The Story of Sigurd the Volsung by William Morris (best time to read books .txt) 📗

Courage, not only to fight, but also to bear suffering without impatience or complaint, and the virtue of faithfulness were the qualities they most honoured. To be wanting in courage was disgraceful in their eyes, but it was equally disgraceful to refuse to help kinsfolk, to lie, to deceive, or to desert a chief.

If they put their enemies to death with fearful tortures, they did not treat them more severely than the traitors they discovered among themselves, and if they had no pity for those they conquered, yet they knew well how to admire great leaders, and how to serve them faithfully. But we can best realise their ideas on these matters by considering their religion and their stories.

They worshipped one chief god, Odin, and other gods and goddesses who were his children. Odin was often called All-father because he was the helper and friend of human beings, and appeared on earth in the form of an old man, "one-eyed and seeming ancient," with cloud-blue hood and grey cloak. He had courage, strength, and wondrous wisdom, for he knew all events that happened in the world, and he understood the speech of birds, and all kinds of charms and magic arts. Men served him by brave fighting in a good cause, and when they perished in battle he received their souls in his dwelling of Valhalla in the city of Asgard, where they spent each day in warfare, and where at evening the dead were revived, the wounded healed, and all feasted together in Odin's palace. There they fed upon the flesh of the boar Saehrimner, which was renewed as fast as it was eaten. Certain maidens called Valkyrie, or Choosers of the Slain, were Odin's messengers whom he sent forth into the battles of the world to find the warriors whom he had appointed to die, and to bring them to Valhalla.

In the story of Sigurd Odin has a very important part to play, but for the understanding of the tale it is necessary to know something about another of the gods. This is Loki, who, though sprung from the race of the giants, yet lived with the sons of Odin in Asgard, behaving sometimes as their trusty helper, but more often as their cunning enemy. He caused much wretchedness, not only among the gods, but on earth also, for he delighted in the sight of misery. His vices were all those most hateful to the Norse people, for he was before all things a liar, a deceiver, a faith-breaker, a skilful worker of mischief by guile instead of by fair fight. There are many stories of his cunning thefts, of the miseries he wrought among his companions, and of his envy of the beloved god Balder, whom he slew by a trick. His children were terrible monsters, as hated as himself. Yet, strange to say, Loki was Odin's companion in many of his adventures.

The gods inhabited Asgard, a city standing on a high mountain in the middle of the world. Odin's palace of Valhalla was there, and other palaces for his sons and daughters. All round Asgard lay Midgard, or the ordinary world of men and women. Its caves and waste places were inhabited by dwarfs, whom Odin had banished from the light of day for various ill deeds. They were a spiteful and cunning race, jealous of mankind, and eager to recover their lost power. Their strength lay in their wondrous skill in handicraft, for they could forge more deadly weapons, and fashion more lovely jewels than any made by the hands of men. But, though possessed of wisdom, they had no spirit of kindness, no respect for right, and no dislike of wrong.

Around Midgard lay the sea, and beyond that Utgard, a hideous frozen country inhabited by giants, enemies of the gods.

But this arrangement of the world was only for a season. The gods themselves looked forward to a time of defeat and death, when Asgard should perish in flames and the world with it, and the sun and moon should be darkened, and they themselves should be slain. This great day was called Ragnarok, or sometimes the Twilight of the Gods. Then Loki would gather giants and monsters to a great battle against the gods, who would slay their enemies, but who would themselves fall in the struggle. The sea would drown the earth, the stars would fall, and all things would pass away.

This terrible fate the gods awaited with calm and cheerfulness, showing even greater courage than in their many deeds of war. They had to submit to this fate, for there were three beings even greater than they. These were the Norns, deciders of the fate of gods and men alike. They were three giant maidens who dwelt by a sacred, wisdom-giving fountain, and who controlled the lives of men, giving to each sickness and health, success and failure and death when they would. No man or god might escape what the Norns decreed for him.

