Fafnir

Lore & Background

In both the Norse and continental Germanic traditions, Sigurd is portrayed as dying as the result of a quarrel between his wife (Gudrun/Kriemhild) and another woman, Brunhild, whom he had unknowingly tricked into marrying the Burgundian king Gunnar/Gunther. His slaying of a dragon and possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen is also common to both traditions. In other respects, however, the two traditions appear to diverge. The most important works to feature Sigurd are the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda. He also appears in numerous other works from both Germany and Scandinavia, including a series of medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads. 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 11th century. It is possible that he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin. Richard Wagner used the legends about Sigurd/Siegfried in his operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Wagner relied heavily on the Norse tradition in creating his version of Siegfried. His depiction of the hero has influenced many subsequent depictions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Siegfried became heavily associated with German nationalism.

In Their Own Story

The Thidrekssaga finishes its tale of Sigurd by saying: "[E]veryone said that no man now living or ever after would be born who would be equal to him in strength, courage, and in all sorts of courtesy, as well as in boldness and generosity that he had above all men, and that his name would never perish in the German tongue, and the same was true with the Norsemen."

Reader's Guide

The names Sigurd and Sigvard are ultimately variants of the same name, while Siegfried is a related construction. Both follow dithematic Germanic naming conventions in which two elements, a fore element and an aft element, are combined into a single name. Their first elements share an etymological root, Proto-Germanic *sigi-, meaning victory. The second elements of the names are different however: in Siegfried, it is Proto-Germanic *-frið, meaning peace; in Sigurd/Sigvard, it is Proto-Germanic *-ward, meaning protection. Although they do not share the same second element, it is clear that surviving Scandinavian written sources held Siegfried to be the continental version of the name they called Sigurd. The normal form of Siegfried in Middle High German is Sîvrit or Sîfrit, with the *sigi- element contracted. This form of the name had been common even outside of heroic poetry since the 9th century, though the form Sigevrit is also attested, along with the Middle Dutch Zegevrijt. In Early Modern German, the name develops to Seyfrid or Seufrid (spelled Sewfrid). The modern form Siegfried is not attested frequently until the 17th century, after which it becomes more common. In modern scholarship, the form Sigfrid is sometimes used. The Old Norse name Sigurðr is contracted from an original *Sigvǫrðr, which in turn derives from an older *Sigi-warðuʀ; alternatively to an unrecorded Proto-Norse *wor-/*wur- form of the latter element, where /wo/ or /wu/ collapsed into /u/ around the 7th c. (cf. Proto-Norse: wolᵃfʀ⁠ → Old Norse: ulfr ("wolf"), *wordą → orð ("word"), *wondrą → undr ("wonder")). The form Sigvarðr instead derives from the form varðr, akin to English "ward", and thus has kept its v-. Hermann Reichert notes that the form of the root -vǫrðr instead of -varðr is only found in the name Sigurd, with other personal names instead using the form -varðr; he suggests that the form -vǫrðr may have had religious significance, whereas -varðr was purely non-religious in meaning. Contrary, the suffix also appears in the name Viurðr. There are competing theories as to which name is original. Names equivalent to Siegfried are first attested in Anglo-Saxon Kent in the 7th century and become frequent in Anglo-Saxon England in the 9th century. Jan-Dirk Müller argues that this late date of attestation means that it is possible that Sigurd more accurately represents the original name. Wolfgang Haubrichs suggests that the form Siegfried arose in the bilingual Frankish kingdom as a result of romance-language influence on an original name *Sigi-ward. According to the normal phonetic principles, the Germanic name would have become Romance-language *Sigevert, a form which could also represent a Romance-language form of Germanic Sigefred. He further notes that *Sigevert would be a plausible Romance-language form of the name Sigebert (see § Origins) from which both names could have arisen. As a second possibility, Haubrichs considers the option that metathesis of the r in *Sigi-ward could have taken place in Anglo-Saxon England, where variation between -frith and -ferth is well documented. Reichert, on the other hand, notes that Scandinavian figures who are attested in pre-12th-century German, English, and Irish sources as having names equivalent to Siegfried are systematically changed to forms equivalent to Sigurd in later Scandinavian sources. Forms equivalent to Sigurd, on the other hand, do not appear in pre-11th-century non-Scandinavian sources, and older Scandinavian sources sometimes call persons Sigfroðr Sigfreðr or Sigfrǫðr who are later called Sigurðr. He argues from this evidence that a form equivalent to Siegfried is the older form of Sigurd's name in Scandinavia as well.

Did You Know?

• Sigurd has several epithets, such as 'Fáfnir's bane' (Old Norse: Fáfnisbani) in the Icelandic sagas, 'the horn-skinned' (der hürnîn) in medieval German texts, and 'Swift lad' (Snaresven, Snarensven, Snarensvend, Snaresvend) in Scandinavian medieval ballads.
• The most important works to feature Sigurd are the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda.
• 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 11th century.
• It is possible that Sigurd was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender.
• Richard Wagner used the legends about Sigurd/Siegfried in his operas Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.