Carving from Hylestad stave church doorway (left side). Carving from Hylestad stave church doorway (right side).
The Hylestad stave church was a stave church located in Hylestad (now Valle municipality), Setesdal district, Norway. The church was estimated to have been built in the late 12th to early 13th century and was demolished in the 17th century. Some of the intricate wood carvings from the church doorway were saved and incorporated into other buildings. They are now on display at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo.
A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts are called stafr in Old Norse. Two related church building types also named for their structural elements, the post church and palisade church, are often called 'stave churches'.
Hylestad is a former municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. The 570-square-kilometre (220 sq mi) former municipality was located in the southern part of the present-day municipality of Valle in the traditional region of Setesdal. It existed from 1915 until its dissolution in 1962. The administrative centre was the village of Rysstad where the Hylestad Church was located.
Valle (help·info)is a municipality in Aust-Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Setesdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Valle. Other villages in Valle include Besteland, Brokke, Homme, Hovet, Rygnestad, Rysstad, and Uppstad.
The carvings show several scenes from the legend of Sigurd Fåvnesbane. A section of one of these carvings in which Sigurd kills Regin was the basis for a Norwegian postal stamp.[1]
Sigurd or Siegfried is a legendary hero of Germanic mythology, who killed a dragon and was later murdered. It is possible he was inspired by one or more figures from the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, with Sigebert I being the most popular contender. Older scholarship sometimes connected him with Arminius, victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. He may also have a purely mythological origin. Sigurd's story is first attested on a series of carvings, including runestones from Sweden and stone crosses from the British Isles, dating from the eleventh century.
Reginn, often Anglicized as Regin or Regan, in Norse mythology, is a son of Hreiðmarr and foster father of Sigurd. His brothers are Fafnir and Ótr. When Loki mistakenly kills Ótr, Hreiðmarr demands to be repaid with the amount of gold it takes to fill Ótr's skin and cover the outside. Loki takes this gold from the dwarf Andvari, who curses it and especially the ring Andvaranaut. Fafnir kills his father for this gold, but eventually becomes a greedy dragon. Reginn gets none of the gold, but he becomes smith to the king and foster father to Sigurd, teaching him many languages as well as sports, chess, and runes.
Engravings
There are seven scenes from the Sigurd legend carved on the two door panels, with three scenes on the first panel and four scenes on the second panel. The description below notes the scenes and the corresponding section from the legend, with the order of the fifth and sixth scenes reversed to follow the normal sequence of the legend.
Based on the clothes and equipment, the panels have been dated to the second half of the 12th century. The figures and medallions on Hylestad I and the vine on Hylestad II show close parallels to English and French manuscript illuminations from around 1170.[2]
Sigurd and Regin forge the sword Gram
The first scene shows Sigurd (who wears a helmet) and Regin (who has a beard) at the forge and the second scene shows Sigurd holding the mended sword.[3]
Sigurd, described as one of the best swordsmen, was urged by Regin to seek Fafnir the dragon's treasure. Regin then forged a sword with Sigurd at his side, providing assistance by keeping the fire going and providing water to cool the blade when needed. When the sword was completed they named it Gram. Sigurd tested the sword by striking it upon Regin's shield, which had a picture of Fafnir engraved on it. The blade broke, which prompted Regin to forge another sword out of the broken pieces of the first Gram. When it was completed Sigurd tested the blade once again on the shield with Fafnir's image, and this time it cut through the shield and also cut off the horn of the anvil.[4][5]
In Norse mythology, Fáfnir or Frænir is a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin, Ótr, Lyngheiðr and Lofnheiðr. After being affected by the curse of Andvari's ring and gold, Fafnir became a dragon and was slain by Sigurd.
European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.
The gram is a metric system unit of mass.
Sigurd slays Fafnir the dragon
Sigurd sucking the dragon blood off his thumb.
The third scene shows Sirgurd slaying the dragon with a sword.[3]
After forging the sword, Sigurd and Regin travel to Gnita-Heath in order to find Fafnir the dragon and take his treasure. There they dig "a pit in the path used by Fafnir,"[5] and then he crawled into it. When Fafnir came to the water pit Sigurd emerged and "thrust his sword"[5] into Fafnir, killing him.
Sigurd roasts the heart of the dragon
The fourth scene, which is on the second door panel, shows Sigurd roasting the heart of the dragon and sucking his thumb while Ragin appears to sleep.[3]
After slaying Fafnir, Regin asks Sigurd to take the dragon's heart and roast it for him. "Regin then lay down, drank Fafnir's blood and went to sleep."[5] Sigurd himself then touched the heart to see if it was cooked, but the boiling blood ran down his hand, scalding him. When he drank the dragon's blood, he was able to hear "the speech of birds."[5] From the birds, which are depicted in the fifth scene, he heard of Regin's plot to kill Sigurd, in "vengeance for his brother."[5]
Sigurd kills Regin
The slaying of Regin.
In the sixth scene, Sigurd slays Regin with his sword.[3]
Sigurd, both warned by the birds of Regin's plot to betray him and encouraged by their assertions that great wealth, knowledge, and power would be his if he killed Regin preemptively and took possession of Fafnir's treasure, kills Regin. Sigurd, convinced by their counsel, states "It will not be my ill fate that Regin shall be my death. Rather, both brothers should go the same way."[6] Sigurd decapitates Regin using the sword Gram.
Grani carries the treasure
In the fifth scene, Sigurd's horse Grani stands carrying a chest containing Fafnir's expansive treasure and two birds are depicted below Grani perched in the branches of a tree.[3] The birds likely belong to the group whose speech Sigurd understood. This scene combines elements of the legend that took place before and after the slaying of Regin.
