The Norse sagas often feel like modern soap operas when you read them, with the characters trapped in a cycle of love, betrayal, and vengeance. This is particularly true for the Volsunga Saga, probably the best-known of the Norse sagas, especially since it inspired Wagner’s Viking operas and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
What actually happens in the Volsunga Saga? Let’s take a look over the next three posts.
The protagonist of the story is the hero Sigurd, but as is the case with most Norse sagas, it starts with the story of his ancestors. This made sense in the Viking context as it was believed that personality traits, good luck, and destiny were largely inherited. So, to understand who Sigurd was and why his fate unfolds the way it does, we have to understand where he came from.
This post (1) will look at Sigurd’s ancestors, then we’ll explore the (2) story of the cursed ring, and (3) Sigurd’s ultimate fate.
Sigi, Son of Odin, the Outlaw
The first of Sigurd’s ancestors we meet is Sigi, who is described as a son of the god Odin, and therefore the progenitor of the line. Odin pops up throughout the story, clearly guiding his descendant’s destiny.
One day Sigi goes hunting with Bredi, the slave of Skadi (slavery was very common in the Viking world). When Bredi caught the largest deer that day, Sigi took it badly and murdered him, buried his body in a snowdrift, and lied to Skadi that his slave had ridden off.
Skadi suspected deception and found Bredi’s body. This kind of deceitful murder was considered a crime, and Sigi was declared an outlaw. This clearly reflects laws around crime and punishment that were current in the 13th century, the date of our earliest surviving text for the tale. But we know that the story of Sigurd was older, as it appears on the Rasmund carving in Sweden, which dates to around the year AD 1000.
A New King
Odin accompanied his son Sigi into exile and helped him gather a band of vessels and become an influential raider. This eventually allowed Sigi to establish a kingdom for himself. Now an important chief, he married well and became the ruler of the land of the Huns. He had a son named Rerir.
As Sigi aged and grew more powerful, the people around him grew jealous. Eventually, his brother-in-law-killed him and usurped his position. Sigi son Rerir soon managed to reclaim his father’s kingdom. He then ruthlessly hunted down his father’s murderers, despite them being his own kin.
As in most cultures, king-slaying was considered not only a mortal crime but a spiritual one, because you shared a blood destiny. It could bring a curse on the entire line.
Rerir married but remained childless. They prayed to the gods, and the goddess Frigg heard them and asked her husband Odin to grant their request. He sent one of his Valkyries, divine shieldmaidens, to give Rerir a special apple, which he ate with his queen.
Soon the queen was pregnant, but for an unusually long time. She was still pregnant when Rerir died at war. After six years of pregnancy, she had the baby cut out of her and promptly died, but the boy lived.
King Volsung
The baby was called Volsung, giving the family line and the saga its name. He soon became king of Hunland and married the giantess Hliod. Together they had ten sons and one daughter. The oldest two were twins, a male and a female, Sigmund and Signy.
The Volsungs were visited by a king Siggeir of Gotland and asked for Signy’s hand in marriage. King Volsung agreed despite his daughter’s apprehensions. There was a great marriage feast in the Volsung Hall, which had a mighty apple tree growing in its center.
During the feast, an old man with bare feet and disheveled clothing appeared. He plunged a fine sword into the tree in the center of the hall and said it was a gift to whoever could remove it. This is clearly Odin.
In a “Sword in the Stone” scene, everyone tries to remove the sword without success. Soon Sigmund pulls it out with ease, suggesting it was meant for him. Siggeir, jealous of the fine sword, offered to buy it for three times its weight in gold, but Sigmund refused, saying that if the sword was meant for him, Siggeir would have pulled it from the tree. Offended, after consummating the marriage, Siggeir left immediately the next day in an affront to hospitality.
An unhappy Signy asked her father to annul the marriage, as she felt that it would bring disaster for all of them. King Volsung declared that this would be dishonorable, and she was forced to accompany her husband.
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The Betrayal of Siggeir
As was agreed, Volsung and his ten sons sailed to visit Siggeir and Signy after three months in three ships. When their ships arrived, Signy met them and explained that Siggeir had accumulated a great army and intended to betray them. She urged them to sail away and return with a greater force.
Again, King Volsung said that neither he nor his sons would run like cowards. They set up camp, and he sent his daughter back to her husband, advising her to stay with him no matter what happened to them.
The next day a battle ensued. While the Volsungs fought bravely against the vastly superior force, Volsung and all his men were eventually killed. But not the ten sons, who were captured and placed in stocks to die of exposure.