Many stories of these gods, together with tales of famous men, were told among the northern peoples. These stories were passed on from one to another by word of mouth, till they grew much longer and fuller, and the happening of certain historical events helped to take them from country to country.

As we have seen, all the races of the North were warlike and eager for adventure, and so when trouble came upon them in their own homes, they readily took to the sea to plunder the coasts or to conquer other lands. Between 800 and 900 A.D., when the Danes were invading England, many were driven from Norway because they refused to submit to a king called Harold Fairhair, and when he pursued them to the Orkney and Faroe Islands they took refuge on the coasts of Iceland. There they settled, built themselves wooden houses, planted such crops as would grow in that bleak land, and founded a commonwealth. Little by little they left the old Viking life, and it lived only in their songs and stories.

They had come to Iceland with a vast stock of tales in poetry, which were related or sung by professional poets, called skalds, at all kinds of feasts and gatherings. The skalds arranged and improved the old stories, but they were not written down until about the time of our King Stephen, when some unknown writer collected them into one book called the Elder Edda. Very soon after this another book was written containing the same stories in prose and called the Younger or Prose Edda. In this way many of the old poems, and a great many stories containing much information about the religion which the people took with them to Iceland, have been preserved.

But it was from neither of the Eddas that William Morris took his story of Sigurd.

All through the period from 800 A.D. till about the time of Henry III. of England, the skalds had been re-telling many of the poetic stories in prose, and as the people grew more civilised, one tale after another was written down in its new form.

These prose tales were called Sagas, and among the very greatest is the Volsunga Saga, or Story of Sigurd. It is a tale which has been told in other lands besides Iceland. We read part of the same story in the Old English poem of Beowulf, and in Germany it was made into a great poem called the Nibelungenlied. The German musician, Richard Wagner, set it to music in a famous series of operas called the Nibelungen Ring. But his tale differs in many points from that contained in Morris's poem, for Morris chose the old saga as it was written in Iceland, not the German story. On this he founded his poem, adding much beautiful description, and greatly lengthening the whole.

The story deals first with a certain King Volsung, to whose son, Sigmund, Odin presented a magic sword.

But Siggeir, the jealous king of the Goths, slew Volsung, and took Sigmund prisoner that he might have the sword for himself. Only after many toils and perils did Sigmund win it back and reign in his father's kingdom. At last in his old age he fell in battle and the sword of Odin was shattered. But his wife, Queen Hiordis, kept the fragments for the son who was born to her soon after in Denmark, whither she fled for safety. This son of Sigmund and Hiordis was Sigurd the Volsung. He was brought up in Denmark and grew strong and beautiful, brave, kind of heart, and utterly truthful in word and deed.

When he became a man he longed to win fame and kingship by mighty deeds, and when his tutor told him of a great dragon that guarded a hoard of ill-gotten gold in the mountains, he resolved to kill it. So the fragments of Odin's sword were forged into a new blade, and Sigurd slew the dragon and took the gold, but with it he brought on himself a curse which had been put upon the treasure by the dwarf from whom it had been stolen.

Sigurd then found and wakened Brynhild, a maiden who lay in an enchanted sleep upon a high mountain. They loved one another, and Sigurd gave her a ring from the dragon's treasure, promising to return and marry her.

Then the curse led him to join with the fierce and treacherous Niblungs or Cloudy People. Their king and his mother grew jealous when they saw Sigurd more mighty and more beloved than themselves, and by enchantments they caused him to forget Brynhild, to wed the princess Gudrun, and at last to aid the Niblung king, Gunnar, to win Brynhild for his own wife.

Then the curse of the gold brought death to many, for Sigurd and Brynhild discovered all the treachery of the Niblungs, who, in their anger, slew Sigurd, and Brynhild killed herself that she might not live and sorrow for him.

Such is the story of Sigurd as it was told a thousand years ago in distant Iceland, and as it is retold in this poem by William Morris.

Of the dwelling of King Volsung, and the wedding of Signy his daughter.