After killing Regin, Sigurd mounts Grani, and rides to Fafnir's lair, where he finds "an enormous store of gold" from which he takes "many precious things" including the helm of terror and the sword Hrotti specifically.[6] Sigurd loads large chests with the treasure onto Grani, despite expecting that it would be too large a load even for a pair of horses. Grani carries the treasure without difficulty, even refusing to move until Sigurd rides on his back, running "as if unencumbered."[6]
Gunnar in the serpent pit
The last panel shows Sigurd's brother-in-law, Gunnnar, in a snake pit playing a harp with his feet in an attempt to pacify the snakes.[3]
Fafnir's treasure is cursed. In his dying breaths, Fafnir warns Sigurd that his gold "will be the death of all that possess it."[6] Sigurd, is unfazed by this and mentions the mortality of all men. After Sigurd's death at the hands of his three brothers-in-law, Gunnar, Hogni, and Guttorm, Fafnir's treasure is hidden by Gunnar, sunk to the bottom of the Rhine. Gudrun remarries, to Atli (Atilla the Hun), who is fascinated by the treasure and seeks to own it. Gunnar refuses to tell Atli its location, insisting, "Rather shall the Rhine rule over the gold than the Huns wear it on their arms."[7] Atli orders Gunnar to be placed into a serpent pit, with his hands bound behind his back. Gudrun sends her brother a harp, and Gunnar is able to play "so exceedingly well" with his toes that he lulls the snakes to sleep, "except for one large and hideous adder" who kills Gunnar in a single strike.[7]
The Völsunga saga is a legendary saga, a late 13th century poetic rendition in the Icelandic language of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan.
In Norse mythology, Hreiðmarr is a sorcerer. He is featured in the Völsunga saga and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda.
In Norse mythology, Borghild was the first wife of Sigmund. She bore him two sons, Hamund and Helgi. She is the personification of the evening mist, or perhaps the moon, who kills the light of day.
In Norse mythology, Gram is the sword that Sigurd used to kill the dragon Fafnir. It is primarily used by the Volsungs in the Volsunga Saga. However, it is also seen in other legends, such as the Thidrekssaga wielded by Hildebrand.
In Völsunga saga, Rerir, the son of Sigi, succeeds his murdered father and avenges his death. He rules the Huns in Hunaland and becomes a powerful ruler. Rerir's son is Völsung.
In Norse mythology, Grani is a horse owned by the hero Sigurd. He is the horse that Sigurd receives through advice from the Norse god (Odin). Grani is a descendant of Odin's own steed, Sleipnir.
In mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of the birds is postulated as a mystical, perfect divine language, green language, adamic language, Enochian, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated.
In the Völsung cycle, Sigi is the ancestor of the Völsung lineage. In the Völsunga saga, he is said to be one of the sons of Odin. He is also listed among Odin's sons in the Nafnaþulur. He has a son called Rerir.
Fáfnismál is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows Reginsmál and precedes Sigrdrífumál, but modern scholars regard it as a separate poem and have assigned it a name for convenience.
Ridill is a sword that appears in Norse Mythology, possessed by the dwarf Regin.
Sigurðarkviða hin skamma or the Short Lay of Sigurd is an Old Norse poem belonging to the heroic poetry of the Poetic Edda. It is one of the longest eddic poems and its name derives from the fact that there was once a longer Sigurðarkviða, but this poem only survives as the fragment Brot af Sigurðarkviðu.
The Sigurd stones form a group of seven or eight runestones and one picture stone that depict imagery from the legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and they constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda and the Völsunga saga.
In Norse mythology, Barnstokkr is a tree that stands in the center of King Völsung's hall. Barnstokkr is attested in chapters 2 and 3 of the Völsunga saga, written in the 13th century from earlier tradition, partially based on events from the 5th century and the 6th century, where, during a banquet, a one-eyed stranger appears and thrusts a sword into the tree which only Sigmund is able to pull free. Scholarly theories have been put forth about the implications of Barnstokkr and its relation to other trees in Germanic paganism.
A dragonslayer is a person or being that slays dragons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been popular in traditional stories from around the world: they are a type of story classified as type 300 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. They continue to be popular in modern books, films, video-games and other entertainments. Dragonslayer-themed stories are also sometimes seen as having a chaoskampf theme - in which a heroic figure struggles against a monster that epitomises chaos.
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a book containing two narrative poems and related texts composed by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and HarperCollins on 5 May 2009.
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876) is an epic poem of over 10,000 lines by William Morris that tells the tragic story, drawn from the Volsunga Saga and the Elder Edda, of the Norse hero Sigmund, his son Sigurd and Sigurd's wife Gudrun. It sprang from a fascination with the Volsung legend that extended back twenty years to the author's youth, and had already resulted in several other literary and scholarly treatments of the story. It was Morris's own favorite of his poems, and was enthusiastically praised both by contemporary critics and by such figures as T. E. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw. In recent years it has been rated very highly by many William Morris scholars, but has never succeeded in finding a wide readership on account of its great length and archaic diction. It has been seen as an influence on such fantasy writers as Andrew Lang and J. R. R. Tolkien. The Story of Sigurd is available in modern reprints, both in its original form and in a cut-down version, but there is no critical edition.
The Helm of Awe or Helm of Terror is an Icelandic magical stave. A physical object called "Helm of Terror" is referenced as one item Sigurd takes from the dragon Fafnir's hoard after he slays him in Völsunga saga. Stanza 16 of Fáfnismál in the Poetic Edda also mentions:
References
↑ Bugge, Anders Ragnar (1953). Norwegian Stave Churches. Dreyer. p. 46.
↑ Gunnar Nordanskog, Föreställd hedendom: tidigmedeltida skandinaviska kyrkportar i forskning och historia, 2006, p. 241. ISBN978-91-89116-85-6
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