On the first night of their captivity, a she-wolf came to the place of the stocks and bit off the head of one of the brothers and devoured the rest of his body. She returned the next eight nights, killing another brother, until only Sigmund remained.
Before the next night fell, Signy sent a slave to Sigmund, telling him to cover her brother in honey and even place some in his mouth. When the she-wolf showed up that night, rather than bite his head off, she began licking Sigmund, and even put her tongue in his mouth. Sigmund bit down, and the thrashing she-wolf broke the stocks, allowing Sigmund to free himself and kill the wolf.
While Siggeir believed that all the brothers were dead, Sigmund escaped to the forest and created a secret camp, where he was supplied by his sister.
The Sons of Signy
Signy had two sons with her husband Siggeir. When the first reached ten, she sent them to Sigmund to learn, hoping he would grow up strong and help Sigmund get vengeance for the death of his father and brothers.
When the boy arrived, Sigmund told him to make bread while he gathered firewood. When Sigmund returned, the boy had not touched the bag of flour. When Sigmund asked him why, he said that he was too scared because there was something alive in the bag. Sigmund reported back to Signy that the boy was too weak and cowardly to be of use, and she told him to kill the boy, which he did. The same events repeated the next year when she sent her younger son.
Soon, a Volva witch came to Signy, and she convinced the witch to switch their bodies. The witch stayed in the hall and slept with Siggeir, while Signy went to her brother. They lay together for three nights before Signy returned home and switched their bodies back. From this encounter she found herself pregnant with a son she named Sinfjotli.
She sent Sinfjotli to Sigmund when he was ten. This time, when Sigmund returned, the boy had made the bread. Sigmund asked if he had found anything alive in the bag of flour. The boy responded that he suspected there was something alive in the bag, but it was now dead as he pounded it when he kneaded the dough. The pair did not eat the bread, as there had been a deadly snake in the bag. But Sinfjotli stayed with Sigmund, who trained him to help with his revenge plan, despite Sigmund assuming he was Siggeir’s son.
Sigmund and Sinfjotli spent many years in the wilderness around Siggeir’s kingdom and had many adventures. One of the most famous was finding two wolf skins, which turned them into wolves for ten days when they donned them. This is linked to the legend of Berserker warriors, who were able to invoke the spirit of wild animals, such as bears and wolves, in battle.
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The Revenge of Sigmund
Eventually, prepared for their revenge, Sigmund and Sinfjotli came to the hall. They were almost given away by Signy’s two new infant sons with Siggeir. Signy suggested that the pair kill the boys to avoid detection. Sigmund declined, but Sinfjotli did so without hesitation. The discovery of the bodies exposed the pair, and they were captured.
As a form of torture, Siggeir placed both men in a burial mound, assuming they would die in the dark of starvation. But Signy had hidden food and Sigmund’s sword in the mound. They were able to use the miraculous sword to cut through stone and metal and escape.
They made their way back to the hall, which they set on fire with Siggeir and all his men inside. Signy was not caught, but found her brother and son. She revealed to Sigmund that Sinfjotli was really his son. Then, following her father’s instructions of many years earlier, walked into the fire to die with her husband.
The Hero Helgi
Sigmund and Sinfjotli sailed home and reclaimed their father’s territory. Sigmund married a woman called Borghild and had two sons, Helgi and Hamund. Helgi in particular was blessed by the Norns, the Norse fates, and Sigmund gave him territory and ships to build his destiny.
Helgi soon made a name for himself. He killed a powerful king called Hunding. His sons gathered an army, and a violent battle ensued, which Helgi also won.
When Helgi was returning from battle, he came across a magnificent woman, sometimes called a Valkyrie, called Sigrun. She was the daughter of King Hogni, who had betrothed her in marriage to Hoddbrodd, King Granmar’s son, against her will. She asked Helgi to help her escape this marriage.
Helgi agreed, gathering a great army and successfully killing Hoddbrodd. He then took the man’s territory, married Sigrun, and became a great king.
The Fate of Sinfjotli
While Helgi ruled his new kingdom, Sinfjotli sailed off with most of the men. While off raiding, he fell in love with a woman whom the brother of his stepmother, Borghild, also wanted to marry. He ended up killing Borghild’s brother.
When Sinfjotli returned home, Borghild wanted him outlawed for his actions. Sigmund refused and said that instead he should compensate her with gold. Borghild agreed but then poisoned Sinfjotli at the funeral.
