Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/139

Rh CHAP. VI he had hoarded in the stony caves, whose ice-like walls answer to the dismal den of the Vedic Panis. One ring alone Andvari seeks to - keep. It is the source of all his wealth, and ring after ring drops from it. He wishes, in other words, to keep his hold of the summer itself as represented by the symbol of the reproductive power in nature. The ring is the magic necklace of Harmonia and Eriphyle, the kestos of Aphrodite, the ship of Isis and Athene, the Yoni of Vishnu, the Argo which bears within itself all the chieftams of the Achaian lands. Andvari prays in vain, but before he surrenders the ring, he lays on it a curse, which is to make it the bane of every man who owns it. It is, in short, to be the cause of more than one Trojan war,^ the Helen who is to bring ruin to the hosts who seek to rescue her from thraldom. The beauty of the ring tempts Odin to keep it, but the gold he yields to Reidmar. It is, however, not enough to hide all the white hairs of the otter's skin. One yet remains visible, and this can be hidden only by the ring which Odin is thus compelled to lay upon it, as the ice cannot be wholly melted till the full warmth of summer has come back to the earth. Thus the three ALsir go free, but Loki lays again on the ring the curse of the dwarf Andvari. The working of this curse is seen first in the death of Reidmar, who is slain by Regin and Fafnir, because he refuses to share with them the gold which he had received from the ^sir. The same cause makes Regin and Fafnir enemies. Fafnir will not yield up the treasure, and taking a dragon's form he folds his coils around the golden heaps upon the glistening heath, as the Python imprisons the fertilising streams at Delphoi. Thus foiled, Regin beseeches Sigurd to smite the dragon ; but even Sigurd cannot do this without a. sword of sufficient temper. Regin forges two, but the blades of both are shivered at the first stroke. Sigurd exclaims bitterly that the weapons are untrue, like Regin and all his race, — a phrase which points with singular clearness to the difference between the subter- ranean fires and the life-giving rays of the sun, which alone can scatter the shades of night or conquer the winter's cold. It is clear that the victory cannot be won without the sword which Odin drove into the oak trunk, and which had been broken in the hands of Sigmund. But the pieces remain in the keeping of Hjordis, the mother of Sigurd, and thus the wife of Sigmund plays here precisely the part of Thetis. In each case the weapons with which the hero is to win his victory come through the mother, and in each case they

' This ring reappears with precisely and it is absurd to suppose that such a the same qualities and consequences in series of incidents was constantly recur- inany of the sagas of Northern Europe ; ring in actual history.