The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien

Author:J. R. R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780547394572
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2009-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

(Shorter by a head, / let him send the grey-haired wizard / hence to hell! All the gold / then can he possess alone, / the wealth, that under Fáfnir lay.)

46–48 In the Saga Sigurd ate some only of the dragon’s heart, and some he set aside. The purpose of this is seen later in the saga, where it is told that at some time after the wedding of Sigurd and Gudrún ‘Sigurd gave Gudrún some of Fáfnir’s heart to eat, and thereafter she was far more grim than before, and wiser also.’ This element is excluded from the Lay; my father considered it ‘a late piece of machinery to explain Gudrún’s tangled psychology.’

These verses derive from a prose passage in Fáfnismál, closely similar to that in the Saga, which tells that after the death of Regin Sigurd rode on Grani following the tracks of Fáfnir to his lair, which was standing open. The doors and door-posts were of iron, as were all the beams of the house, which was dug down into the earth (46). Sigurd found there a vast store of gold and filled two great chests with it; he took the Helm of Terror and a golden mailcoat and many other precious things, and he loaded them onto Grani; but the horse would not move until Sigurd leaped upon his back.

49 ‘their wit he knew not’: this very unusual use of the word ‘wit’ seems in the context to be equivalent to ‘meaning’, ‘signification’.

49–54 In Fáfnismàl, after Sigurd has slain Regin and eaten the dragon’s heart he hears the igður again; and these five verses are again in fornyrðislag (see the note to 42–44). There is no indication of how many birds spoke, but the first two verses concern Gudrún, and the last three concern a Valkyrie on the mount of Hindarfell, surrounded by fire, sleeping: Ódin stabbed her with the thorn, for she had felled a warrior against his command. See the note on 54 below.

My father held that these verses, like the previous ‘bird-verses’ in fornyrðislag, came from a poem ‘which enlarged on the situation, and probably attempted through the bird-tradition to tell more of the tale’- a trace of a poem that attempted ‘to compress a great deal of the story into one situation.’ While accepting that ‘it is useless to discuss which bird says what’, he thought the guess that one bird speaks the verses concerning Gudrún and a second those about the Valkyrie ‘as good as any’.

In the Lay he did however retain this second group of ‘bird-verses’ (or more accurately, composed verses that echo their meaning), and gave them to a raven (those about the Valkyrie) and a finch (those about Gudrún), and interlaced them. But he displaced them to follow Sigurd’s entry into Fáfnir’s lair and his loading Grani with the treasure that he found there, so that these birds are speaking of things that may lie ahead for Sigurd as he rides away from Gnitaheiði; whereas in Fáfnismál the prose passage cited in the note to 46–48 follows the second group of ‘bird-verses’.

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