Andvari

Summary

Andvari is a dwarf in the myths of the Scandinavian north who lived in the water below a waterfall named after him, in the shape of a pike, feeding on the fish there, and who owned much gold in a rock. Loki took all his gold from him and then the last ring he had hidden, and Andvari cursed the ring and the gold to be the death of whoever owned them. From that curse begins the story of the gold that killed Fáfnir, Sigurd and those who came after them.

His story is that Odin, Loki and Hœnir came to Andvari's waterfall and saw an otter eating a salmon with its eyes half closed. Loki threw a stone and killed it, and boasted that he had caught otter and salmon at one blow. The otter was Otr, son of Hreiðmarr, who seized the gods and set as their ransom that they fill the otter's skin with red gold and cover it all over. They sent Loki for the gold. In the prose of Reginsmál Loki went to Rán, wife of Ægir, took the net in which she catches the drowned, and cast it into the waterfall before the pike, which swam into it. Snorri says instead that Odin sent him to the land of the dark elves, where he found Andvari as a fish in the water and caught him with his hands.

Loki said to him: what fish is this that runs in the water and cannot guard itself from harm? Ransom your head from Hel and find me "the water's flame", that is, gold. He answered: my name is Andvari, my father was Óinn; I have passed many a waterfall, and a wretched norn decreed for me in the first days that I should wade in water. Loki then asked him what requital comes to those who wound one another with words, and he answered: they wade the river Vaðgelmir, and are long tormented for their lies. Then he brought the gold out of his rock, hid a little ring under his arm, and asked to be allowed to keep it, since he could breed new wealth from it. Loki said he should not keep a single penny, and took it. Andvari went into the rock and said: this gold shall be the death of two brothers and bring strife among eight princes, and no one shall have joy of my wealth. In Snorri's version he says: the ring shall be the death of everyone who owns it. Loki said that pleased him well, and that he would carry the curse to the ears of those who received the gold.

Odin saw the ring, liked it and kept it for himself, and gave the gold to Hreiðmarr; the skin was filled, set on its feet and covered with the gold. Hreiðmarr looked and saw a single whisker still uncovered, and said: cover it, or our settlement is ended. Odin drew out the ring and covered the whisker with it. When Odin had his spear in hand and Loki his shoes on his feet and they had nothing to fear, Loki told Hreiðmarr: the gold is yours now; no good fortune is shaped in it for your son, and it will be the death of you both. Fáfnir killed his father for the gold, Sigurd killed Fáfnir, Sigurd was killed, and the ring passed through all these hands. It is called Andvaranautr, the thing that came from Andvari.

The idea the story turns on is that the smallest piece of the treasure carried the doom. Andvari gave up all his gold and held back one ring, because it was the ring that breeds wealth; when it was torn from him he made it cursed. And the gods did not pay the ransom from their own goods: they took it by force from a dwarf in the water, so that the payment meant to quench blood became the cause of new bloodshed. Loki killed, Loki took, and Loki carried the curse to those who came after.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method, since the essay does not read it. The final -i of Andvari is the ending of an Old Norse weak masculine noun; it becomes -a outside the nominative, as in the name of the waterfall, Andvarafors, leaving Andvar-. In Norse it is a compound of and-, a prefix of facing and opposing, and vari, caution. We read the first member as Arabic ʿanada: ʿ drops, and n and d stay as they are. In Lane ʿanada is to turn aside from the road and to go far from one's companions, and ʿānadahu is to oppose someone, do the contrary of what he does. We read the second member as wārā: w is the v, r is r, and the final weak letter is a vowel. In Lane wārā is "he hid it, concealed it, or covered it". On this reading Andvari is the one who keeps apart and hides, which is what the story makes him: he lives alone in the water below the falls, goes into his rock, hides the ring under his arm, and when it is torn from him, resists with a curse.

Linguistic Root

Andvari, ʿanada and wārā

Cleasby–Vigfusson describes and- as a prefix "denoting whatever is opposite, against, towards, and metaph. hostile, adverse", Gothic and, German ant-, English in an-swer, Greek ἀντι-. Vari is "wariness, caution", and varr "wary, cautious"; Orel derives it from Germanic *waraz, Gothic wars, "wary, on guard". The dictionary says that andvari in the old lists of names is "a fish of prey", then the name of the fish-shaped dwarf, and that in modern usage it is a soft breeze and "watchfulness, vigilance", whence andvaralauss, heedless. The text gives him the shape of a pike.

