The Curse of the Ring Andvaranaut
Trace the cursed ring Andvaranaut from the dwarf Andvari through the gods, the dragon Fafnir, the hero Sigurd, and the doom of the Volsungs.
The ring Andvaranaut — also called the Ring of Andvari — is the central cursed object of the Norse heroic tradition, a piece of gold fashioned by the dwarf Andvari and given as a ransom to the gods by Loki, who then brought upon it the malediction that it would bring death to every possessor. According to the Skáldskaparmál of the Prose Edda and the Völsunga saga, the ring passes from the gods to the dwarf’s brother Fafnir, then to the hero Sigurd, then to the Valkyrie Brynhildr, then to the queen Guðrún, and the chain of deaths it causes extends through generations. The ring is one of the most powerful symbols in the Norse tradition, and it has been the focus of more than a century of modern interpretation.
The Origin of the Ring
The origin of the ring is told in the Skáldskaparmál (chapter 39) of the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson. According to Snorri, the gods Odin, Hoenir, and Loki were traveling through the world when they came upon an otter that had just killed a salmon. Loki, in a fit of mischief, killed the otter with a stone, and the three gods skinned the animal and took the pelt with them.
That night, the gods came to the hall of the dwarf Hreiðmarr, and there they were entertained. Hreiðmarr saw the otter’s pelt, and recognized it as the form of his son Otr (“Otter”), who had been killed by the gods. The enraged father seized the gods and demanded compensation. The compensation was to be filled with gold, and the gold was to cover the entire pelt — inside and out.
The gods were forced to gather the gold. Loki, having caused the trouble, was sent to acquire the gold. He went to the waterfall where the dwarf Andvari lived, and by magic he caught the dwarf. As ransom, Loki took all the dwarf’s gold, and the ring Andvaranaut, which the dwarf reluctantly gave up. As Loki departed, the dwarf cursed the gold, declaring that it would bring death to every possessor.
The Skáldskaparmál preserves the curse in the words of Andvari himself: “May this gold be the death of both of you, and may it be a curse to whoever possesses it.” The curse is then placed on the gold and the ring, and it operates across the entire saga.
The Ring and the Gods
The gold, including the ring, is paid as ransom to Hreiðmarr. Hreiðmarr takes the gold and the ring, and he is then killed by his son Fáfnir, who refuses to share the gold. Fafnir takes the ring and the gold and transforms himself into a dragon, lying on the hoard and guarding it jealously. The other son, the dwarf Regin, leaves the hall and waits for a hero who can kill the dragon and take the gold.
The chain of possessions is, in this respect, a chain of killings. The gold passes from Andvari to the gods, from the gods to Hreiðmarr, from Hreiðmarr to Fafnir, from Fafnir to Sigurd. Each possessor dies because of the gold, and the curse is the thread that links the deaths.
The 19th-century philologist Sophus Bugge and the 20th-century scholar Jan de Vries have both read the chain of possessions as a reflection of an older Indo-European motif of a cursed object that passes from one owner to the next. The motif is found in many cultures, and the Norse form is one of the most developed in the surviving medieval literature.
The Ring in the Heroic Saga
The ring is, in the Völsunga saga, the central object of the heroic plot. After the killing of Fafnir, Sigurd takes the gold and the ring, and the ring becomes the focus of his career. The act of taking the ring is the moment when Sigurd, in effect, accepts the curse. The hero, by taking the gold and the ring, becomes the new owner of the curse.
The Völsunga saga describes the ring in detail. Sigurd gives the ring to the Valkyrie Brynhildr as a token of his love, and the ring is worn by Brynhildr through the years of her betrothal to Sigurd. When Sigurd, through the magic of forgetfulness, marries the princess Guðrún, the ring passes to Guðrún, and Brynhildr is married to the king’s brother Gunnar. The marriage is the cause of the great chain of vengeance that ends in the death of Sigurd, the death of Brynhildr, and the destruction of the Volsung family.
The ring is, in this sense, the engine of the saga. The ring’s passage from Brynhildr to Guðrún is the cause of the great conflict, and the conflict is the cause of the deaths. The ring is the central cursed object, the focus of the curse, and the means by which the curse is fulfilled.
The Curse in the Fáfnismál
The dying dragon Fafnir, in the Fáfnismál of the Poetic Edda, warns Sigurd that the gold is cursed. The warning is one of the most important in the eddic corpus. Fafnir advises Sigurd to ride away, telling him that all the gold he has taken will be the death of whoever possesses it. The hero, who has just taken the gold, hears the warning and ignores it. The hero, by his very heroic nature, cannot turn back from the gold. The curse is the price of heroism, and the hero’s acceptance of the gold is the moment when the curse begins to operate.
The Fáfnismál is, in this sense, a meditation on the price of heroism. The hero takes the gold, the warning is given, the warning is ignored, and the hero dies. In this world heroism is a temporary, doomed structure, destined to return to the elements from which it was made.
