Brunhilda and Siegfried : Siegfried and the Dragon 1/6

The first part of the sixteenth tale from Myths & Legends

When Sieglinda fled from the wrath of Wotan, she went eastward, as Brunhilda directed. For long days and nights she journeyed, and came at length to the country of the Nibelungs, where dwelt the great dragon Fafnir.

Now the Nibelungs were a race of ugly dwarfs, who lived underground, burrowing in the depths of the earth for gold and treasure. They cared nothing for the free forest life, the sunshine, trees, and flowers, or pleasures of the chase. Like prisoners in a dungeon, they chose rather to pass their lives digging and toiling in the dark for gold, and hoarding it up with anxious care.

A vast heap of this treasure, including a magic Ring, stolen from the Mermaids of the Rhine, and a Wishing Cap of strange powers called the Tarnhelm, had fallen into the hands of Fafnir the giant, who, in order the better to guard these precious possessions, transformed himself into a huge dragon, the terror of all the country round.

Sieglinda lived a sad, lonely life in the forest. She avoided the caves where Fafnir dwelt, and as the dwarfs seldom came above ground, she saw nothing of them.

There was one, however, whom it was fated she should meet. His name was Mimi, and of all the dwarfs of the Nibelung race he was the ugliest and the meanest. Notwithstanding this, he was a very skilful blacksmith, and could also do fine work in gold, silver, and steel. Like all the Nibelungs, he had a great dislike to fresh air, so he built his forge in a cave half sunk underground, with a great chimney in the roof.

Mimi was working at his anvil one day, when he heard a deep groan outside the cave. On going out, he saw a woman with a baby in her arms lying on the ground. She was dying, and Mimi had only found her in time to hear her last words.

“Have pity!” cried poor Sieglinda (for it was she). “Thy goodness shall be rewarded. I am dying. Take this my son and bring him up. Call his name Siegfried, for one day he will be the greatest hero in the world. Keep for him this broken sword—it was Siegmund his father’s—`Needful,’ he called it!”

Now Mimi was not a kind-hearted person, and nothing would have induced him to take care of a strange baby out of pity. But when Sieglinda said that her child was the son of the famous hero Siegmund the Volsung, and would one day himself be the greatest hero in the world, then a grand idea struck Mimi. He would bring up the boy as his own son, and when Siegfried was full-grown, he should be sent forth to kill Fafnir and win for his foster-father all the dragon’s treasure!

So Mimi answered Sieglinda in a cracked voice, which he tried to make pleasant, “Be comforted, poor woman. I will take the child out of the kindness of my heart, and do my best for him.”

Sieglinda died with a blessing on her lips, and Mimi took the little Siegfried to dwell with him in his cave.

But the dwarf soon found he had no easy task in bringing up this son of a hero. Never was such a daring, fearless, mischievous infant. Many a time would Mimi have turned him adrift, or put an end to him with a blow from his smith’s hammer, but for the thought that this bold young imp was just the sort to delight in slaying a dragon, and pay no heed as to who took the treasure.

As soon as he could walk, the boy would escape into the forest, and there run wild all day; chasing the bears and foxes, feeling no fear of any living creature. He grew so fast that in a few years he was bigger and stronger than Mimi, whom from the first he disliked, perceiving the dwarf to be false and cowardly in all his actions.

Mimi always told the boy he was his father, and this was a great trouble to Siegfried. How he would have loved a father who was noble, fearless, and brave! But Mimi feared everything. He trembled and turned pale did a wolf but howl, or the thunder roll. He feared not only giants, but ordinary huntsmen and woodcutters, and always hid when they came in sight. He feared even Siegfried, so the boy soon became his master, and led him a sorry life. But creatures too small and weak to excite his fear Mimi would cruelly oppress and kill; and this, more than anything else, made Siegfried hate the very sight of him.

Time went on, and Siegfried grew into a tall strong youth, with fair locks shining in the sun like burnished gold, and fearless blue eyes, which laughed danger in the face. At last the day came when Mimi hoped to be repaid for all his trouble with “the good-for-nothing cub,” as he called the boy. Siegfried had ordered him in a lordly way to make a sword fit for his use—“one that does not snap in two at the first stroke,” he said, and strode off to the forest for his day’s hunt.

Mimi had undertaken the task more than once lately, for he was anxious on his own account that a sword should be fashioned strong and tough enough to slay the dragon. But as yet every weapon he welded had snapped in two at the first trial of its strength by Siegfried.

With mighty effort Mimi hammered and wrought at his anvil all that day. “A stouter sword I never shaped! It would defy a giant,” he said at last, looking on his day’s work. “Yet I sorely fear, when grasped by that fiery youth, it will twist up like a straw!”

Mimi sat down exhausted and despairing. “Ah me! What is to be done?” he sighed. “If only Siegmund’s splintered sword could be welded together again! But no power on earth can do that! Never saw I such mighty steel—all my craft is powerless to melt it—the thing is magic!”

“Oho! Come on, friend Bruin!” cried a voice from without, and Siegfried burst into the cave, driving a great grisly bear, which he held in tow with a rope.

The End, Part One