Next to the Eddic songs the most important of the Northern versions, however, is the long "Völsunga Saga" from the second half of the thirteenth century, which, again, is based upon the Eddic poems and upon others in addition that have now been lost. Like most of the Old Norse sagas, it is prose with the occasional inclusion of verse cited to justify or to embellish its statements. It gives with extraordinary wealth of detail the whole old story in connected form and desires to be called, as it has been called, a prose epic. William Morris, in his superb translation, has deservedly characterized it as "the most complete and dramatic form of the Great Epic of the North." The story is further contained, in some of its details only, in the strange tale of "Nornagest," which has again made use of the Eddic songs and quotes one of them entire. The Old Norse story is so important for its bearing on the intelligibility of the "Nibelungenlied" that it is absolutely necessary to take it actively into consideration in any discussion of the German poem. The epitome contained in the "Snorra Edda," since it gives the whole story from beginning to end in a form as short as may be, is here given in its entirety: "Three gods, Odin, Hœnir, and Loki, once went out to explore the whole world. They came to a certain river, and went along the river to a waterfall, and at the waterfall there was an otter that had taken a salmon out of the fall and ate it, half asleep. Then Loki took up a stone and cast it at the otter and struck him in the head. Loki thereupon boasted of his catch that he had got at a blow both the otter and the salmon. They took the salmon and the otter and carried them along with them until they came to a farmstead, where they went in. The head of the household that dwelt there was named Hreidmar; he was a mighty man and much skilled in magic. He invited the gods to lodge there for the night, and they told him that they had with them provisions in plenty and showed him their booty. But when Hreidmar saw the otter he called his sons Fafnir and Regin and said that Otter, their brother, had been killed, and told them who had done it. Thereupon, the father and his sons fell upon the gods and took them and bound them, saying that the otter was the son of Hreidmar. The gods offered as a ransom as much money as Hreidmar himself should determine, and that was agreed upon as a reconciliation and was bound with oaths.