“That one’s really mythic,” lnhammer told me when I started on the Volsungs. Yeah, sure, I thought, because every saga has scattered bits of mythicness–ghosts, women who turn into birds, men who turn into wolves, people who see the future (lots and lots of people who see the future), random bits of inexplicable sorcery, signs and portents.
But no. The Völsunga Saga is really mythic.
Things that have shown up in the saga so far, in no particular order, include:
– A one-eyed man who shows up occasionally, offering random advice (in Norse lore, one is always wary when a one-eyed man shows up)
– A sword stuck in a tree that can only be drawn free by a worthy man
– A woman who takes on another woman’s shape in order to produce a son with her twin brother, in order to give birth someone who can avenge her father’s killer
– A man so strong poison cannot kill him (and his son, not quite as strong, who cannot drink poison, but who is at least up to surviving venomous bites)
– Another woman who bears her son for six years before dying in childbirth; her son enters the world well-grown as a result of all that time, and kisses his dead mother
– A broken sword of power, reforged (Tolkien, you little plagiarist)
– A deadly serpent with poisonous blood who guards a hoard of gold
– And whose heart, when eaten, gives one the ability to understand the speech of animals
– A shieldmaiden, sworn to fight in battle and never marry (See Tolkien above. Only Aragorn got off easy when he spurned his shieldmaiden, I see that now)
– The sharing of runes and knowledge and love vows all at once
– A potion of forgetfulness (thinking of the plot of TE, this made me smile–there is precedent for magic to make you forget, yay!)
– A test that requires one ride through flames to win the shieldmaiden’s hand, something only the man she truly loves can do
– The man she truly loves, taking on another man’s shape so that the other man can win the shieldmaiden’s hand instead
– A man killing another man, and the first man’s wife waking drenched in her husband’s blood
– And of course, always, people who can see the future
There’s more. I know I’m forgetting things. Listening to this saga, especially toward the end, is like swimming in mythic lore. Two lines, roughly remembered, that have been particularly staying with me:
– “The potion was made of the strength of the earth and the sea and the blood of her son.”
– “When you rode through the fire, I thought I knew your eyes, but the veil fate laid over me kept me from seeing you clearly.”
I think I need to purchase a good translation to give this one a closer read when I’m done listening to it.