Gram- Norse ArtifactArtifact · Weapon"The Sword of Sigurd"

Odin's Gift

Gram, "Wrath," begins a generation before Sigurd, with his father Sigmund. At a feast celebrating the marriage of Sigmund's sister Signý to the Swedish king Siggeir, an old man entered the hall uninvited. He was tall and grey-bearded, with a broad hat pulled low over his face, concealing a missing eye. In his hand he carried a sword.

Without a word, the stranger thrust the blade into Barnstock, the living tree that grew through the center of the hall, burying it to the hilt. Then he spoke: "Whoever draws this sword shall have it as a gift from me, and he shall find that he never bore a better weapon in his hand." He left, and all present knew they had seen Odin.

Every warrior at the feast tried to draw the sword. None could move it. Then Sigmund gripped the hilt and pulled the blade free with no effort at all.

The Sword Shattered

Gram served Sigmund through decades of battle, through the destruction of his family by Siggeir, through his vengeance and his rise to kingship. But the gift that Odin gives, Odin can take away.

In Sigmund's final battle against King Lyngvi and the sons of Hunding, a one-eyed stranger appeared on the field. He held a spear before him. When Sigmund struck at him, Gram shattered against Gungnir. The Allfather had reclaimed what he had given. Without his weapon, wounded and surrounded, Sigmund fell.

Hjördís came to the battlefield that night and found him still alive among the slain. She offered to tend his wounds. He refused. "My luck has turned," he said. "Odin wishes me to fight no more." He asked her to gather the fragments and keep them for his unborn son. "From these pieces shall be forged a good sword, which shall be called Gram, and our son shall do many a great deed therewith." Then Sigmund died.

Reforged for Vengeance

Sigurd was raised by the smith Regin, who intended to use the boy as a weapon against his brother Fáfnir, now a dragon guarding cursed gold. When Sigurd came of age, Regin forged him a sword. Sigurd tested it against an anvil and it shattered. Regin forged another. It broke the same way. Then Sigurd went to his mother and retrieved the fragments of Gram. Regin reforged them, and this time the blade held. Sigurd placed it edge-up in a stream; a tuft of wool floated against the blade and was sliced in two. Then he struck the anvil and split it to the base.

Fáfnir's Bane

With Gram restored, Sigurd went to slay Fáfnir. On Regin's advice, he dug a pit in the path the dragon used to reach water and waited within it. When Fáfnir crawled overhead, Sigurd thrust Gram upward into the dragon's heart. After Fáfnir died, the blade served once more: Sigurd used it to behead Regin when the birds warned him of treachery. Later, Gram lay between Sigurd and Brynhildr during the three nights he spent in her hall wearing Gunnarr's shape, and again between them on the funeral pyre.