(b) Volund and Egil were intimately associated with Frey, and were his fosterers and wards.
6. (a) Ivalde's sons were most deeply insulted by the gods.
(b) Volund has been most deeply insulted by the Asas. He and Egil become their foes, and ally themselves with the powers of frost.
7. (a) The insult given to Ivalde's sons consisted in the fact that their works were judged inferior as compared with the hammer Mjolner made by Sindre.
(b) The best smith-work produced by Volund is a sword of such a quality that it is to prove itself superior to Mjolner in battle.
These circumstances alone force us to assume the identity of Ivalde's sons with Volund and his brothers. We must either admit the identity, or we are obliged to assume that the epic of the mythology contained two such groups of brothers, and made them identical in descent, functions, and fortunes. Besides, it must then have made the one group avenge not an insult offered to itself, but an insult to the other. I have abstained from the latter assumption, because it is in conflict with the best rules for a logical investigation—causæ non sunt præter necessitatem multiplicandæ. And the identity gains confirmation from all sides as the investigation progresses.
111.
THE RESULTS OF THE JUDGMENT PASSED ON THE WORKS OF ART PRODUCED BY THE IVALDE SONS. PARALLEL MYTHS IN RIGVEDA.
In the Younger Edda, which speaks of the judgment passed by the gods on the art works of the Ivalde sons (p. 340, &c.), there is nothing said about the consequences of the judgment; and the mythologists seem therefore to have assumed that no results followed, although it was prepared by the "father of misfortunes," the far-calculating and evil-scheming Loke. The judgment would in that case be an isolated event, without any influence on the future, and without any connection with the other mythic events. On the other hand, no possible explanation was found of Volund's words (Volundarkvida, 28), which he utters after he has taken his terrible vengeance on Nidad and is prepared to fly away in eagle guise from his prison: Nu hefi ec hefnt harma minna allra nema einna ivithgjarnra—"Now I have avenged all the wrongs done to me, excepting one, which demands a more terrible vengeance." The wrong here referred to by him is not done to him by Nidad, and did not happen to him while he lived as an exile in the wilderness of the Wolfdales, but belongs to an earlier time, when he and his brothers and their kinsmen dwelt in the realm rich in gold, where, according to Volundarkvida (14), they lived a happy life. This wrong was not avenged when he and his brothers left their home abounding in gold, in order that far from his enemies he might perfect his plan of revenge by making the sword of victory. Volund's words refer to the judgment passed on the art work of the Ivalde sons, and thus the mythic events unite themselves into a continuous chain.