Sigurd and the Dragon Fafnir

Three of the gods, Odin, Hoenir and Loki, once went travelling to see the whole wide world. They came to a river and followed its bank until they reached a waterfall. Beside the waterfall sat an otter. It had caught a salmon and was eating it with its eyes closed. Loki picked up a stone, threw it, and hit the otter on the head, and it fell dead. Loki was very proud of himself. He had won an otter and a salmon with one throw.

The gods took the otter and the salmon with them and came to a farmhouse. The farmer who lived there was called Hreidmar. He was a powerful man and deeply skilled in magic. The gods asked for a place to sleep, saying they had plenty of food with them, and they showed him their catch. But when Hreidmar saw the otter, he called his sons, Fafnir and Regin. “Your brother Otr has been killed,” he told them, “and here are the ones who did it.” Then the father and his sons fell on the gods, seized them and tied them up.

The gods offered to pay a ransom for their lives, as much treasure as Hreidmar himself asked for, and both sides swore an oath to it. The otter was skinned. Hreidmar took the skin and said, “Fill this with red gold, and then cover it all over with gold on the outside. When that is done, you can go free.”

So Odin sent Loki to the land of the dark elves. There Loki found a dwarf named Andvari, who lived in the water in the shape of a fish. Loki caught him in his hands. “If you want to live,” he said, “give me all the gold you have hidden in your rock.”

They went into the rock, and the dwarf brought out all his gold, and it was a huge amount. But Andvari kept one small gold ring hidden in his hand. Loki saw it and told him to hand it over. The dwarf begged him to leave him the ring, because with it he could make his riches grow again. Loki said the dwarf would not keep so much as a penny, and he took the ring and walked out. Then Andvari called after him that the ring would bring death to everyone who owned it. Loki said that suited him well, and that he would make sure whoever received it heard about the curse.

Loki went back to Hreidmar’s house and showed Odin the gold. When Odin saw the ring, he thought it was beautiful, so he kept it for himself and gave Hreidmar the rest. They stuffed the otter skin as full as it would go and stood it up. Then Odin covered it with gold and asked Hreidmar to come and check that every part was hidden.

Hreidmar looked it over carefully, and he spotted one whisker sticking out by the mouth. “Cover that too,” he said, “or our bargain is broken.” So Odin took out the ring and laid it over the whisker, and said that now the otter’s ransom was paid in full.

Once Odin had his spear back in his hand and Loki had his shoes on his feet, so that they had nothing more to fear, Loki spoke up. The dwarf’s curse would come true, he said: the ring and the gold would destroy whoever owned them. And so it happened.

Fafnir and Regin asked their father for a share of the gold, as payment for their brother’s death. Hreidmar refused to give them a single penny. So the two brothers made a terrible plan, and they killed their own father to get the treasure. Then Regin asked Fafnir for his half. Fafnir told him there was little hope of that, since he had killed his father to get it, and he ordered Regin to go away, or the same thing would happen to him. Fafnir had taken his father’s sword, called Hrotti, and his father’s helmet, which was so dreadful that every living creature was terrified to see it. Regin had a sword called Refil, and he ran away with it. Fafnir went to Gnita Heath. There he made himself a bed, turned himself into a dragon, and lay down on top of the gold.

Regin went to the court of King Hjalprek and became the king’s smith. There he took charge of bringing up a boy named Sigurd. Sigurd’s father was Sigmund, the son of Volsung, and his mother was Hjordis. Of all the kings who ever led armies, Sigurd was the greatest, in his family, his power and his spirit. Regin told him where Fafnir lay on the gold, and kept urging him to go and win it.

Then Regin made a sword called Gram. It was so sharp that when Sigurd held it in a flowing stream, it sliced in two a tuft of wool that the water carried against its edge. Next Sigurd struck Regin’s anvil with it and cut the anvil in half.

Sigurd and Regin set off for Gnita Heath. Sigurd dug a pit in the path Fafnir used to crawl down to the water, and he sat down inside it. When Fafnir came crawling along and passed right over the pit, Sigurd thrust his sword up into him, and the blow killed the dragon.

Then Regin came up and said that Sigurd had killed his brother. As payment, he told Sigurd to cut out Fafnir’s heart and roast it over the fire. Regin himself knelt down, drank some of Fafnir’s blood, and lay down to sleep.

Sigurd roasted the heart. When he thought it must be done, he touched it with his finger to see if it was tender. Hot juice from the heart ran onto his finger and burned it, and he put his finger in his mouth. As soon as the taste touched his tongue, he could understand the language of birds, and he heard what the eagles in the trees were saying. One eagle said, “There sits Sigurd, covered in blood, roasting Fafnir’s heart. He would be wise to eat that shining heart himself.” Another eagle said, “There lies Regin, planning to trick the man who trusts him. In his anger he is thinking up lies. That wicked smith wants revenge for his brother.”

So Sigurd went over to Regin and killed him. Then he got on his horse, Grani, and rode to Fafnir’s lair. He took out all the gold, packed it into two bags, and loaded them onto Grani’s back. Then he climbed up himself and rode away.

He rode on until he found a house on a mountain. Inside it a woman lay sleeping, dressed in a helmet and a coat of mail. Sigurd drew his sword and cut the coat of mail off her. She woke up and said her name was Hild. She was Brynhild, a Valkyrie. But Andvari’s ring was still among Sigurd’s gold, and its curse had not finished its work.

Where this tale comes from

The story of Sigurd the dragon-slayer was told all over the Norse world, in poems, in the long Saga of the Volsungs, and even in pictures carved in wood and stone. This telling follows the short version that Snorri Sturluson gives in his Prose Edda, written in Iceland around 1220, as he explains why poets called gold “the otter’s ransom.” It is retold here from Rasmus B. Anderson’s English translation, The Younger Edda (the linked edition is dated 1901).

In Snorri’s book the story goes on. Andvari’s curse follows the ring to the family of King Gjuki, and it brings jealousy, broken oaths and Sigurd’s own death. Anderson spells the names “Andvare,” “Fafner” and “Grane.”

Read the original: Rasmus B. Anderson, trans., The Younger Edda (Project Gutenberg #18947)

Suggested for ages 9–12 with an adult: includes killing a parent, a dragon’s death, blood drinking, roasting a heart and betrayal.

A payment for harm becomes another harm

The gold first enters the family as compensation for Otr’s death. But Loki obtains it by threatening Andvari, Hreidmar refuses to share it, and the brothers kill to possess it. Each transfer carries a new wrong. The curse links the episodes, while the characters’ choices make its destructive progress visible.

Regin’s demand for compensation after urging Sigurd to kill Fafnir repeats the earlier language of repayment. The changed circumstances make that claim suspect.

Follow the ownership claims

Draw arrows from Andvari to the gods, Hreidmar, Fafnir and Sigurd. Above each arrow, write the stated reason for the transfer; below it, write how the gold is actually obtained. Which claims of fairness conceal force or betrayal?

Talk about it

• Why did Andvari curse his ring?
• How did tasting the dragon’s heart help Sigurd?
• Who in this story is destroyed by wanting the gold?

More stories like this

• The Giant Who Had No Heart In His Body — a Norse folk tale with a hero who outwits a monster
• The Children of Odin: How Sif Lost Her Hair — another myth where Loki deals with the dwarfs
• Ragnarok: The Twilight of the Gods — the Norse myth of the end of the world