Loki plays on his name in his very first words: "what fish is this.. that cannot guard itself from harm", where the verb is varask, to beware, of the same family as vari. The one whose name is "Caution" was caught in the net.

Lane, under ʿ-n-d: ʿanada ʿan al-ṭarīq, "he declined, or deviated, from" the road; ʿanada ʿan aṣḥābihi, he left his companions and took another road, or went far from them; ʿanadat al-nāqa, the she-camel "pastured alone, disdaining to pasture with the other camels"; ʿānadahu, "he opposed him, disagreeing with him, or doing the contrary of what he did"; and ʿānada al-ḥaqq, he rejected what was true, knowing it. The Arabic essay reads this root in the second half of the name Jörmungandr, so it stands in ʿ-n-d. Under w-r-y: wārāhu, "he hid it, concealed it, or covered it", and warrā ʿan al-shayʾ, he meant a thing and pretended another.

The comparison follows the Juthoor sound laws: ʿ drops in most correspondences; n and d stay as they are; w belongs to the labials that become v and w; r is r; and the final weak letter melts into the vowel. The prefix table in those laws sets Arabic ʿan against the European prefixes in-, un- and im-, and ʿanada is of the same kind with an added d. In the first member the senses meet: facing and opposing in and-, opposing and contradicting in ʿānadahu. Vari has a second reading in waraʿ, which Lane gives as "piety, or pious fear", "abstinence from unlawful things"; holding back is close to the caution in the Norse word, and its ʿ drops as well.

Key Mythic Narratives

The ring's path in two versions

Snorri and the Völsunga saga differ on the ring's path after Fáfnir. Snorri says that Sigurd rode through the fire to Brynhildr in Gunnarr's shape, gave her Andvari's ring as a morning-gift, and took another ring from her hand as a keepsake. When the queens quarrelled, Guðrún showed Brynhildr that other ring and said: the ring on your hand is called Andvaranautr, and I do not think Gunnarr fetched it from Gnitaheiðr. The saga says instead that Sigurd had given Brynhildr a ring when they first pledged themselves; when he rode the fire in Gunnarr's shape she took Andvari's ring from her hand and gave it to him, and he gave her another ring from Fáfnir's hoard; so Andvari's ring passed to Guðrún, who showed it to Brynhildr at the river, and Brynhildr knew it. In both versions the ring exposed the deceit. Snorri adds that after Sigurd's killing Gunnarr and Högni took Fáfnir's inheritance and Andvaranautr.

The ring that breeds wealth

Andvari held back the ring because he could breed wealth from it. The same body of stories has another ring that breeds gold, Draupnir, made by the dwarf Sindri for Odin, from which eight rings of equal weight drip every ninth night. Among the dwarfs a ring is a source from which wealth multiplies, which is why taking it was worse than taking all the gold.

Names for gold

Snorri says that from this story poets call gold "the otter-payment", "the Æsir's forced ransom" and "strife-metal".

Symbolic Reading

Neither essay reads Andvari. The Norse rereading essay reads Loki's changes of shape, among them the shape of a fish, as the power to adapt to a changing environment in the harsh North. Andvari in the story is a fish too, but he did not choose his shape: "a wretched norn decreed for me in the first days that I should wade in water". The one who adapts and changes shape at will catches the one shut into his shape.

The text sets the gold within the order of blood-payment: a slain man, kin who demand compensation, and a settlement bound by oaths. The poets' names for gold, "otter-payment" and "strife-metal", hold both sides: wealth paid to quench a feud, and wealth that kindles one.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In Andvari's story Loki kills, takes by force, and carries the curse, so it is a case of the trickster: the trick gets the gods out of their trouble and then opens a greater evil. Rán's net, with which Loki catches Andvari in Reginsmál, is the sea's net that takes the drowned in the house of Ægir.

Among the Greeks the hand of Hephaestus makes a necklace that Cadmus gives to Harmonia, and Apollodorus follows it from hand to hand: Polynices bribes Eriphyle with it and she sends her husband to his death, her son Alcmaeon kills his mother, and he is then killed because of it, until his sons dedicate it at Delphi. Andvari's ring likewise passes from hand to hand, with killing wherever it goes.