Fáfnir

Summary

Fáfnir, in the myths of the Scandinavian north, is a man who killed his father for gold and then became a dragon lying on that gold, until the hero Sigurd killed him. His story is told in the prose and verse of Reginsmál, in Fáfnismál, where he talks with his killer as he dies, and in Snorri's Skáldskaparmál.

Fáfnir was the eldest and fiercest of Hreiðmarr's sons, and his brother Reginn says that he wanted everything called his. They had a third brother, Otr, who fished in the shape of an otter at the waterfall of the dwarf Andvari. Odin, Loki and Hœnir passed by the waterfall; Loki killed the otter with a stone as it ate a salmon, they flayed it, and they took lodging with Hreiðmarr. When he saw the skin he seized them with his two sons and set as their ransom that they fill the otter's skin with gold and cover it outside. Loki brought Andvari's gold, and with it a ring its owner had cursed.

Then Fáfnir and Reginn asked their father for a share of their brother's blood-price, and he would not give them a penny. Fáfnir stabbed his father with a sword as he slept; Skáldskaparmál makes it the deed of both brothers. Hreiðmarr called on his daughters Lyngheiðr and Lofnheiðr and said that he was dying; Lyngheiðr answered that a sister will seldom avenge her father on her brother, and he told her: if you bear no son to a prince, bear a daughter and give her to a husband, and her son will avenge me. Hreiðmarr died, and Fáfnir took all the gold, gave Reginn nothing of his father's inheritance, and threatened him with his father's fate if he did not go. He put on his father's helm, the helm of terror that every living thing fears to see, took the sword Hrotti, went up to Gnitaheiðr, made himself a lair there, took the shape of a serpent and lay down on the gold.

He crawled from the gold to the water along one path. Reginn fostered another man's son, Sigurd, made him a sword and showed him the path. Sigurd dug a pit in the dragon's way and sat in it, and when the dragon crawled over it blowing venom he thrust up from below into its heart. Fáfnir writhed and lashed with head and tail, then asked his killer: who are you, and who was your father? When he learned, he warned him: the ringing gold and the glow-red treasure will be your death. He said: I blew venom while I lay on my father's great inheritance; I thought myself stronger than all, and found no one to stand against me. And he said: Reginn betrayed me, he will betray you, and he will be the death of us both. Then he died.

After his death his heart and blood remained. Reginn drank of his blood and asked for the heart to be roasted, and when the heart's blood touched Sigurd's tongue he understood the speech of birds, learned from them that Reginn meant to kill him, and killed him. So the two brothers who claimed their share of the blood-price with blood both died by the sword, as Fáfnir said.

The idea the story turns on is that an inheritance that should have been shared became a heap on which one man lay, and the man became a serpent. The gold itself came as payment for a slain brother; when the payment was not shared the father was killed, and when the inheritance was not shared the son became a dragon. The dragon neither spends the gold nor uses it: it lies on it, blows venom, frightens people with its helm, and goes down to the water by a known path, where it is killed.

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 r of Fáfnir is the Old Norse nominative ending; it drops in the dative, Fáfni, as in "you reddened your blade on Fáfnir" at the start of Fáfnismál, leaving Fáfn-. An f inside an Old Norse word is pronounced v, so the name is heard Fávn-. It is Arabic ufʿuwān, the male viper: the glottal stop drops; f is f; ʿ drops and leaves a long vowel, the á of Fá-; w is the v; and n is n. Lane gives the afʿā as "a certain serpent, of a malignant kind", "always coiling itself round", said not to quit its place, and the ufʿuwān as its male. From the same root, tafaʿʿā, "he became like the viper in evil", and afʿā, "he became possessed of evil after good". That is the whole of Fáfnir's story: a man who became a serpent through evil, and lay on his gold without leaving it.

Linguistic Root

Fáfnir and ufʿuwān

Cleasby–Vigfusson says that Old Norse f "at the beginning of a syllable is always sounded as Engl. f; but as a medial and final, it is often pronounced and sometimes spelt v", as in hafa, to have. So the second f of Fáfnir is heard as v before the n.

