This is but the beginning of this terrible tragedy, but our space does not allow us here to enter upon all the fatal results of the curse of Andvare. In the fate, first of Sigurd and Brynhild, and afterwards of Sigurd and Gudrun, is depicted passion, tenderness and sorrow with a vivid power which nowhere has a superior. The men are princely warriors and the women are not only fair, but godlike, in their beauty and vigor. The noblest sentiments and most heroic actions are crossed by the foulest crimes and the most terrific tragedies. In this train of events, produced by the curse of Andvare alone, there is material for a score of dramas of the most absorbing character. In the story of Sigurd and Brynhild, as we find it in the latter part of the Elder Edda, there are themes for tragic and heroic composition that would become as immortal as Dante’s _Inferno_ or Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_, for they are based on our profoundest sympathies, and appeal most forcibly to our ideas of the beautiful and the true. The ring Andvarenant (Andvare’s gift), as it is called, here as elsewhere, symbolizes wealth, which increases in the hands of the wary, careful Andvare (_and-vari_, wary). But for avarice, that never gets enough, it becomes a destructive curse. It is perfectly in harmony with Loke’s character to be satisfied and pleased with the curse attached to the ring.[76] SECTION II. LOKE’S CHILDREN. THE FENRIS-WOLF. Loke’s wife was Sigyn; their son was Nare or Narfe, and a brother of him was Ale (Ole) or Vale.