spread from the Franks to the other Germanic peoples. We have evidence of
its presence in northern Germany and Denmark. Allusions to it in the
Anglo-Saxon poem, the _Wanderer_, of the seventh century and in the great
Anglo-Saxon epic _Beowulf_ of a short time later, show us that it had
early become part of the national saga stock in England. Among the people
of Norway and Iceland it took root and grew with particular vigor. Here,
farthest away from its original home and least exposed to outward
influences, it preserved on the whole most fully its heathen Germanic
character, especially in its mythical part. By a fortunate turn of
events, too, the written record of it here is of considerably earlier
date than that which we have from Germany. The Eddas, as the extensive
collection of early Icelandic poems is called, are the fullest record of
Germanic mythology and saga that has been handed down to us, and in them
the saga of Siegfried and the Nibelungen looms up prominently. The
earliest of these poems date from about the year 850, and the most
important of them were probably written down within a couple of centuries
of that time. They are thus in part some three centuries older than the
German Nibelungenlied, and on the whole, too, they preserve more of the
original outlines of the saga. By bringing together the various episodes
of the saga from the Eddas and the Volsung saga, a prose account of the
mythical race of the Volsungs, we arrive at the following narrative.

On their wanderings through the world the three gods Odin, Honir, and
Loki come to a waterfall where an otter is devouring a fish that it has
caught. Loki kills the otter with a stone, and they take off its skin. In
the evening they seek a lodging at the house of Hreidmar, to whom they
show the skin. Hreidmar recognizes it as that of his son, whom Loki has
killed when he had taken on the form of an otter. Assisted by his sons
Fafnir and Regin, Hreidmar seizes the three gods, and spares their lives
only on the promise that they will fill the skin, and also cover it