I now pass to the name Hlaudverr, in Volundarkvida. This poem does not state directly who Volund's, Egil's, and Slagfin's father was, but it does so indirectly by mentioning the name of the father of Volund's and Slagfin's swan-maids, and by stating that these swan-maids were sisters of the brothers. Volund's swan-maid is called theirra systir in str. 2. Among the many uncalled-for "emendations" made in the text of the Elder Edda is also the change of theirra to theirrar, made for the reason that the student, forgetting that Volundarkvida was a poem born of mythology, regarded it as impossible for a brother and sister to be husband and wife, and for the reason that it was observed in the prose introduction to Volundarkvida that the father of the three brothers was Finnakonungr. Hlaudverr is also found in a German source, "Biterolf," as King Liutwar. There he appears in the war between Hadding-Dieterich and Gudhorm-Ermenrich, and the poem makes him a champion on the side where all who in the mythology were foes of the Asas generally got their place, that is, on Ermenrich's. There he occupied the most conspicuous place as Ermenrich's standard-bearer, and, with Sabene, leads his forces. The same position as Ermenrich's standard-bearer occupies is held in "Dieterich's Flucht" by Vate, that is to say, Vadi-Ivalde, and in Vilkinasaga by Valthari, that is to say again, Ivalde. Liutwar, Vate, and Valthari are originally one and the same person in these German records, just as Hlaudver (corresponding to Liutwar), Vade (corresponding to Vate), and Ivalde (corresponding to Valthari) are identical in the Scandinavian Volundarkvida's statement, that Volund's and Slagfin's swan-maids are their sisters (half-sisters, as we shall see), and, like them, daughters of Ivalde, is thus found to be correct by the comparison of widely-separated sources.
While the father of these two swan-maids is called Hlaudverr in Volundarkvida, the father of the third swan-maid, Egil's beloved, is called King Kiarr in Valland. As Egil was first married to the dis of vegetation, Groa, whose father is Sigtryg in the heroic saga, and then to Sif, his swan-maid must be one of these two. In Volundarkvida, where none of the swan-maids have their common mythological names, she is called Olrun, and is said to be not a sister, but a kinswoman (kunn—str. 15) of both the others. Hlaudverr (Ivalde) and Kiarr are therefore kinsmen. Who Kiarr was in the mythology I cannot now consider. Both these kings of mythological descent reappear in the cycle of the Sigurd songs. It has already been shown above (No. 118) that the Gjukungs appear in the Sigurd saga as heirs and possessors of Hlaudverrs halls and treasures; it is added that "they possess the whitest shield from Kiarr's hall (Gudrunarkvida, ii. 25; Atlakvida, 7). Here we accordingly once more find the connection already pointed out between the persons appearing in Volundarkvida and those in the Gjukungsaga. The fathers of the swan-maids who love Volund and his brothers reappear in the Sigurd songs as heroes who had already left the scene of action, and who had owned immense treasures, which after their death have passed by inheritance into the possession of the Gjukungs. This also follows from the fact that the Gjukungs are descendants of Gjuke-Slagfin, and that Slagfin and his brothers are Niflungs, heirs of Hlaudver-Ivalde, who was gullaudigr mjök (Younger Edda).
Like his sons, Ivalde originally stood in a friendly relation to the higher reigning gods; he was their sworn man, and from his citadel near the Elivagar, Geirvadills setr, he protected the creation of the gods from the powers of frost. But, like his sons, and before them, he fell into enmity with the gods and became "a perjured hapt." The features of the Ivalde-myth, which have been preserved in the heroic poems and shed light on the relation between the moon-god and him, are told partly in the account of Gevarus, Nanna's father, in Saxo, and partly in the poems about Walther (Valtarius, Walthari) and Fin Folcvalding. From these accounts it appears that Ivalde abducted a daughter of the moon-god; that enmity arose between them; that, after the defeat of Ivalde, Sunna's and Nanna's father offered him peace, and that the peace was confirmed by oath; that Ivalde broke the oath, attacked Gevar-Nokver and burnt him; that, during the hostilities between them, Slagfin-Gjuke, though a son of Ivalde, did not take the side of his natural father, but that of his foster-father; and that Ivalde had to pay for his own deeds with ruin and death.
Concerning the point that Ivalde abducted a daughter of Gevar-Nokver and married her, the Latin poems Valtarius Manufortis, Nibelunge Noth, Biterolf, Vilkinasaga, and Boguphalus (Chronicon Poloniæ) relate that Walther fled with a princess named Hildigund. On the flight he was attacked by Gjukungs, according to Valtarius Manufortis. The chief one of these (in the poem Gunthari, Gjuke's son) received in the battle a wound "clean to the hip-bone." The statement anent the wound, which Walther gave to the chief one among the Gjukungs, has its roots in the mythology where the chief Gjukung, that is, Gjuke himself, appears with surnames (Hengest, Geldr, öndr-Jálkr) alluding to the wound inflicted. In the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem Fin Folcvalding is married to Hildeburh, a daughter of Hnæf-Hoce, and in Hyndluljod (cp. str. 17 with str. 15) Hildigunnr is the mother of Halfdan's wife Almveig, and consequently the wife of Sumbl Finnakonungr, that is, Ivalde. Hildigunnr's father is called Sækonungr in Hyndluljod, a synonym of Nökkver ("the ship-captain," the moon-god), and Hildigun's mother is called Sváfa, the same name as that by which Nanna is introduced in the poem concerning Helge Hjorvardson. Hildeburh, Hnæf-Hoce's daughter, is identical with Hildigun, daughter of Sækonungr. Compare furthermore str. 20 in Hyndluljod, which speaks of Nanna as Nokver's daughter, and thus refers back to str. 17, where Hildigun is mentioned as the daughter of Sækonungr. The phrase Nanna vat næst thor Nauckva dottir shows that Nökkver and another elder daughter of his were named in one of the immediately preceding strophes. But in these no man's name or epithet occurs except Sækonungr, "the sea-king," which can refer to Nökkver, "the ship-owner," or "ship-captain," and the "daughter" last mentioned in the poem is Hildigunnr.
Of the names of Ivalde's wife the various records contain the following statements:
Hlaudver-Ivalde is married to Svanfeather (Svanfjödr, Volundarkvida).
Finnalf-Ivalde is married to Svanhild Gold-feather, daughter of Sol (Fornal. saga).
Fin Folcvalding-Ivalde is married to Hildeburh, daughter of Hnæf-Hoce (Beowulf poem).
Walther-Ivalde is married to Hildigunt (German poems).
Sumbl-Finnakonungr is married to Hildigun, daughter of Sækonungr Nokver, the same as Hnæfr, Hnefr, Nanna's father (Hyndluljod, compared with Saxo and other sources).