Fáfnir

Fáfnir is a dwarf turned dragon in Norse legend who guards a cursed hoard of gold until the hero Sigurd kills him by stabbing him from a pit dug in his path.

The Story

Fáfnir's story begins with a debt. The gods Odin, Loki, and Hœnir kill an otter beside a waterfall, not knowing it is Otr, a son of the magician Hreidmar. To pay for the killing, Loki robs the dwarf Andvari of his gold, including a ring called Andvaranaut. Andvari curses the treasure so that it will bring death to everyone who owns it.

The curse works fast. Fáfnir, another of Hreidmar's sons, murders his father for the gold and refuses to share it with his brother Regin. He carries the hoard to Gnitaheath, a lonely heath, and lies on it in the form of a serpent-dragon, wearing a terrifying "helm of terror" (ægishjálmr) that frightens all who see him.

Regin, a master smith, raises the young hero Sigurd and forges him the sword Gram. Following Regin's advice, Sigurd digs a pit across the path Fáfnir takes to drink at the water. When the dragon slides over, Sigurd stabs upward into his soft belly. In the Völsunga saga, an old man (Odin in disguise) tells Sigurd to dig extra trenches so the dragon's blood will not drown him.

Dying, Fáfnir talks with Sigurd. In the Eddic poem Fáfnismál he warns the hero that the gold will be his death and answers questions about the gods. Regin then asks Sigurd to roast Fáfnir's heart. When Sigurd touches the sizzling heart and licks his burned thumb, he suddenly understands the speech of birds. The birds warn him that Regin plans to betray him, so Sigurd kills Regin, loads the gold onto his horse Grani, and rides away.

Appearance and Powers

The Norse sources call Fáfnir an ormr, a word that means both serpent and dragon. They say nothing of wings or fire. His weapon is venom: he blows poison as he crawls, which is why Sigurd attacks from below rather than facing him. His blood and heart are magical. Eating the heart grants wisdom, and in later German tradition bathing in a dragon's blood makes the hero's skin invulnerable.

Fáfnir is also one of the clearest examples of a person turned dragon. The sources present the transformation as the outward sign of his greed, a theme that runs through many later dragon stories.

Origins and Sources

The story is told in several Eddic poems (Reginsmál and Fáfnismál) preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript of about 1270, in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (c. 1220), and in the Völsunga saga (13th century). The legend is much older than these books. The Ramsund carving in Sweden, cut into a rock face around 1030, shows Sigurd in a pit stabbing a long serpent whose body frames a runic inscription, along with the roasting of the heart, the birds, and the horse Grani. Several carved stones from the Viking Age, including crosses on the Isle of Man, also show scenes from the story.

Medieval Icelanders placed Gnitaheath in Germany. A 12th-century Icelandic travel guide for pilgrims locates it between Paderborn and Mainz.

Legacy

The German Nibelungenlied (c. 1200) tells a related story about Siegfried, who kills a dragon and bathes in its blood. Richard Wagner merged the Norse and German versions in his opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, where the giant Fafner turns himself into a dragon to guard the gold. J. R. R. Tolkien knew the Norse story well, and his dragons Glaurung and Smaug both owe something to Fáfnir: a talking, treasure-hoarding dragon killed by a stab to its weak underside. For more on the Germanic side of the legend, see German Dragons.

Related

• Níðhöggr: Níðhöggr (Nidhogg) is the dragon of Norse mythology that gnaws the roots of the world tree Yggdrasil and, in the poem Völuspá, sucks the corpses of oath breakers and murderers.
• Jörmungandr: Jörmungandr is the Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology, a child of Loki so huge that it encircles the world under the ocean and bites its own tail, and Thor's destined enemy at Ragnarök.
• Lindworm: A lindworm is a huge serpent-dragon of Scandinavian and German folklore, usually wingless and with two front legs or none, that devours livestock, guards treasure, and sometimes proves to be an enchanted prince.
• Beowulf's dragon: Beowulf's dragon is the fire-breathing, treasure-guarding dragon of the Old English epic Beowulf, which ravages the land of the Geats after a cup is stolen from its hoard and dies fighting the aged hero.
• Smaug: Smaug is the greedy, cunning fire-breathing dragon of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), who seizes the dwarves' treasure under the Lonely Mountain and is killed by Bard the Bowman.
• Famous Dragons
• German Dragons
• Dragon Species

Sources and Further Reading

• The Poetic Edda, Reginsmál and Fáfnismál, trans. Carolyne Larrington (Oxford World's Classics, 1996)
• The Saga of the Volsungs, trans. Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics, 1999)
• Snorri Sturluson, Edda, Skáldskaparmál, trans. Anthony Faulkes (Everyman, 1987)

Cite this entry: “Fáfnir,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/fafnir.