On this he founded his poem,
adding much beautiful description, and greatly lengthening the whole.
The story deals first with a certain King Volsung, to whose son,
Sigmund, Odin presented a magic sword.
But Siggeir, the jealous king of the Goths, slew Volsung, and took
Sigmund prisoner that he might have the sword for himself. Only after
many toils and perils did Sigmund win it back and reign in his
father's kingdom. At last in his old age he fell in battle and the
sword of Odin was shattered. But his wife, Queen Hiordis, kept the
fragments for the son who was born to her soon after in Denmark,
whither she fled for safety. This son of Sigmund and Hiordis was
Sigurd the Volsung. He was brought up in Denmark and grew strong
and beautiful, brave, kind of heart, and utterly truthful in word
and deed.
When he became a man he longed to win fame and kingship by mighty
deeds, and when his tutor told him of a great dragon that guarded a
hoard of ill-gotten gold in the mountains, he resolved to kill it. So
the fragments of Odin's sword were forged into a new blade, and
Sigurd slew the dragon and took the gold, but with it he brought on
himself a curse which had been put upon the treasure by the dwarf
from whom it had been stolen.
Sigurd then found and wakened Brynhild, a maiden who lay in an
enchanted sleep upon a high mountain.
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