58 Facts About Sigurd

Sigurd or Siegfried is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon and was later murdered.

Sigurd's story is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles, dating from the eleventh century.

Sigurd's slaying of a dragon and possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen is common to both traditions.

The most important works to feature Sigurd are the Nibelungenlied, the Volsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda.

Sigurd appears in numerous other works from both Germany and Scandinavia, including a series of medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads.

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Sigurd argues from this evidence that a form equivalent to Siegfried is the older form of Sigurd's name in Scandinavia as well.

Unlike many figures of Germanic heroic tradition, Sigurd cannot be easily identified with a historical figure.

The most popular theory is that Sigurd has his origins in one or several figures of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks: the Merovingians had several kings whose name began with the element *sigi-.

Jens Haustein argues that, while the story of Sigurd appears to have Merovingian resonances, no connection to any concrete historical figure or event is convincing.

The idea that Sigurd derives from Arminius nevertheless continues to be promoted outside of the academic sphere, including in popular magazines such as Der Spiegel.

Sigurd tells an unrelated tale about how Siegfried killed a dragon, bathed in its blood, and thereby received skin as hard as horn that makes him invulnerable.

Sigurd is thus able to penetrate Siegfried's skin with his sword, and Siegfried becomes so afraid that he flees to Kriemhild's lap.

Sigurd is the son of king Sigmund of Tarlungaland and queen Sisibe of Spain.

Sigurd dies after some time, and Sigurd is suckled by a hind before being found by the smith Mimir.

Mimir tries to raise the boy, but Sigurd is so unruly that Mimir sends him to his brother Regin, who has transformed into a dragon, in the hopes that he will kill the boy.

Thidrek and Sigurd then ride to King Gunnar, where Sigurd marries Gunnar's sister Grimhild.

Sigurd recommends to Gunnar that he marry Brynhild, and the two ride to woo for her.

Brynhild now claims that Sigurd had earlier said he would marry her, but eventually she agrees to marry Gunnar.

Brynhild claims that Sigurd is not of noble birth, after which Grimhild announces that Sigurd and not Gunnar deflowered Brynhild.

Sigurd was so unruly that the smith arranged for him to be killed by a dragon.

Sigurd marries Kriemhild and rules there together with her brothers Gunther, Hagen, and Giselher, but they resent him and have him killed after eight years.

Sigurd is raised at the court of king Hjalprek, receives the sword Gram from the smith Regin, and slays the dragon Fafnir on Gnita-Heath by lying in a pit and stabbing it in the heart from underneath.

Sigurd then kills Regin and takes the hoard of the Nibelungen for himself.

Later, Brynhild and Gudrun quarrel and Gudrun reveals that Sigurd was the one who rode through the fire, and shows a ring that Sigurd took from Brynhild as proof.

Sigurd is born at the end of the poem; he is the posthumous son of Sigmund, who dies fighting the sons of Hunding, and Hjordis.

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In Gripisspa, Sigurd goes to Gripir, his uncle on his mother's side, in order to hear a prophecy about his life.

Sigurd says that Sigurd will go to the home of Heimer and betroth himself to Brynhild, but then at the court of King Gjuki he will receive a potion that will make him forget his promise and marry Gudrun.

Brynhild will recognize the deception and claim that Sigurd did sleep with her, and this will cause Gunnar to have him killed.

In Fafnismal, Sigurd accompanies Regin to Gnita-Heath, where he digs a pit.

Sigurd kills the smith and is told by the birds to go to a palace surrounded by flames where the valkyrie Sigdrifa is asleep.

Sigurd teaches him the runes, some magic spells, and gives him advice.

The text mentions that, although the previous song said that Sigurd was killed in the forest, other songs say he was murdered in bed.

In Sigurðarkviða hin skamma, Sigurd comes to the court of Gjuki and he, Gunnar, and Hogni swear friendship to each other.

Sigurd marries Gudrun, then acquires Brynhild for Gunnar and does not sleep with her.

Sigurd gave birth to Sigurd soon afterwards, and was raised by the smith Regin at the court of King Hjalprek.

Sigurd asks Regin to make him a sword to kill the dragon, but each sword that Regin makes breaks when Sigurd proofs them against the anvil.

Finally, Sigurd has Regin make a new sword out of Sigmund's shattered sword, and with this sword he is able to cut through the smith's anvil.

Regin asks Sigurd to retrieve Regin's part of Fafnir's treasure, but Sigurd decides to avenge his father first.

Sigurd then comes to the court of King Gjuki; queen Grimhild gives him a potion so that he forgets his promise to Brynhild and agrees to marry her daughter Gudrun.

One day, Gudrun and Brynhild fight while bathing in the river over which of them has married the noblest man, and Gudrun tells Brynhild how she was tricked and shows her a ring that Sigurd had taken from her on her first night of marriage as proof.

When Sigurd goes to talk to her, the two confess their love for each other and Sigurd proposes divorcing Gudrun to be with Brynhild.

Sigurd manages to kill Guthorm, assures Gudrun that he has always been loyal to Gunnar, and dies.

Scandinavian Sigurd tradition lived on in a number of ballads, attested from across the Nordic area.

In one variant, the ballad ends when Sigurd falls from the horse and dies after jumping over the city walls.

Norwegian ballad of "Sigurd Svein" tells of Sigurd's selection of the horse Grani and his ride to Greip.

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The Faroese ballads include Sigurd's slaying of the dragon and acquiring of the hoard, his wooing of Gudrun and Brynhild, and his death.

Sigurd's killing of Fafnir can be iconographically identified by his killing of the dragon from below, in contrast to other depictions of warriors fighting dragons and other monsters.

Sigurd is depicted stabbing Fafnir so that his sword takes the appearance of a u-rune.

The crosses depict the cooking of Fafnir's heart, Sigurd receiving advice from the birds, and potentially his horse Grani.

In some of the depictions, Sigurd appears beside Old Testament heroes such as Samson.

Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and other West Germanic royal genealogies often begin with Wodan or some other mythical ancestor such as Gaut, meaning that it is certainly possible that Sigurd's divine descent is an old tradition.

Catalin Taranu argues that Sigurd only became Sigmund's son to provide the orphan Sigurd with a suitable heroic past.

John McKinnell argues that Sigurd only became the dragon-slayer in the mid-eleventh century.

Hermann Reichert, on the other hand, argues that the two dragon-slayings are originally unrelated: Sigurd kills one when he is young, which represents a sort of heroic initiation, whereas Sigmund kills a dragon when he is old, which cannot be interpreted in this way.

In both the German and the Scandinavian versions, Sigurd's slaying of the dragon embues him with superhuman abilities.

The majority of the Scandinavian material about Sigurd remained better known through the early modern period to the nineteenth century due to the so-called "Scandinavian Renaissance", which resulted in knowledge of Eddic poems influencing the popular ballads about Sigurd in Scandinavian folklore.

The Norse tradition about Sigurd, which was considered to be more "original" and Germanic, in many ways replaced direct engagement with the German Nibelungenlied, and was highly influential in the conception of the Siegfried figure in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Outside of Germany and Scandinavia, most of the reception of Sigurd has been mediated through, or at least influenced by, his depiction in Wagner's Ring.