, that, about the year 1100, an Icelandic scholar called
Saemund the Wise collected a number of songs and poems into a book
which is now known as the "Elder Edda;" and that, about a century later,
Snorre Sturleson, another Icelander, wrote a prose-work of a similar
character, which is called the "Younger Edda." And it is to these two
books that we owe the preservation of almost all that is now known of
the myths and the strange religion of our Saxon and Norman forefathers.
But, besides these, there are a number of semi-mythological stories of
great interest and beauty,--stories partly mythical, and partly founded
upon remote and forgotten historical facts. One of the oldest and finest
of these is the story of Sigurd, the son of Sigmund. There are many
versions of this story, differing from each other according to the time
in which they were written and the character of the people among whom
they were received. We find the first mention of Sigurd and his strange
daring deeds in the song of Fafnir, in the "Elder Edda." Then, in the
"Younger Edda," the story is repeated in the myth of the Niflungs and
the Gjukungs. It is told again in the "Volsunga Saga" of Iceland. It is
repeated and re-repeated in various forms and different languages, and
finally appears in the "Nibelungen Lied," a grand old German poem, which
may well be compared with the Iliad of the Greeks. In this last version,
Sigurd is called Siegfried; and the story is colored and modified by the
introduction of many notions peculiar to the middle ages, and unknown to
our Pagan fathers of the north. In our own time this myth has been woven
into a variety of forms. William Morris has embodied it in his noble
poem of "Sigurd the Volsung;" Richard Wagner, the famous German
composer, has constructed from it his inimitable drama, the "Nibelungen
Ring;" W. Jordan, another German writer, has given it to the world
in his "Sigfrid's Saga;" and Emanuel Geibel has derived from it the
materials for his "Tragedy of Brunhild."

And now I, too, come with the STORY OF SIEGFRIED, still another version
of the time-honored legend. The story as I shall tell it you is not in
all respects a literal rendering of the ancient myth; but I have taken
the liberty to change and recast such portions of it as I have deemed
advisable. Sometimes I have drawn materials from one version of the
story, sometimes from another, and sometimes largely from my own
imagination alone. Nor shall I be accus