Sigmund exiled his wife and took Sinfjotli’s body into the forest for burial. When trying to cross a river, he encountered a man with a small boat. He agreed to take the body across and then come back for Sigmund, but as soon as the body was on board, the boat disappeared. This is interpreted as Odin taking Sinfjotli to Valhalla.
The Valknut is the symbol of Valhalla; discover Valknut pieces in the VKNG Collection.
Birth of a Hero
Sigmund started looking for a new wife and wanted to marry Hjordis, the daughter of King Eylimi. He sailed to the Eylimi’s kingdom as a friend, but there discovered that King Lyngvi was also there seeking her hand. Eylimi let his daughter decide, and she chose Sigmund.
While the wedding party was traveling back to Sigmund’s territory, Lyngvi attacked them with a large army and a mighty battle ensued. Despite his age, Sigmund fought bravely, and it looked like he would win the day, until a man in a black cloak with one eye and holding a spear appeared. Sigmund tried to strike the man down, but his sword broke on the man’s spear. The man, clearly Odin with his enchanted spear Gungnir, disappeared, but the tide of the battle turned against Sigmund, and he was killed.
Hjordis had been sent to hide in a nearby forest, but she managed to talk to her dying husband. He told her that she was pregnant with a son and to take the broken pieces of his sword for him, since he would one day be the greatest warrior of the Volsungs.
She was soon discovered and saved by King Alf, who married her, and she gave birth to Sigmund’s son, whom she called Sigurd.
What happens next? Find out here.
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FAQs
Why does the Volsunga Saga begin with the stories of Sigurd’s ancestors?
Viking culture placed a heavy emphasis on genealogy because they believed personality traits, luck, and destiny were largely inherited. Exploring his bloodline helps readers understand exactly why Sigurd’s own tragic fate eventually unfolds the way it does.
Who is Sigi, and why was he declared an outlaw?
Sigi is described as a son of the god Odin and the very first ancestor of the Volsung line we meet in the text. He was made an outlaw after he grew jealous of a slave who out-hunted him, murdered the man, and hid the body in a snowdrift.
How was King Volsung miraculously born after a six-year pregnancy?
His father, King Rerir, prayed to the gods for a child, prompting Odin and Frigg to send a Valkyrie with a magic fertility apple for the king and queen to eat. After an impossibly long six-year gestation, the baby was finally cut from the queen’s womb right before she died.
What happened when Odin planted a sword in the center of the Volsung Hall?
During a royal wedding feast, the disguised god plunged a magnificent blade into a giant apple tree and declared it a gift for anyone who could pull it out. While every guest failed the challenge, Sigmund drew the sword with ease, immediately sparking the bitter jealousy of his new brother-in-law, King Siggeir.
How did Sigmund survive the brutal betrayal of King Siggeir?
Siggeir captured Sigmund and his nine brothers, leaving them in stocks to be eaten one by one each night by a vicious she-wolf. Sigmund survived on the final night by coating his face in honey, biting the wolf’s tongue when she licked him, and using her frantic thrashing to break his chains.
Why did Signy order the execution of her first two sons?
She sent her young sons to her exiled brother, Sigmund, to see if they were strong enough to help avenge their murdered family. When both boys proved to be too cowardly to even knead dough with something moving inside the flour bag, she deemed them useless and ordered their deaths.
Who is Sinfjotli, and how was he conceived?
Sinfjotli is a powerful warrior who was conceived through an incestuous union between the siblings Sigmund and Signy. Signy used a witch’s magic to temporarily swap bodies so she could sleep with her brother and produce a child pure enough in Volsung blood to achieve their revenge.
How did Sigmund and Sinfjotli finally get their revenge on King Siggeir?
After escaping a stone burial mound using Sigmund’s miraculous sword, the pair snuck into Siggeir’s hall under the cover of night. They trapped the treacherous king inside his own home and set the building on fire, burning Siggeir and his men alive.
What happened to Sinfjotli after he returned home from his raids?
Sinfjotli fell in love with the same woman as his stepmother’s brother and subsequently killed the man in a dispute. In retaliation for her brother’s death, his stepmother Borghild deceitfully poisoned Sinfjotli’s drink during a funeral feast.
How did King Sigmund die, and what did he leave behind?
Sigmund was mortally wounded in battle when his magic sword shattered against a spear held by a one-eyed stranger, who was actually the god Odin withdrawing his favor. Before dying, he instructed his pregnant wife Hjordis to save the broken shards of his sword for their unborn son, Sigurd.
