Sigurd, the Dragon Slayer

Sigurd, The Dragon Slayer

retold by Olivia E. Coolidge

INTRODUCTION

Sigurd’s story is part of a cycle of hero sagas. Before this particular story opens, Loki, the cunning god of fire, thoughtlessly kills an otter sunning itself—but the otter is actually the son of Reidmar, the king of the dwarfs.

That night, Reidmar captures Loki and Odin, king of the gods. Furious, the dwarf king threatens to kill both of them in revenge for his son’s death. Odin suggests a ransom instead. So Loki is sent off to steal the famous gold hoard of the elf Andvari.

When Reidmar receives the gold, he frees his hostages—but the lust for gold can result in evil. That night the dwarf king’s son, Fafnir, kills his own father and seizes the elfin treasure for himself. The third son of the dwarf king, Regin, flees, terrified for his own life.

Many years pass. Fafnir, the brother who stole his father’s gold, has changed his shape into that of a dragon. Fafnir now lies coiled jealously around his golden treasure in his dead father’s crumbling hall. Meanwhile Regin, the third son, has wandered the world looking for a hero who can slay Fafnir and seize the treasure for Regin.

One day a royal child is born in a peaceful kingdom. Regin recognizes the child as the one who will slay the dragon and get the gold. The baby, Sigurd, is the son of the great warrior Sigmund, who died in battle.
Now starts Sigurd’s story.
The Dragon Slayer
Regin saw the baby, Sigurd, and his heart was wonderfully stirred, for he knew the dragon slayer was born after ages of time. He said nothing to Hiordis, who had borne this son to Sigmund, the Volsung, after that great hero had died. He kept his own counsel while the child was an infant, but he burned with secret desire. Years passed more slowly than ever, but at last he saw Sigurd had become a tall, golden-haired lad. Then finally he went to King Alf, who had wedded the widowed Hiordis. "My long life draws to a close," he said. "Grant me a pupil before I die, that I may teach him the skill of my hands, the words of my songs, and my herbs of healing, lest my wisdom perish with me and be forgotten."
"It is a good request," answered Alf, "and I grant it. Whom will you have?"
"Give me Sigurd," answered Regin quickly.
"It is done," declared the king, marveling at the beautiful boy who seemed to have touched the heart of this dark, secretive old man.
"Give me Sigurd," answered Regin quickly.
"It is done," declared the king, marveling at the beautiful boy who seemed to have touched the heart of this dark, secretive old man.
After this time the aged Regin appeared to recover the fire of his earlier days. The hand of Sigurd became cunning with the harp strings. His strong, young voice delighted the feasters with the legends of ancient time. He worked also with Regin in the smithy,1 but there he could never rival his master, though among men he was a notable smith. He learned much of strange herbs and of the ways of the woodlands. Of the evil workings of Regin’s mind, he understood nothing at all. Yet though other people spoke of the old man’s love for his pupil, Sigurd felt the cold craft behind it. Though he admired his wise master, he had no affection for him.
Sigurd was wielding the hammer in the smithy one day when Regin, studying his mighty form, judged the awaited time was near. "Sigurd," he said when the din2 ceased and the iron was thrust back in the fire, "you are the last of the Volsungs, who were a great warrior race. Are you content in this tame little country where Alf’s sons, your brothers, grow up to be kings?"
Sigurd turned from the fire toward him. “I would ride into the world tomorrow,” he answered, “were it not for my mother, and for King Alf, who has treated me well.”

“So well,” replied Regin drily, “that you have neither horse nor sword.”

“I ride what horse I please,” retorted Sigurd, “as do the king’s own sons.”

“Your brothers are children. When they are men like you, they will have their own.”

“I can have any horse for the asking,” persisted Sigurd. This was true, for Alf was pleased by the youth’s request.

“The horses are in the pasture at the head of the valley,” said he. “Go up and choose which you will. It is time you had one of your own.”

As Sigurd ran lightly toward the pasture, many a head turned after him. His bright hair shone in the sun, and in spite of his great size, he moved with the grace of a deer. “What will become of him,” thought the elders. “Surely there was never before a young man so handsome and strong.”

Odin himself stood in the way near the pasture, watching the young runner approach. The god seemed an old man in tattered garments of gray which stirred, as if in a breeze, though the air was perfectly still. “Greetings,” said he, fixing the youth with his one bright eye of blue. “Greetings, Sigurd. Why do you run?”

“To choose me a horse,” panted Sigurd. “Are you the herdsman?”

“Do I look like a herdsman?”

“No. Like a warrior.”

