Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/92

 lxxxvi hatred, murders, all the works of the natural man, combine together to lorm that marvellous story which begins with a curse—the curse of ill-gotten gold;—and ends with a curse, a widow's curse, which drags down all on whom it falls, and even her own flesh and blood, to certain doom. Such was the theme of the wondrous Volsung Tale the far older, simpler, and grander original of that Nibelungen Need of the thirteenth century, a tale which begins with the slaughter of Fafnir by Sigurd, and ends with Hermanaric, "that fierce faith-breaker," as the Anglo-Saxon minstrel calls him, when he is describing, in rapid touches, the mythic glories of the Teutonic race.

This was the story of the Volsungs. They traced themselves back, like all heroes, to Odin, the great father of gods and men. From him sprung Sigi, from him Rerir, from him Volsung, ripped from his mother's womb after a six years' bearing, to become the Eponymus of that famous race. In the centre of his hall grew an oak, the tall trunk of which passed through the roof, and its boughs spread far and wide in upper air. Into that hall, on a high feast day, when Signy, Volsung's daughter, was to be given away to Siggeir, King of Gothland, strode an old one-eyed guest. His feet were bare, his hose were of knitted linen, he wore a great striped cloak, and a broad flapping hat. In his hand he bore a sword, which, at one stroke, he drove up to the hilt in the oak trunk. "There," said he, "let him of all this company bear this sword who is man enough to pull it out. I give it him, and none shall say he ever bore a better blade." With these words he passed out of the hall, and was seen no more. Many tried, for that sword was plainly a thing of price, but none