The Cursed Gold and the Forging of Gram

Sigurðr chose a horse from King Hjálprekr’s herd and called it Grani. At the king’s court he was taught by Reginn, a craftsman of extraordinary ingenuity, small in stature, fierce, and skilled in magic. Reginn instructed him in his family’s history, but also told a story about his own family—a story whose wealth would eventually draw the young man toward a dragon.

Odin, Hœnir, and Loki had once travelled to a waterfall full of fish. Reginn’s brother Otr often took the shape of an otter and fished there. He had caught a salmon and was eating it with his eyes closed when Loki killed him with a stone. The gods admired what seemed a fortunate catch: an otter and a fish together. They skinned the animal and carried the pelt to their evening lodging.

Their host was Hreiðmarr, Otr’s father. When the travellers displayed the skin, the family recognised the dead son and seized them. To ransom their lives, the gods had to fill the pelt with gold and cover its outside completely. Loki was sent to obtain the payment. An act treated as casual hunting had become the killing of a host’s child and a debt no ordinary apology could settle.

Loki borrowed Rán’s net and returned to the waterfall. There the dwarf Andvari lived in the shape of a pike. Caught in the net, he was forced to surrender the gold he possessed. Loki questioned him about his identity and the punishment awaiting those who deceived others with words. The captive answered, but knowledge did not purchase his release without the treasure.

Andvari tried to keep one ring. Loki took that too. As the dwarf withdrew into the rock, he cursed the gold: it would bring death to brothers and strife to rulers, and no one would enjoy it safely. The ransom had been obtained by a second act of force, and the means of settling the first wrong now carried its own threatened consequences.

The gods filled the otter-skin and piled gold over it. Hreiðmarr inspected their work and found a single exposed hair. Odin had to surrender the ring Andvaranaut to cover the last visible trace. Only when the payment was complete did Loki disclose the curse. Hreiðmarr said the gift had not been given with goodwill, and that he would have killed them if he had known sooner. He nevertheless kept the wealth and dismissed the warning.

Fáfnir and Reginn asked for a share of the compensation paid for their brother. Their father refused. Fáfnir stabbed him while he slept. Dying, Hreiðmarr called to his daughters for vengeance; one answered that a daughter could scarcely avenge her father by killing her brother. Even the demand to answer murder was entangled in the family relationship the murder had broken.

Reginn still wanted his portion. The advice to seek it peaceably did not make Fáfnir share. He took possession of the hoard, went to Gnitaheiðr, and lay over it in the shape of a dragon. He bore a terror-inspiring helm or power of dread that frightened living creatures away. The gold had passed from a captive dwarf to a bereaved father and then to a father-killing son.

Reginn told these events to Sigurðr and welcomed him as a brave prince whose destiny reached across the lands. His teaching and affection were real parts of their relationship, but his account also placed an unfinished grievance before a young man capable of acting upon it. He knew where Fáfnir lay, what he guarded, and how formidable he had become.

He forged the sword Gram for Sigurðr. Its edge was so keen that it cut a strand of wool drifting against it in the Rhine. Sigurðr then split the smith’s anvil with it. Reginn urged him to go against the dragon. The weapon had been proved; the treasure waited. But Sigurðr refused to make gold his first undertaking.

Hundingr’s sons would laugh, he said, if he sought red rings before avenging Sigmundr and Eylimi. King Hjálprekr provided a fleet. Sigurðr and Reginn sailed, but a violent storm drove their ships toward danger. From a headland, a stranger called to ask who commanded the vessels struggling through the waves. Reginn named himself and Sigurðr and asked who was questioning them.

The man gave names associated with Odin: Hnikarr, Fengr, Fjölnir. He had accompanied earlier victories and now wanted passage. They brought the ship toward land and took him aboard. The storm subsided. Sigurðr asked the visitor which omens were best for a man preparing to fight. The voyage paused for another kind of instruction, different from the smith’s knowledge of weapons and inherited treasure.

A raven on the road could be a good sign, Hnikarr said, as could meeting eager warriors or hearing a wolf beneath an ash. It helped to see an enemy before being seen. The advice joined omens to practical judgment: a fighter should not face the setting sun, whose light could blind him while his opponent saw clearly. Stumbling on the way to battle was ominous; being properly prepared and fed mattered too.

Sigurðr reached the lands of his enemies and defeated Hundingr’s sons. The closing verse praises the young warrior whose weapon had reddened in the fighting. His father’s vengeance, not the dragon’s gold, gives this part of the narrative its ending. Reginn’s desired expedition remains ahead.

The poem’s prose and verse have carried the reader through two generations of violence before Sigurðr ever meets Fáfnir. The dragon is not simply a beast that happens to own treasure. He is Reginn’s brother, a murderer guarding the compensation for another brother’s death. When Reginn asks his pupil to kill him, the promised adventure already belongs to a family history in which every transfer of the gold has created another claim.