“You say well,” said the god. “I am indeed a warrior, and I knew your father, Sigmund, all his days. Come with me, and let us test the strength of these horses by driving them through the stream.”

The river was running in flood, for the snows had melted. Here at the head of the valley it came foaming down from the mountains with a roar. Sigurd and Odin collected the horses and drove them at a gallop down to the riverbank. Some wheeled to right or left when they saw the boiling water, and fled splashing along the shallows, whinnying with alarm. Some plunged full into the torrent, which carried them away, tossing, kicking, rolling, now under and now up. A few swam steadily, though these too were carried down. Only one great gray horse leapt far out into the water and made for the opposite bank. They saw him reach the shallows, climb up, and stand in the flowering meadow to shake his silvery sides. Finally with a snort he plunged back into the water to return.

“I gave your father a sword,” said Odin as they watched the great creature breasting the flood. “Now I give you this horse. Ride out and win fame. When you come to the shield-roofed hall of Odin where your father sits, the heroes shall rise to greet you as the greatest one of them all. Look now how Grayfell stands in the shallows. He is of the tireless strain of Sleipner, the horse that Odin rides.”

Sigurd leapt down into the water and swung himself onto Grayfell’s back. Air whistled past them as they raced down the meadow. Drops sprayed from the mane of Grayfell. Turf flew up behind his heels. The two came thundering down the valley like an avalanche from the hills, huge horse and huge rider gleaming in the light of the evening sun.

“Who gave you that horse?” asked Regin when the young man slid off at his door.
“An old man with the wind in his garments and a single, bright blue eye. He spoke to me of my father.”
“I know that old man,” said Regin sourly. “He knew my father too. Why must he meddle now? But tell me, where will you ride with your fine horse?”
“Into the world.”
“But whither? Will you serve some other king?”
“Never that!” cried Sigurd hotly. “I will win my own wealth and fame.”
“I have an adventure for you,” said Regin. “No man could achieve it till now. It is the winning of a fabulous treasure, enough to make both of us kings.”
“What is the deed?”
“Come into the smithy,” said Regin. “Blow up the fire, for my tale is long. Sit down by the bench while I tell you who I am, whence came the treasure, and where lies the hideous dragon who was my brother once. Kill him, for he is utterly evil, and take what you will. All I ask is the wisdom which he has stored in his heart for ages on ages, while I squandered3 mine on men. Roast me the heart of the dragon, that I may eat, and be wise. Then take your fill of the treasure, and leave me what little you please.”
Sigurd listened long to the tale of Reidmar and of the curse on Andvari’s gold.4 The fire grew low. The moon came up, as the quiet voice of Regin poured forth his long-stored hate. Each to the other in the darkness seemed only a vague, black shape, but the eyes of Regin gloated5 on Sigurd, who peered back at his master with a half-formed feeling of doubt. At last silence fell. Sigurd burned for adventure, but Regin burned for the gold. “I will slay the dragon,” said Sigurd slowly. “But first, you must make me a sword.”
“Get up and light me the torches,” answered Regin. “I have made you a sword against this day. Open my chest there, and take it. All my skill went into the work.”
Sigurd opened the chest by the wall and took out a gold-hilted sword. Down the dark blade ran strange signs of magic, and the hilt was studded with gems. He turned it over in his hands and scanned it, but the great blade had never a flaw. “Let us prove your skill, master of smiths,” said he. With that, he swung it high and brought it down on the anvil with all his force. The blade broke with a fearful crash, and the point quivered past Regin’s ear. Sigurd laughed at his master’s frightened face as he threw the hilt on the floor. “I see this adventure is not for us, since your skill is too poor,” he mocked.
“I will make you another,” cried Regin. “This time it will never break, though you drive the anvil into the floor.”
“When it is done, I will come back,” said the hero, “but from this time on nobody is master to me.”
It was many days later before Regin was ready. His eyes were red from peering into the fire, as they had been in the workshop of Reidmar. “Come into the smithy,” said he. “I have your sword.”
The sword lay on the bench dully shining. From hilt to point it was of bare steel unadorned. “Try this on the anvil,” said Regin. “I am the master smith, and I tell you that if you break this, no steel that is forged on earth will serve your turn.”
Again Sigurd lifted the sword. Again he swung it. Again he brought it down. There was a crack, and the shattered pieces lay strewn at Sigurd’s feet. Regin stood astonished, for even he had never suspected the young man’s giant strength. Sigurd laughed. “You say truly,” he cried. “No sword will serve my turn but one which was not forged in an earthly fire.” He cast the pieces from him and strode out.
Queen Hiordis was in the dairy, where the women were making cheese. “Mother,” said Sigurd coming to her as she carried a pail of whey. “Mother, where is my father’s sword?”

