The Story of the Volsungs

CHAPTER XIV. Regin’s tale of his Brothers, and of the Gold...

“The tale be­gins,” said Re­gin. “Hrei­dmar was my fa­ther’s name, a mighty man and z wealthy: and his first son was named Fafnir, his sec­ond Ot­ter, and I was the third, and the least of them all both for prowess and good con­di­tions, but I was cun­ning to work in iron, and sil­ver, and gold, where­of I could make mat­ters that availed some­what. Oth­er skill my broth­er Ot­ter fol­lowed, and had an­oth­er na­ture with­al, for he was a great fish­er, and above oth­er men here­in; in that he had the like­ness of an ot­ter by day, and dwelt ev­er in the riv­er, and bare fish to bank in his mouth, and his prey would he ev­er bring to our fa­ther, and that availed him much: for the most part he kept him in his ot­ter-​gear, and then he would come home, and eat alone, and slum­ber­ing, for on the dry land he might see naught. But Fafnir was by far the great­est and grimmest, and would have all things about called his.

“Now,” says Re­gin, “there was a dwarf called And­vari, who ev­er abode in that force, (1) which was called And­vari’s force, in the like­ness of a pike, and got meat for him­self, for many fish there were in the force; now Ot­ter, my broth­er, was ev­er wont to en­ter in­to the force, and bring fish aland, and lay them one by one on the bank. And so it be­fell that Odin, Lo­ki, and Hoenir, as they went their ways, came to And­vari’s force, and Ot­ter had tak­en a salmon, and ate it slum­ber­ing up­on the riv­er bank; then Lo­ki took a stone and cast it at Ot­ter, so that he gat his death there­by; the gods were well con­tent with their prey, and fell to flay­ing off the ot­ter’s skin; and in the evening they came to Hrei­dmar’s house, and showed him what they had tak­en: there­on he laid hands on them, and doomed them to such ran­som, as that they should fill the ot­ter skin with gold, and cov­er it over with­out with red gold; so they sent Lo­ki to gath­er gold to­geth­er for them; he came to Ran, (2) and got her net, and went there­with to And­vari’s force, and cast the net be­fore the pike, and the pike ran in­to the net and was tak­en. Then said Lo­ki –

“`What fish of all fish­es, Swims strong in the flood, But hath learnt lit­tle wit to be­ware? Thine head must thou buy, From abid­ing in hell, And find me the wan wa­ters flame.’

“He an­swered –

“`And­vari folk call me, Call Oinn my fa­ther, Over many a force have I fared; For a Norn of ill-​luck, This life on me lay Through wet ways ev­er to wade.’

“So Lo­ki be­held the gold of And­vari, and when he had giv­en up the gold, he had but one ring left, and that al­so Lo­ki took from him; then the dwarf went in­to a hol­low of the rocks, and cried out, that that gold-​ring, yea and all the gold with­al, should be the bane of ev­ery man who should own it there­after.

“Now the gods rode with the trea­sure to Hrei­dmar, and ful­filled the ot­ter-​skin, and set it on its feet, and they must cov­er it over ut­ter­ly with gold: but when this was done then Hrei­dmar came forth, and be­held yet one of the muz­zle hairs, and bade them cov­er that with­al; then Odin drew the ring, And­vari’s loom, from his hand, and cov­ered up the hair there­with; then sang Lo­ki –

“`Gold enow, gold enow, A great weregild, thou hast, That my head in good hap I may hold; But thou and thy son Are naught fat­ed to thrive, The bane shall it be of you both.’

“There­after,” says Re­gin, “Fafnir slew his fa­ther and mur­dered him, nor got I aught of the trea­sure, and so evil he grew, that he fell to ly­ing abroad, and be­grudged any share in the wealth to any man, and so be­came the worst of all worms, and ev­er now lies brood­ing up­on that trea­sure: but for me, I went to the king and be­came his mas­ter-​smith; and thus is the tale told of how I lost the her­itage of my fa­ther, and the weregild for my broth­er.”

So spake Re­gin; but since that time gold is called Ot­tergild, and for no oth­er cause than this.

But Sig­urd an­swered, “Much hast thou lost, and ex­ceed­ing evil have thy kins­men been! But now, make a sword by thy craft, such a sword as that none can be made like un­to it; so that I may do great deeds there­with, if my heart avail there­to, and thou wouldst have me slay this mighty drag­on.”

Re­gin says, “Trust me well here­in; and with that same sword shalt thou slay Fafnir.”

END­NOTES: (1) Wa­ter­fall (Ice. “foss”, “fors”). (2) Ran is the god­dess of the sea, wife of Ae­gir. The ot­ter was held sa­cred by Norse­folk and fig­ures in the myth and leg­end of most races be­sides; to this day its killing is held a great crime by the Parsees (Haug. “Re­li­gion of the Parsees”, page 212). Com­pare penal­ty above with that for killing the Welsh king’s cat (”An­cient Laws and In­sti­tutes of Wales”. Ed., Aneurin Owen. Long­man, Lon­don, 1841, 2 vols. 8vo).