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In Norse mythology, Reginn ( [ˈreɣenː] ; often anglicized as Regin or Regan) is a son of Hreiðmarr and the foster father of Sigurð. His brothers are Fáfnir and Ótr.
| | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(November 2014) |
In Norse mythology, Reginn ( [ˈreɣenː] ; often anglicized as Regin or Regan) is a son of Hreiðmarr and the foster father of Sigurð. His brothers are Fáfnir 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. Fáfnir kills his father for this gold, but eventually becomes a greedy worm or dragon. Reginn gets none of the gold, but he becomes smith to the king and foster father to Sigurð, teaching him many languages as well as sports, chess, and runes. [1]
Reginn had all wisdom and deftness of hand. Of his two brothers, he has the ability to work iron as well as silver and gold and he makes many beautiful and useful things. While Sigurð is living with Reginn, Reginn challenges Sigurð's respect in the kingdom. He tells Sigurð to ask for a horse. Sigurð asks the advice of an old man in the forest, and the old man shows him how to get a horse that is descended from Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of Odin. [2] Reginn continues to goad Sigurð, this time into killing Reginn's brother Fáfnir. He offers to make a sword for Sigurð, but Sigurð broke every sword Reginn forged for him by striking at an anvil. Sigurð retrieves the broken pieces of his father Sigmund's sword, Gram, and brings them to Reginn. Reginn repairs the sword and gives it back to Sigurð. When Sigurð again tests the blade by striking the anvil, the anvil this time is split down to its base, and when Sigurð places a piece of wool in a stream, the current pushing the wool against the sword was enough to cause the blade to cut it in two. Sigurð is finally very pleased with Reginn's repaired weapon. [3]
After using Gram to kill Fáfnir, Sigurð returns to ask Reginn what to do. Reginn instructs him to roast the heart of his brother, and let him eat it. As juice from the dragon's heart foams out, Sigurð tests it with his finger to see if it is done cooking. As the blood touches his tongue, Sigurð understands the speech of birds, who warn him that Reginn intends to kill him. Before he lets any of this happen, Sigurð first wields Gram and cuts off Reginn's head. [4]
The Norwegian Þiðreks saga relates a slightly different tale, with Reginn as the dragon and Mimir as his brother and foster father to Sigurð.[ citation needed ]
In the 13th century's Poetic Edda (Völuspá 12), the Dvergatal lists Reginn as a dvergr (dwarf).[ citation needed ]
Among the heroic lays of the Poetic Edda ( Reginsmál , aka Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana Önnur) says:
The Prose Edda ( Skáldskaparmál 46) identifies the father of Reginn as Hreiðmarr, and his brothers Fáfnir and Ótr.[ citation needed ]
In the operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner, the role of Reginn is played by the Nibelung dwarf Mime, brother of Alberich (the Nibelung who forged the cursed ring out of the Rhinegold). Except for the change in name, probably inspired by the Þiðrekssaga, the story of Reginn, Sigurð, and Fáfnir in Siegfried follows closely the text of the Eddas. However, in this version Mime is unable to reforge the sword Nothung, since only one who does not know fear—such as Siegfried—can do so.[ citation needed ]
Reginn also appears as the main protagonist of Book V in Fire Emblem Heroes, albeit as a female dwarf as opposed to being male. She is voiced by Megan Shipman.[ citation needed ]
Siegfried, WWV 86C, is the third of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring cycle.
The Völsunga saga is a legendary saga, a late 13th-century prose rendition in Old Norse of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan. It is one of the most famous legendary sagas and an example of a "heroic saga" that deals with Germanic heroic legend.
In Norse mythology, Hreiðmarr is a sorcerer. He is featured in the Völsunga saga and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda.
In Germanic heroic legend and folklore, Fáfnir is a worm or dragon slain by a member of the Völsung family, typically Sigurð. In Nordic mythology, he is the son of Hreiðmarr, and brother of Regin and Ótr and is attested throughout the Völsung Cycle, where, Fáfnir slays his father out of greed, taking the ring and hoard of the dwarf Andvari and becoming a worm or dragon. Fáfnir's brother Regin later assisted Sigurð in obtaining the sword Gram, by which Fáfnir is killed. He has been identified with an unnamed dragon killed by a Völsung in other Germanic works including Beowulf, the Nibelunglied and a number of skaldic poems. Fáfnir and his killing by Sigurð are further represented in numerous medieval carvings from the British Isles and Scandinavia, and a single axe head in a Scandinavian style found in Russia. The story of Fáfnir has continued to have influence in the modern period, such as in the works of J.R.R Tolkien, who drew inspiration from the tale of Fáfnir in his portrayals of Smaug and Gollum.
