Though no poem survives on this subject, the story is certainly
primitive; its savage character vouches for its antiquity. _Völsunga_
then reproduces the substance of the prose _Death of Sinfjötli_
mentioned above, the object of which, as a part of the cycle, seems
to be to remove Sinfjötli and leave the field clear for Sigurd. It
preserves a touch which may be original in Sinfjötli's burial, which
resembles that of Scyld in _Beowulf_: his father lays him in a boat
steered by an old man, which immediately disappears.

Sigmund and Sinfjötli are always close comrades, "need-companions"
as the Anglo-Saxon calls them. They are indivisible and form one
story. Sigurd, on the other hand, is only born after his father
Sigmund's death. _Völsunga_ says that Sigmund fell in battle against
Hunding, through the interference of Odin, who, justifying Loki's taunt
that he "knew not how to give the victory fairly," shattered with his
spear the sword he had given to the Volsung. For this again we have
to depend entirely on the prose, except for one line in _Hyndluljod_:
"The Father of Hosts gives gold to his followers;... he gave Sigmund
a sword." And from the poems too, Sigurd's fatherless childhood is
only to be inferred from an isolated reference, where giving himself
a false name he says to Fafni: "I came a motherless child; I have no
father like the sons of men." Sigmund, dying, left the fragments of
the sword to be given to his unborn son, and Sigurd's fosterfather
Regin forged them anew for the future dragon-slayer. But Sigurd's
first deed was to avenge on Hunding's race the death of his father
and his mother's father. _Völsunga_ tells this story first of Helgi
and Sinfjötli, then of Sigurd, to whom the poems also attribute the
deed. It is followed by the dragon-slaying.

Up to this point, the story of Sigurd consists roughly of the same