Sigurd- Norse HeroHero"Dragon Slayer"

The Völsung Lineage

Sigurd's bloodline traces to Odin himself. His great-grandfather Sigi was a son of the Allfather, and through this line came Völsung, after whom the dynasty is named. Völsung's son Sigmund proved his worth by pulling a sword from the great tree Barnstokk, a blade Odin had thrust there, declaring that whoever drew it would possess a weapon without equal. Sigmund wielded it through many battles until Odin appeared on the field and shattered it against his spear, ending Sigmund's life as he had granted it. The broken shards were preserved, awaiting the son Sigmund would never see.

Sigurd's mother Hjördís, pregnant when Sigmund fell, married King Hjálprékr's son Álfr. But she kept the sword fragments for her child. The Völsunga saga says Sigurd surpassed all other men as gold surpasses iron, or as garlic stands above all other herbs.

Regin the Smith

Sigurd's upbringing was entrusted to Regin, a dwarf of exceptional skill in smithcraft, runes, and languages. Regin had his own purpose. He was the son of Hreiðmarr and brother to Fáfnir and Ótr. When the gods accidentally killed Ótr, who had been in otter form, they paid compensation with gold cursed by the dwarf Andvari. Fáfnir murdered their father for the hoard and transformed into a dragon to guard it on Gnitaheiðr. Regin nursed his grudge for years, waiting for a weapon capable of killing his brother.

That weapon was Sigurd. Regin reforged Gram from Sigmund's shattered blade. When Sigurd tested it by striking the anvil, the sword split the iron block in two down to the stock. When he held the blade in the Rhine and let the current carry a tuft of wool against the edge, the wool parted like water.

The Slaying of Fáfnir

Before facing the dragon, Sigurd avenged his father. The Reginismál tells how he sailed against the sons of Hunding and slew them in battle, fulfilling the blood-debt owed to Sigmund's line. Only then did he turn to Fáfnir.

Regin instructed Sigurd to dig a pit in the path the dragon used to reach water, hide within, and stab upward as Fáfnir crawled overhead. Odin, appearing as an old man, advised Sigurd to dig several pits so the blood would drain rather than drown him. Sigurd followed the advice, waited in darkness, and when Fáfnir's body passed above, drove Gram upward into the dragon's left shoulder, piercing the heart.

The dying Fáfnir asked who had killed him and who had sent him. Learning it was Regin, Fáfnir warned that his brother would betray Sigurd too. He prophesied that the treasure would be Sigurd's doom. Sigurd, young and confident, dismissed the warning. He took the cursed gold and with it inherited the curse.

The Blood of Wisdom

Regin asked Sigurd to roast Fáfnir's heart while he slept. As Sigurd turned the meat over the fire, he touched it to check if it was done and burned his thumb. When he put his thumb to his mouth, tasting the dragon's blood, he could suddenly understand the speech of birds. Nuthatches in the branches above spoke of treachery: Regin meant to kill him and take the treasure. They urged him to strike first, take the gold, and ride to Hindarfjall where a sleeping Valkyrie waited.

Sigurd found Regin sleeping and beheaded him with Gram. He loaded the treasure onto his horse Grani, a steed descended from Odin's own Sleipnir, and bathed in Fáfnir's blood. The dragon's gore made his skin proof against weapons. But a single linden leaf had fallen between his shoulders, leaving one spot the blood did not touch.

The Awakening of Brynhildr

Riding onward, Sigurd came to Hindarfjall, a mountain ringed with fire. Within the flames he found a figure in armor, sleeping as if dead. When he cut away the mail-coat with Gram, he discovered not a warrior but a woman: Brynhildr, a Valkyrie whom Odin had punished for disobedience by pricking her with a sleep-thorn and decreeing she would marry a mortal man. Only a man who knew no fear could pass through the flames to wake her.

Sigurd woke Brynhildr, and she taught him the wisdom of runes, as the Sigrdrífumál records: how to carve them on sword hilts and on ships' prows, when to invoke them and when to let them be. They swore oaths of love and exchanged rings. One of them was Andvaranaut. Then Sigurd rode away, promising to return and make her his wife.

The Curse Unfolds

Sigurd came to the hall of the Gjúkung kings, where Queen Grímhild desired him as husband for her daughter Gudrún. She prepared a potion of forgetfulness that erased all memory of Brynhildr from Sigurd's mind. Forgetting his vows, Sigurd married Gudrún and swore blood-brotherhood with her brothers Gunnarr and Högni.

When Gunnarr wished to marry Brynhildr, Sigurd agreed to help. Gunnarr could not pierce the flame-wall himself, so through Grímhild's magic the two men exchanged shapes. In Gunnarr's form, Sigurd rode through the fire a second time, spent three nights with Brynhildr with Gram placed between them, and won her for Gunnarr. Brynhildr, seeing only Gunnarr's form, believed her hero had never come.

The Discovery and Vengeance

The truth emerged during a quarrel between Gudrún and Brynhildr at the river. Gudrún revealed that it was Sigurd, not Gunnarr, who had crossed the flames, and showed Andvaranaut as proof. Brynhildr's love curdled into hatred. She had given herself to a lesser man while the hero she was fated for lived as another woman's husband. She demanded Sigurd's death, threatening Gunnarr with shame if he refused.

Gunnarr and Högni had sworn blood-oaths with Sigurd and could not kill him directly. They incited their younger brother Guthormr, who had taken no oath, to do the deed. Guthormr stabbed Sigurd through the one vulnerable spot on his back as he lay sleeping beside Gudrún. Dying, Sigurd threw Gram after his killer and cut him in half at the waist.

The Funeral Pyre

Brynhildr laughed when she heard Gudrún's weeping. Then she stabbed herself and commanded that she be burned on Sigurd's funeral pyre, with Gram laid between them as it had been during those three nights in the flame-ringed hall. In death, she would lie beside the man who should have been hers in life.

The cursed gold passed to the surviving Gjúkungs, and the curse continued its work through them. Gunnarr and Högni would meet their own ends at the hands of Atli. But Sigurd's story was complete: dragon's blood on his skin, a linden leaf between his shoulders, and Andvaranaut on the hand of the woman he forgot.