The Ring and the Death of Sigurd
The death of Sigurd, the central event of the Völsunga saga, is the direct result of the passage of the ring. According to the saga, after the marriage of Brynhildr to Gunnar, the queen Guðrún displays the ring at a feast, and Brynhildr recognizes it as the ring she had received from Sigurd. The recognition is the cause of the great conflict: Brynhildr accuses Sigurd of having taken her ring, and the accusation leads to the death of Sigurd at the hands of his brothers-in-law.
The death of Sigurd is, in the surviving sources, a deeply tragic event. The hero, who has killed the dragon, who has won the Valkyrie, who has married the princess, is killed by the very gold he took. The ring, the engine of his career, is the engine of his death.
The image of the ring passing from one woman to another is one of the most powerful in the saga. The ring is a token of love, a token of betrayal, and a token of death. The three roles are inseparable. The ring is, in the medieval Icelandic imagination, an object of terrible power.
The Continuation of the Curse
The curse, after the death of Sigurd, continues to operate. Brynhildr, having caused the death of Sigurd, kills herself. Guðrún, having lost Sigurd, marries the king Atli, and is the cause of a second great chain of vengeance. The sons of Guðrún, Hamðir and Sörli, kill Atli, and are themselves killed. The gold is passed on, the curse continues, and the Volsung family is destroyed.
The chain of deaths is, in the Völsunga saga, a long one. The curse of the gold is the engine of the entire saga, and the death of every possessor is the consequence of the original act of robbery. In this world the curse is permanent, in which the gold is forever cursed, and in which the owners of the gold are forever doomed.
The Ring in the Continental Sources
The story of the ring is also preserved in the continental Germanic sources, most notably the Nibelungenlied of the German Middle High German tradition (c. 1200). In the Nibelungenlied, the ring is called the Nibelungenhort (“the Nibelung treasure”), and the central figure of the hero is Siegfried (the German form of Sigurd). The treasure is taken by Siegfried from the dwarf Alberich (a name cognate with Andvari), and the treasure is the cause of the great chain of deaths that consumes the Burgundian royal family.
The continental and Norse accounts are similar in plot, but they differ in details. The Norse Völsunga saga is the older and more complete; the Nibelungenlied is a German medieval adaptation. The two traditions are part of a larger European cycle of heroic narrative, in which a cursed treasure is taken, a hero dies, and the treasure is lost.
Andvari and the Dwarf Tradition
The dwarf Andvari is one of the most important figures in the Norse dwarf tradition. He is described in the Skáldskaparmál as a dwarf who lived in a waterfall, who had great wealth, and who could transform himself into a fish. The image of a dwarf in a waterfall matches the broader Norse tradition of dwarves living in mountains, in caves, and in waterfalls. The dwarf is, in the surviving sources, a being of great wealth and great cunning.
The figure of Andvari has been the subject of modern interpretation. The 20th-century scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson argued that the dwarf is a survival of an older Germanic tradition of magical smiths, who are both crafters and masters of treasure. The reading appears in the medieval sources, and has been treated in modern scholarship.
The Ring in Modern Culture
The story of the ring has had a major impact on modern popular culture, most famously through the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. In The Hobbit, the hero Bilbo Baggins takes a ring from a creature called Gollum (a figure with clear echoes of the Norse dwarf tradition), and the ring is the central object of the entire Tolkien legendarium. The One Ring of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is, in this sense, a direct descendant of Andvaranaut — a cursed gold object that brings death to whoever possesses it.
The story has also been a focus of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, in which the central object is a ring forged by the dwarf Alberich (the Wagnerian form of Andvari) and taken from him by force. The opera cycle is, in many respects, the most famous modern adaptation of the Norse and Germanic heroic tradition, and the image of the ring as a cursed object is one of the most famous in modern culture.
The story of the curse of the ring is also a major focus of modern fantasy fiction, in which the cursed object is a common motif. The image of a ring, a sword, a crown, or a treasure that brings death to whoever possesses it is one of the most common in modern fantasy, and the Norse tradition of Andvaranaut is one of the principal sources.
The Curse and the Order of the World
The curse of the ring is, finally, a statement about the order of the world. The Norse imagination conceived of the cosmos as a place in which heroic action has a price, in which the taking of treasure is the cause of death, and in which the cycle of violence is the engine of history. The curse is the price of heroism, and the curse’s fulfillment is the price of the world.
The image of a cursed object that brings death to whoever possesses it is one of the most powerful in the Norse tradition. The image has drawn attention from interpretation since the 19th century, and it continues to be a focus of modern scholarship. The curse of the gold is, in this sense, one of the most enduring themes in the Norse heroic tradition, and it is one of the most powerful statements of the Norse cosmic pessimism.