treasure and the dragon, and Sigurd's battle with Hunding's sons;
_Fafnismal_, the slaying of the dragon and the advice of the talking
birds; _Sigrdrifumal_, the awakening of the Valkyrie. Then follows
a fragment on the death of Sigurd. All the rest, except the poem
generally called the _Third_, or _Short, Sigurd Lay_ (which tells of
the marriage with Gudrun and Sigurd's wooing of Brynhild for Gunnar)
continue the story after Sigurd's death, taking up the death of
Brynhild, Gudrun's mourning, and the fates of the other heroes who
became connected with the legend of the treasure.

In addition to the poems in the Elder Edda, an account of the story
is given by Snorri in _Skaldskaparmal_, but it is founded almost
entirely on the surviving lays. _Völsunga Saga_ is also a paraphrase,
but more valuable, since parts of it are founded on lost poems, and
it therefore, to some extent, represents independent tradition. It
was, unfortunately from a literary point of view, compiled after the
great saga-time was over, in the decadent fourteenth century, when
material of all kinds, classical, biblical, romantic, mythological,
was hastily cast into saga-form. It is not, like the _Nibelungen
Lied_, a work of art, but it has what in this case is perhaps of
greater importance, the one great virtue of fidelity. The compiler
did not, like the author of the German masterpiece, boldly recast
his material in the spirit of his own time; he clung closely to his
originals, only trying with hesitating hand to copy the favourite
literary form of the Icelander. As a saga, therefore, _Völsunga_
is far behind not only such great works as _Njala_, but also many of
the smaller sagas. It lacks form, and is marred by inconsistencies;
it is often careless in grammar and diction; it is full of traces
of the decadent romantic age. Sigurd, in the true spirit of romance,
is endowed with magic weapons and supernatural powers, which are no