[EN#3]—The Sword.
“By this sword Balmung also hangs a tale. Doubtless it was one of those invaluable weapons sometimes fabricated by the old Northern smiths, compared with which our modern Foxes and Ferraras and Toledos are mere leaden tools. Von der Hagen seems to think it simply the sword Mimung under another name; in which case, Siegfried’s old master, Mimer, had been the maker of it, and called it after himself, as if it had been his son.”—Carlyle, on the Nibelungen Lied, note.
In Scandinavian legends, the story of Mimer and Amilias is given, differing but slightly from the rendering in this chapter.—See Weber and Jamieson’s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities.
In the older versions of the myth, the sword is called Gram, or the Wrath. It was wrought from the shards, or broken pieces, of Sigmund’s sword, the gift of Odin. It was made by Regin for Sigurd’s (Siegfried’s) use, and its temper was tested as here described.
[EN#4]—Sigmund The Volsung.
Sigmund the Volsung, in the Volsunga Saga, is represented as the father of Sigurd (Siegfried); but there is such a marked contrast between him, and the wise, home-abiding King Siegmund of the later stories, that I have thought proper to speak of them here as two different individuals. The word “Sigmund,” or “Siegmund,” means literally the mouth of victory. The story of the Volsungs, as here supposed to be related by Mimer, is derived mainly from the Volsunga Saga.
[EN#5]—Siegfried’s Journey Into The Forest.
“In the shop of Mimer, Siegfried was nowise in his proper element, ever quarrelling with his fellow-apprentices, nay, as some say, breaking the hardest anvils into shivers by his too stout hammering; so that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate smith, could by no means do with him there. He sends him, accordingly, to the neighboring forest to fetch charcoal, well aware that a monstrous dragon, one Regin, the smith’s own brother, would meet him, and devour him. But far otherwise it proved.”—Carlyle, on The Nibelungen Lied.
[EN#6]—The Norns.
The Norns are the Fates, which watch over man through life. They are Urd the Past, Verdande the Present, and Skuld the Future. They approach every new-born child, and utter his doom. They are represented as spinning the thread of fate, one end of which is hidden by Urd in the far east, the other by Verdande in the far west. Skuld stands ready to rend it in pieces. —See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, p. 405, also Anderson’s Norse Mythology, p. 209.