Hiordis started, and a great splash of whey fell from the pan onto the dairy floor. “What need do you have of a sword?” asked she, putting her burden down.

“I am a man,” said Sigurd, “and a mighty hero’s son. This land is too quiet for me. I will go out and win fame.”

“Before you were even born,” said Hiordis, “I knew that this day would come. Two months after I was wed, great Sigmund fell, and with him my father and all the men of my house. I alone hid in a thicket so that the plundering hosts of the enemy passed me by. Then I crept into the moonlight and found where my father lay, and mighty Sigmund with the dead heaped up before him like a wall. In his hand was the hilt of the sword that Odin gave, but the pieces of the shattered blade lay shining around him on the grass. Then I foresaw this day and gathered them up to be your inheritance.”

Hiordis went to her room and opened the chest where her clothes were always stored. There, under stiff mantles and robes of silver and blue lay a long piece of gold tissue with something heavy within.

“Your father was old when I wedded him,” said she. “His sons had grown up, and won fame, and were dead. Then he wooed me, and I chose him gladly, for I thought, ‘What woman will bear a greater hero than the wife of the most famous warrior alive?’”

“My stepfather is no warrior, however,” remarked Sigurd.

“Alf is a good man and kind. This is a peaceful land, and I am happy here, but it is not the place for which you were born.”

“That is true,” said her son, “and I will say farewell, for when I go, I shall never return.”

“Your fame will come back,” she answered. “It will ring in my ears till I die.” She gave him the sword, and he went down the stair and out over the flowering meadow. His mother watched him out of her window till the path hid him from sight.

Regin still sat in the smithy when Sigurd strode in and laid the bundle before him. “There is my sword,” he said.

Regin opened the bundle and looked at the pieces, which glowed with a strange, pale light. “This was forged in heavenly fires,” he said slowly, “and I am of the dwarf people. There is death to me in the steel.”

“There is death to the dragon,” replied Sigurd.

“Be it so. Leave me the pieces. I will remake the blade.”

When Sigurd came again to the smithy, the great sword lay on the bench, and a pale light ran down the center from the hilt to the end of the blade. The edges, however, were dark and sharpened fine as a hair. Sigurd looked at the magic symbols which were carved in the steel. He fitted his hand to the jeweled hilt, and the sword stirred in his grip. He lifted it high and swung it. Suddenly he brought it down. With a crash the anvil fell shattered, while the blade sprung back unharmed. Then he cried, “I name this sword ‘the Wrath of Sigurd.’ No man shall feel it and live.”

Regin said, “The long day is done. It is now a month that I have toiled for you. Tonight let us sleep. Tomorrow we will ride out against Fafnir, and the treasure shall be your own.”

FAFNIR’S END
The hall of the dwarf king, Reidmar, no longer blazed in the sun. The gilt6 had washed off its beams, the wide door was fallen from its hinges, and grass grew on the roof. “Look!” said Regin, pointing where a great track ran from the threshold7 down to the riverbank. It was ground through the dirt of the hillside to the depth of a tall man.
“That path must be made by Fafnir,” said Sigurd, “and he uses it often, for no grass grows in it.”
“Men say,” answered Regin, “that the treasure still lies where my father piled it on the ground before his seat. Around it coils Fafnir, the serpent, gloating over it all day long. But when the moon shines down on him through the rents8 in the ruined hall, he dreams of his youth, and the spring in the woodlands, and of the great gods he saw when the world was young. The gray morning wakens him early, and at that hour he loathes what he has become. He leaves his treasure and goes out to drink of the river, yet by dawn desire overcomes him once more, so that he returns to the gold.”
“When he goes down the path in the morning before it is yet quite light, I will meet him and smite9 him,” said Sigurd.
“His scales are as tough as steel, and it does no good to strike unless you can kill at a blow. Wound him, and he will crush you as you might step on an ant.”
“I will dig a pit in the pathway and crouch there in the dark. When he comes, his eyes will be on the river and his mind still full of his dreams. Perhaps he will not see where I lie. Then as he rolls over me, I will thrust up through his belly where the scales are not so strong. This way I may reach his heart.”
“But if he sees you?”
Sigurd laughed. “You will wait another thousand years for a dragon slayer. That is all.”
The moon was full and rose early. It took little time to dig the pit. Sigurd wrapped himself in his cloak and went to sleep while Regin stood on guard. He never stirred until Regin, weary of watching, touched his shoulder and whispered, “Hush! It is time.”