10
When I, Regin, the younger brother, came back in the late evening to my father’s dwelling, I saw that the treasure had been carried away; and, when I beheld the dead serpent lying in its place, I knew that a part of Andvari’s curse had been fulfilled. And a strange fear came over me; and I left every thing behind me, and fled from that dwelling, never more to return. Then I came to the land of the Volsungs, where your father’s fathers dwelt, the noblest king-folk that the world has ever seen. But a longing for the gold and the treasure, a hungry yearning, that would never be satisfied, filled my soul. Then for a time I sought to forget this craving. I spent my days in the getting of knowledge and in teaching men-folk the ancient lore of my kin, the Dwarfs. I taught them how to plant and to sow, and to reap the yellow grain. I showed them where the precious metals of the earth lie hidden, and how to smelt iron from its ores,—how to shape the ploughshare and the spade, the spear and the battle-axe. I taught them how to tame the wild horses of the meadows, and how to train the yoke-beasts to the plough; how to build lordly dwellings and mighty strongholds, and how to sail in ships across old AEgir’s watery kingdom. But they gave me no thanks for what I had done; and as the years went by they forgot who had been their teacher, and they said that it was Frey who had given them this knowledge and skill. And I taught the young maidens how to spin and weave, and to handle the needle deftly,—to make rich garments, and to work in tapestry and embroidery. But they, too, forgot me, and said that it was Freyja who had taught them. Then I showed men how to read the mystic runes aright, and how to make the sweet beverage of poetry, that charms all hearts, and enlightens the world. But they say now that they had these gifts from Odin. I taught them how to fashion the tales of old into rich melodious songs, and with music and sweet-mouthed eloquence to move the minds of their fellow-men. But they say that Bragi taught them this; and they remember me only as Regin, the elfin schoolmaster, or at best as Mimer, the master of smiths. At length my heart grew bitter because of the neglect and ingratitude of men; and the old longing for Andvari’s hoard came back to me, and I forgot much of my cunning and lore. But I lived on and on, and generations of short-lived men arose and passed, and still the hoard was not mine; for I was weak, and no man was strong enough to help me.
Then I sought wisdom of the Norns, the weird women who weave the woof of every creature’s fate.11 12
“How long,” asked I, “must I hope and wait in weary expectation of that day when the wealth of the world and the garnered wisdom of the ages shall be mine?”
And the witches answered, “When a prince of the Volsung race shall come who shall excel thee in the smithying craft, and to whom the All-Father shall give the Shining Hope as a helper, then the days of thy weary watching, shall cease.”
“How long,” asked I, “shall I live to enjoy this wealth and this wisdom, and to walk as a god among men? Shall I be long-lived as the Asa-folk, and dwell on the earth until the last Twilight comes?”
“It is written,” answered Skuld, “that a beardless youth shall see thy death. But go thou now, and bide thy time.”
Here Regin ended his story, and both he and Siegfried sat for a long time silent and thoughtful.
“I know what you wish,” said Siegfried at last. “You think that I am the prince of whom the weird sisters spoke; and you would have me slay the dragon Fafnir, and win for you the hoard of Andvari.”
“It is even so,” answered Regin.
“But the hoard is accursed,” said the lad.
“Let the curse be upon me,” was the answer. “Is not the wisdom of the ages mine? And think you that I cannot escape the curse? Is there aught that can prevail against him who has all knowledge and the wealth of the world at his call?”
“Nothing but the word of the Norns and the will of the All-Father,” answered Siegfried.
“But will you help me?” asked Regin, almost wild with earnestness. “Will you help me to win that which is rightfully mine, and to rid the world of a horrible evil?”
“Why is the hoard of Andvari more thine than Fafnir’s?”
“He is a monster, and he keeps the treasure but to gloat upon its glittering richness. I will use it to make myself a name upon the earth. I will not hoard it away. But I am weak, and he is strong and terrible. Will you help me?”
“To-morrow,” said Siegfried, “be ready to go with me to the Glittering Heath. The treasure shall be thine, and also the curse.”
“And also the curse,” echoed Regin.
Adventure IV. Fafnir, the Dragon
Regin took up his harp, and his fingers smote the strings; and the music which came forth sounded like the wail of the winter’s wind through the dead treetops of the forest. And the song which he sang was full of grief and wild hopeless yearning for the things which were not to be. When he had ceased, Siegfried said,—
“That was indeed a sorrowful song for one to sing who sees his hopes so nearly realized. Why are you so sad? Is it because you fear the curse which you have taken upon yourself? or is it because you know not what you will do with so vast a treasure, and its possession begins already to trouble you?”
