The ordinary modern reader taking up the Volsunga Saga or either of the Eddas without preparation would probably see in them little more than a confused accumulation of impossible adventures and deeds of prowess with an admixture of incest, fratricide and other horrors. But on looking closer one discovers a certain plan in this entanglement, a plan much obscured by the unbridled fancy of the old narrators, and hardly realised by themselves, but which, if properly sifted, amounts to what we should call a moral or idea. To "point this moral," to consistently develop this idea, is the task of the modern poet courageous enough to grapple with such a subject. Two ways are open to him. Either he may wholly abandon the sequence of the old tale, and group its _disjecta membra_ round a leading idea as a centre, or else he may adhere to the order and essence of the legend as originally told, only emphasising such points as are essential to the significance of the story, and omitting or throwing into comparative shade those incidents which by their nature betray themselves to be arbitrary additions of later date. Wagner has chosen the former way, Morris the latter. This fact, and the divergent requirements of the drama and the epic, sufficiently account for their difference of treatment. The leading idea in both cases remains the same; it is the fatal curse which attaches to the gold or, which is the same in a moral sense, to the desire for gold--_auri sacra fames_. At first sight the tale of Sigurd, Fafnir's bane, seems to have little connection with this idea. It is briefly this. Sigurd, the son of Sigmund the Volsung, is brought up at the court of King Elf, the second husband of his mother, after Sigmund has been slain in battle. With a sword, fashioned from the shards of his father's weapon, he slays Fafnir, a huge worm or dragon, and possesses himself of the treasure watched by the monster, including a ring and the "helm of aweing," the latter in the _Nibelungenlied_, converted into the "Tarnkappe", a magic cap which makes the bearer invisible and endows him with supernatural strength. Tasting of the blood of the dragon, he understands the language of birds, and an eagle tells him of a beautiful maiden lying asleep on a rock called Hindfell, surrounded by a wall of wavering fire. Through it Sigurd rides and awakes Brynhild the sword maiden, or Valkyrie, from her magic slumber. Love naturally follows. The pair live together on Hindfell for a season and Brynhild teaches the youth the runes of her wisdom, a conception of woman's refining and civilising mission frequently met with in old Germanic tales. When Sigurd leaves her to seek new adventures they plight the troth of eternal love, and Then he set the ring on her finger, and once if ne'er again They kissed and clung together, and their hearts were full and fain.