The Story of the Volsungs

CHAPTER II. Of the Birth of Volsung, the Son of Rerir, who...

Now Si­gi grew old, and had many to en­vy him, so that at last those turned against him whom he trust­ed most; yea, even the broth­ers of his wife; for these fell on him at his un­wari­est, when there were few with him to with­stand them, and brought so many against him, that they pre­vailed against him, and there fell Si­gi and all his folk with him. But Rerir, his son, was not in this trou­ble, and he brought to­geth­er so mighty a strength of his friends and the great men of the land, that he got to him­self both the lands and king­dom of Si­gi his fa­ther; and so now, when he deems that the feet un­der him stand firm in his rule, then he calls to mind that which he had against his moth­er’s broth­ers, who had slain his fa­ther. So the king gath­ers to­geth­er a mighty army, and there­with falls on his kins­men, deem­ing that if he made their kin­ship of small ac­count, yet none the less they had first wrought evil against him. So he wrought his will here­in, in that he de­part­ed not from strife be­fore he had slain all his fa­ther’s banes­men, though dread­ful the deed seemed in ev­ery wise. So now he gets land, lord­ship, and fee, and is be­come a might­ier man than his fa­ther be­fore him.

Much wealth won in war gat Rerir to him­self, and wed­ded a wife with­al, such as he deemed meet for him, and long they lived to­geth­er, but had no child to take the her­itage af­ter them; and ill-​con­tent they both were with that, and prayed the Gods with heart and soul that they might get them a child. And so it is said that Odin hears their prayer, and Freyia no less hear­kens where­with they prayed un­to her: so she, nev­er lack­ing for all good coun­sel, calls to her her cas­ket-​bear­ing may, (1) the daugh­ter of Hrimnir the gi­ant, and sets an ap­ple in her hand, and bids her bring it to the king. She took the ap­ple, and did on her the gear of a crow, and went fly­ing till she came where­as the king sat on a mound, and there she let the ap­ple fall in­to the lap of the king; but he took the ap­ple and deemed he knew where­to it would avail; so he goes home from the mound to his own folk, and came to the queen, and some deal of that ap­ple she ate.

So, as the tale tells, the queen soon knew that she big with child, but a long time wore or ev­er she might give birth to the child: so it be­fell that the king must needs go to the wars, af­ter the cus­tom of kings, that he may keep his own land in peace: and in this jour­ney it came to pass that Rerir fell sick and got his death, be­ing mind­ed to go home to Odin, a thing much de­sired of many folk in those days.

Now no oth­er­wise it goes with the queen’s sick­ness than hereto­fore, nor may she be the lighter of her child, and six win­ters wore away with the sick­ness still heavy on her; so that at the last she feels that she may not live long; where­fore now she bade cut the child from out of her; and it was done even as she bade; a man-​child was it, and great of growth from his birth, as might well be; and they say that the youngling kissed his moth­er or ev­er she died; but to him is a name giv­en, and he is called Vol­sung; and he was king over Hun­land in the room of his fa­ther. From his ear­ly years he was big and strong, and full of dar­ing in all man­ly deeds and tri­als, and he be­came the great­est of war­riors, and of good hap in all the bat­tles of his war­far­ing.

Now when he was ful­ly come to man’s es­tate, Hrimnir the gi­ant sends to him Ljod his daugh­ter; she of whom the tale told, that she brought the ap­ple to Rerir, Vol­sung’s fa­ther. So Vol­sung weds her with­al; and long they abode to­geth­er with good hap and great love. They had ten sons and one daugh­ter, and their el­dest son was hight Sig­mund, and their daugh­ter Signy; and these two were twins, and in all wise the fore­most and the fairest of the chil­dren of Vol­sung the king, and mighty, as all his seed was; even as has been long told from an­cient days, and in tales of long ago, with the great­est fame of all men, how that the Vol­sungs have been great men and high-​mind­ed and far above the most of men both in cun­ning and in prowess and all things high and mighty.

So says the sto­ry that king Vol­sung let build a no­ble hall in such a wise, that a big oak-​tree stood there­in, and that the limbs of the tree blos­somed fair out over the roof of the hall, while be­low stood the trunk with­in it, and the said trunk did men call Bran­stock.

END­NOTES: (1) May (A.S. “maeg”), a maid.