In Norse mythology, Andvaranaut, meaning Andvari's Gem, is a magic ring, initially owned by Andvari, that could help with finding sources of gold.
In Norse mythology, Gram, also known as Balmung or Nothung, is the sword that Sigurd used to kill the dragon Fafnir. It is primarily used by the Völsungs in the Volsunga Saga. However, it is also seen in other legends, such as the Thidrekssaga in which it is wielded by Hildebrand.
The term Nibelung (German) or Niflungr is a personal or clan name with several competing and contradictory uses in Germanic heroic legend. It has an unclear etymology, but is often connected to the root Nebel, meaning mist. The term in its various meanings gives its name to the Middle High German heroic epic the Nibelungenlied.
In Norse mythology, Ótr is a dwarf. He is the son of the king Hreidmar and the brother of Fafnir and Regin.
In Abrahamic and European mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of the birds is postulated as a mystical, perfect divine language, Adamic language, Enochian, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated.
Worms, wurms or wyrms, meaning serpent, are archaic terms for dragons in the wider Germanic mythology and folklore, in which they are often portrayed as large venomous snakes and hoarders of gold. Especially in later tales, however, they share many common features with other dragons in European mythology, such as having wings.
The Salmon of Knowledge is a creature in the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology, sometimes identified with Fintan mac Bóchra, who was known as "The Wise" and was once transformed into a salmon.
Riðill or Refil is a sword that appears in Norse Mythology, possessed by the dwarf Regin.
The Sigurd stones form a group of eight or nine Swedish runic inscriptions and one picture stone that depict imagery from the Germanic heroic legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Völsung cycle that is the basis of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Völsunga saga.
Sigurd or Siegfried is a legendary hero of Germanic heroic legend, who killed a dragon—known in some Old Norse sources as Fáfnir—and who was later murdered, in the Nordic countries with the epithet "Fáfnir's bane", but widely also "the Dragon Slayer". In both the Norse and continental Germanic tradition, Sigurd is portrayed as dying as the result of a quarrel between his wife (Gudrun/Kriemhild) and another woman, Brunhild, whom he has tricked into marrying the Burgundian king Gunnar/Gunther. His slaying of a dragon and possession of the hoard of the Nibelungen is also common to both traditions. In other respects, however, the two traditions appear to diverge. The most important works to feature Sigurd are the Nibelungenlied, the Völsunga saga, and the Poetic Edda. He also appears in numerous other works from both Germany and Scandinavia, including a series of medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads.
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a book containing two narrative poems and related texts composed by English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and HarperCollins on 5 May 2009.
Skáldskaparmál is the second part of the Prose Edda, compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bragi, the god of poetry, in which both stories of the Æsir and discourse on the nature of poetry are intertwined. The work additionally includes tales of human heroes and kings. The overarching mythological setup gradually fades and the work becomes more of an early form of a poetic thesaurus of Old Norse, presumably intended for usage by skalds. Much of the work is focused on poetic phrases and descriptors. The origin of these kennings is given; Bragi delivers a systematic list of kennings for various Æsir, people, places, and things. He then goes on to discuss poetic language in some detail, in particular heiti, essentially poetic synonyms or alternate words. For example, the simple hestr, "horse", might be replaced by jór, "steed".
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. 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 Hylestad Stave Church was a stave church located in Hylestad, Setesdal district, Norway. The church was estimated to have been built in the late 12th to the 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.
The Dragon's Blood is a 1957 Italian fantasy film co-written and directed by Giacomo Gentilomo. It is based on Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
The naming of weapons in Middle-earth is the giving of names to swords and other powerful weapons in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He derived the naming of weapons from his knowledge of Medieval times; the practice is found in Norse mythology and in the Old English poem Beowulf. Among the many weapons named by Tolkien are Orcrist and Glamdring in The Hobbit, and Narsil / Andúril in The Lord of the Rings. Such weapons carry powerful symbolism, embodying the identity and ancestry of their owners.
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