Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

Complaint" says he was an exile (Veland him be vurman vreces cannade). 5 A German
saga of the Middle Ages, Anhang des Heldenbuchs, confirms this statement. Wieland
(Völund), it is there said, "was a duke who was banished by two giants, who took his land
from him," whereupon "he was stricken with poverty," and "became a smith." The
Völundarkviða does not have much to say about the reason for his sojourn in the
Wolfdales, but strophe 28 informs us that, previous to his arrival there, he had suffered an
injustice, of which he speaks as the worst and the most revenge-demanding which he, the
unhappy and revengeful man, ever experienced. But he has had no opportunity of
demanding satisfaction, when he finally succeeds in getting free from Niðaður's chains. 6
Who those mythic persons are that have so cruelly insulted him and filled his heart with
unquenchable thirst for revenge is not mentioned; but in the very nature of the case those
persons from whose persecutions he has fled must have been mightier than he, and as he
himself is a chief in the godlike clan of elves, his foes are naturally to be looked for
among the more powerful races of gods.
And as Völundarkviða pictures him as boundlessly and recklessly revengeful, and
makes him resort to his extraordinary skill as a smith -- a skill famous among all
Germanic tribes -- in the satisfaction which he demands of Niðaður, there is no room for
doubt that, during the many years he spent in Wolfdales, he brooded on plans of revenge
against those who had most deeply insulted him, and that he made use of his art to secure
instruments for the carrying out of these plans. Of the glittering sword of which Niðaður
robbed him, Völund says (str. 18) that he had applied his greatest skill in making it hard
and keen. The sword must, therefore, have been one of the most excellent ones
mentioned in the songs of Germanic heathendom. Far down in the Middle Ages, the
songs and sagas were fond of attributing the best and most famous swords wielded by
their heroes to the skill of Völund.
In the myths turned by Saxo into history, there has been mentioned a sword of a
most remarkable kind, of untold value (ingens præmium), and attended by success in
battle (belli fortuna comitaretur). A hero whose name Saxo Latinized into Hotherus
(Hist. Dan., beginning of Book 3) got into enmity with the Aesir, and the only means
with which he can hope to cope with them is the possession of this sword. He also knows
where to secure it, and with its aid he succeeds in putting Thor himself and other gods to
flight.
In order to get possession of this sword, Hotherus had to make a journey which
reminds us of the adventurous expeditions already described to Gudmund-Mimir's
domain, but with this difference, that he does not need to go by sea along the coast of
Norway in order to get there, which circumstance is sufficiently explained by the fact
that, according to Saxo, Hotherus has his home in Sweden. The regions which Hotherus
has to traverse are pathless, full of obstacles, and for the greater part continually in the
cold embrace of the severest frost. They are traversed by mountain-ridges on which the
cold is terrible, and therefore they must be crossed as rapidly as possible with the aid of
"yoke-stags." The sword is kept concealed in a specus, a subterranean cave, and
5 "Welund for himself …. learned to know exile" Ursula Dronke, PE II pg. 279, with the note that the
phrase be wurman is faulty. I have seen no less than 4 variant translations for this line.
6 This problem has long vexed commentators. Lee Hollander conjectures this unfulfilled revenge is directed
against Nidhad's queen (Poetic Edda, Vkv. 30). After discussing some of the previous attempts at solving
the riddle, Dronke solves the problem in a unique manner, emending allra nema einna (all except one) to
allra né einna (none but all) in Vkv. 28/7 (PE II pg. 251, and commentary pg. 230).