Lane, under f-ʿ-w and f-ʿ-y: the afʿā is "a certain serpent, of a malignant kind", "spotted, black and white; slender in the neck; broad in the head"; "it is said that it will not quit its place", it is "always coiling itself round", and "neither antidote nor charm is of any avail against it"; the ufʿuwān "signifies the male", plural afāʿin. Tafaʿʿā: "he became like the viper in evil", or made himself resemble it "in the evilness of his disposition"; afʿā: "he became possessed of evil after good"; arḍ mafʿāt, a land full of vipers.

The comparison follows the Juthoor sound laws: the glottal stop drops in most correspondences; ʿ drops or becomes h; f is f; w belongs to the labial group that becomes v and w; and n is n. The long á of Fá- stands where the dropped ʿ was. One difference remains: the long vowel comes after the w in Arabic and before the v in Norse.

Serpent and worm

The texts call Fáfnir an ormr, a serpent: "he was in a serpent's shape" in the prose of Reginsmál, and "you gleaming serpent" in Fáfnismál 19. Cleasby–Vigfusson sets the word beside Gothic waurms and English worm, used of snakes, worms and even dragons, and notes that serpents in the old stories brood over gold and treasures, "cp. the serpent Fafnir", so that poets call gold the serpent's bed and the serpent's land. In its table of everyday words the Arabic essay sets English worm against Arabic warima, "it swelled", with the grade "medium", and says: the worm is the swollen one. In the saga Fáfnir's size is a matter of talk: Reginn says he is no bigger than other heath-serpents and that people make him out greater than he is, and Sigurd, seeing his track, says it is marvellously great.

Key Mythic Narratives

What the dragon knew

Sigurd asked the dying Fáfnir about the norns who come at births, and was told that they are of very different birth and share no kindred: some of the Æsir, some of the elves, some daughters of the dwarf Dvalinn. He asked about the island where Surtr and the gods mingle their blood with swords, and was told its name is Óskópnir, that all the gods will fight there, and that the bridge Bilröst breaks as they cross it. So the dragon who lay on the gold knows the origin of fate and the end of the world at Ragnarök. Fáfnismál 12–15.

The helm of terror

Fáfnir says that he bore the helm of terror over men while he lay on the treasures, and thought himself stronger than all. Sigurd answers that the helm of terror shields no one when angry men must fight, and that whoever comes among many learns that no one is the boldest of all. Sigurd took the helm from Fáfnir's lair along with the gold.

Gold named after him

Snorri says that poets call gold "Fáfnir's lair" or "Fáfnir's dwelling", "the metal of Gnitaheiðr" and "Grani's burden", the load of Sigurd's horse that carried the gold from the dragon's lair.

Symbolic Reading

Neither essay reads Fáfnir himself. The Arabic essay reads another Norse dragon, Níðhöggr, who gnaws the roots of the world-tree, with nadda and hāja, "the raging rebel", and makes it the symbol of chaos eating away at order. Fáfnir, though, is not in the text a dragon from the beginning of creation, but a man of a known household who became a serpent.

The text itself says what he stands for: Fáfnir says he blew venom while he lay "on my father's great inheritance". The dragon in this story is the picture of an inheritance that was not divided, guarded by its holder through fear rather than right. In a society where payment for a slain man was made and shared among his kin, and an inheritance was shared among brothers, it was the refusal to share that killed the father first and then both sons.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

Killing Fáfnir from a pit is a case of divine combat with sea and serpent in its human form. In the North itself the world serpent coils round the earth until Thor kills it at the end of time, and Níðhöggr gnaws the roots of the tree; Fáfnir is a serpent made by greed within one household.

In the Shahnameh Eblis leads Zahhak to kill his father in a pit, and then two serpents grow from his shoulders. Fáfnir kills his father for gold, becomes a serpent, and is himself killed from a pit. In both stories the son who killed his father becomes a serpent.

In the Kojiki the serpent Yamata no Orochi comes down to the headwaters of the river, where Susanoo kills it and finds a sword in its tail. Fáfnir crawls to the water by a known path, is killed on that path, and the sword Hrotti is taken from his lair.

In the epic of Gilgamesh Humbaba guards the cedar forest; when he is overcome he pleads with his killers, then curses Enkidu for urging his death. Fáfnir speaks at length as he dies, warns Sigurd of the gold, and foretells Reginn's treachery.