The Story of the Volsungs: Volsunga Saga

The Story of The Volsungs - Volsunga Saga - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda by Anonymous The Volsunga saga, often referred to in English as the Volsunga Saga or Saga of the Volsungs, is a legendary saga, a late 13th century Icelandic prose rendition of the origin and decline of the Volsung clan including the story of Sigurd and Brynhild and destruction of the Burgundians. The saga covers themes including the power struggles among Sigurd's ancestors; Sigurd's killing of the dragon Fafnir; and the influence of the ring Andvaranaut. The saga has given rise to operatic and literary adaptations including Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Henrik Ibsen's The Vikings at Helgeland, William Morris's The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. It would seem fitting for a Northern folk, deriving the greater and better part of their speech, laws, and customs from a Northern root, that the North should be to them, if not a holy land, yet at least a place more to be regarded than any part of the world beside; that howsoever their knowledge widened of other men, the faith and deeds of their forefathers would never lack interest for them, but would always be kept in remembrance. One cause after another has, however, aided in turning attention to classic men and lands at the cost of our own history. Among battles, "every schoolboy" knows the story of Marathon or Salamis, while it would be hard indeed to find one who did more than recognise the name, if even that, of the great fights of Hafrsfirth or Sticklestead. The language and history of Greece and Rome, their laws and religions, have been always held part of the learning needful to an educated man, but no trouble has been taken to make him familiar with his own people or their tongue. Even that Englishman who knew Alfred, Bede, Caedmon, as well as he knew Plato, Caesar, Cicero, or Pericles, would be hard bestead were he asked about the great peoples from whom we sprang; the warring of Harold Fairhair or Saint Olaf; the Viking kingdoms in these (the British) Western Isles; the settlement of Iceland, or even of Normandy.