36–41 My father declared the ‘undermeaning’ of Regin’s ‘dark words’ in his preamble to this section of the Lay; and in notes for a lecture (written in pencil at great speed and now not entirely legible) he discussed in detail the relationship in this episode between the Saga and Fáfnismál, seeking to determine not only how the writer of the Saga compressed and modified the verses but why he did so. I give here, with some slight editing, a part of this discussion, since it well illustrates his critical treatment of such problems in the Edda.
He begins with a summary of the dialogue of Regin and Sigurd after the death of Fáfnir in the Saga (I give references to the stanzas and lines of the Lay in brackets).
After the death of Fáfnir Regin came to Sigurd and said: ‘You have won a great victory: your glory from it will be eternal’ [35, 1–4]. Then Regin is suddenly or affects to be suddenly stricken with disquiet – ‘he looks upon the ground for a long while’ and says with great emotion ‘it is my brother you have killed and I cannot be accounted innocent of this’ [36, 5–8]. Sigurd dries his sword on the grass, and simply replies ‘you were a long way off at the time when I tested the sword’ (implying therefore ‘innocent enough!’) [37, 1–4].
Regin counters with the fact that he made the sword [37, 5]; Sigurd counters with ‘brave heart is better than sharp sword in battle’ [38, 3–4].
Regin does not rebut this, but repeats again ‘with great emotion’ almost his exact words ‘You slew my brother, &c.’ Then Regin cut out the dragon’s heart, drank the dragon’s blood, and asked Sigurd as a sole boon (no sort of reason for which is given) to roast the heart for him.
The repetition by Regin of the words ‘You killed my brother and I can hardly be accounted innocent’ is not a feature of Fáfnismál. Does it serve an artistic purpose – or is it just accidental, due to some confusion in the saga-writer’s source, or in the handing down of the saga? It is probably intentional, and perhaps not bad. The saga-writer has constructed a picture of Regin, already plotting Sigurd’s removal, and trying as it were to justify himself to himself. Scornfully relieved of any share of responsibility by Sigurd, he contents himself with mere repetition – he adheres to his remorse, and to his ‘You slew my brother’ ( i.e. his vengeance).
After such words Sigurd should have needed no igeur [the birds whose voices he could understand, see 41, 8 and 43, 1–3]. That the brother of one you had slain was unsafe was learnt almost at the mother’s knee, certainly on the father’s lap, in Scandinavia – especially when he went out of his way to point it out to you.
There is a curious absence of explanation of the reason why Sigurd must roast the heart. The real reason is of course that Sigurd must cook the heart so as to hear the birds. Fáfnismál supplies a not overwhelming but sufficient reason – ek mun sofa ganga [I shall go to sleep] (we may presume, after the potent draught of dragon’s blood) [39, 5–8, and 40]. Whether there ever was a better reason – connected with this remnant of very ancient belief, the eating of flesh and drinking of blood (of foes especially) to obtain their wisdom and power [40, 5–8; 46, 1–4] we perhaps can no longer say.
It may be noted that Snorri Sturluson says that Regin expressly proposed to Sigurd as terms of reconciliation for the slaying of Fáfnir, that he roast the heart for him.
39 Ridil: Old Norse Rieill, Regin’s sword; Snorri names it Refill.
42–44 In Fáfnismál there are seven stanzas ascribed (in a prose linking-passage) to the words of the birds (of a kind called igeur, of uncertain meaning) chattering in the thicket, whose voices Sigurd could at once understand after the blood from the dragon’s heart touched his tongue; but these stanzas are in two different metres. The poem Fáfnismál is not in the verse-form fornyreislag in which the greater number of the poems of the Edda are written, but in ljóeaháttr. In this metre the stanza falls into two halves of three lines each, of which the third line in each half usually has three stressed elements and double (or treble) alliteration within itself. Only three of the ‘bird-verses’ are in ljóeaháttr, the others being in fornyreislag; and my father argued forcefully and in detail that the fornyreislag verses come from another poem (see further the note to 49–54).
The three ljóeaháttr verses, he held, are spoken by two birds, with two main motives selected : gold, fear of treachery, and gold repeated. This is the basis for these three stanzas in the Lay (though the suggestion in 42, 5–6 that Sigurd should eat Fáfnir’s heart himself is introduced from one of the other verses); but – rather oddly – they are cast in ljóeaháttr, thus apparently marking them out as intrusive, since the Lay is in fornyreislag.
To illustrate the form as it appears in Old Norse I give here the first of the three ljóeaháttr verses with a close translation:
H?fei skemra láti hann inn hára tul
Fara til heljar heean!
?llu gulli tá kná hann einn ráea,
fj?le, tví er und Fáfni lá.
(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 igeur again; and these five verses are again in fornyreislag (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 fornyreislag, 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 Gnitaheiei; whereas in Fáfnismál the prose passage cited in the note to 46–48 follows the second group of ‘bird-verses’.
54 ‘her power wielding, / victory swaying as Valkyrie’. In northern legend and poetry the course and outcome of battles was governed by Valkyries, demonic warrior-women sent out as emissaries of ódin.
The word Valkyrja means ‘chooser of the slain’: it is given to them to determine who is to die, and to award victory. Perhaps the most striking example of this conception is found in the Hákonarmál, a poem composed in the tenth century on the death of King Hákon the Good of Norway, son of King Harald Fairhair. The poem opens thus:
G?ndul and Sk?gul Gautatyr sent
to choose who of kings of Yngvi’s race
should go to ódin and dwell in Valh?ll.
G?ndul and Sk?gul are Valkyries; Gautatyr is a name