“Oh, many are the things I will do with that treasure!” answered Regin; and his eyes flashed wildly, and his face grew red and pale. “I will turn winter into summer; I will make the desert-places glad; I will bring back the golden age; I will make myself a god: for mine shall be the wisdom and the gathered wealth of the world. And yet I fear”—
“What do you fear?”
“The ring, the ring—it is accursed! The Norns, too, have spoken, and my doom is known. I cannot escape it.”
“The Norns have woven the woof of every man’s life,” answered Siegfried. “To-morrow we fare to the Glittering Heath, and the end shall be as the Norns have spoken.”
And so, early the next morning, Siegfried mounted Greyfell, and rode out towards the desert-land that lay beyond the forest and the barren mountain-range; and Regin, his eyes flashing with desire, and his feet never tiring, trudged by his side. For seven days they wended their way through the thick greenwood, sleeping at night on the bare ground beneath the trees, while the wolves and other wild beasts of the forest filled the air with their hideous howlings. But no evil creature dared come near them, for fear of the shining beams of light which fell from Greyfell’s gleaming mane. On the eighth day they came to the open country and to the hills, where the land was covered with black bowlders and broken by yawning chasms. And no living thing was seen there, not even an insect, nor a blade of grass; and the silence of the grave was over all. And the earth was dry and parched, and the sun hung above them like a painted shield in a blue-black sky, and there was neither shade nor water anywhere. But Siegfried rode onwards in the way which Regin pointed out, and faltered not, although he grew faint with thirst and with the overpowering heat. Towards the evening of the next day they came to a dark mountain-wall which stretched far out on either hand, and rose high above them, so steep that it seemed to close up the way, and to forbid them going farther.
“This is the wall!” cried Regin. “Beyond this mountain is the Glittering Heath, and the goal of all my hopes.”
And the little old man ran forwards, and scaled the rough side of the mountain, and reached its summit, while Siegfried and Greyfell were yet toiling among the rocks at its foot. Slowly and painfully they climbed the steep ascent, sometimes following a narrow path which wound along the edge of a precipice, sometimes leaping, from rock to rock, or over some deep gorge, and sometimes picking their way among the crags and cliffs. The sun at last went down, and one by one the stars came out; and the moon was rising, round and red, when Siegfried stood by Regin’s side, and gazed from the mountain-top down upon the Glittering Heath which lay beyond. And a strange, weird scene it was that met his sight. At the foot of the mountain
The Hoard.
This story is found in both the Elder and the Younger Eddas, and is really the basis upon which the entire plot of the legend of Sigurd, or Siegfried, is constructed. See also.
The Norns.
The Norns are the Fates, which watch over man through life. They are Urd the Past, Verdande the Present, and Skuld the Future. They approach every new-born child, and utter his doom. They are represented as spinning the thread of fate, one end of which is hidden by Urd in the far east, the other by Verdande in the far west. Skuld stands ready to rend it in pieces. —See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, p. 405, also Anderson’s Norse Mythology, p. 209.
The three weird women in Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth represent a later conception of the three Norns, now degraded to mere witches.
Compare the Norns with the Fates of the Greek Mythology. These, also, are three in number. They sit clothed in white, and garlanded, singing of destiny. Clotho, the Past, spins; Lachesis, the Present, divides; and Atropos, the Future, stands ready with her shears to cut the thread.
The Idea of Fatality.
Throughout the story of the Nibelungs and Volsungs, of Sigurd and of Siegfried,—whether we follow the older versions or the mote recent renderings,—there is, as it were, an ever-present but indefinable shadow of coming fate, “a low, inarticulate voice of Doom,” foretelling the inevitable. This is but in consonance with the general ideas of our Northern ancestors regarding the fatality which shapes and controls every man’s life. These ideas are embodied in more than one ancient legend. We find them in the old Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf. “To us,” cries Beowulf in his last fight, “to us it shall be as our Weird betides,—that Weird that is every man’s lord!” “Each man of us shall abide the end of his life-work; let him that may work, work his doomed deeds ere death comes!” Similar ideas prevailed among the Greeks. Read, for example, that passage in the Iliad describing the parting of Hector and Andromache, and notice the deeper meaning of Hector’s words.