d proud of his treasure," but
here we are told its full previous history, certain features of which
(such as the shape-shifting) are signs of antiquity, whether it was
originally connected with the Volsungs or not.

As usual, _Voelsunga_ gives the fullest account, in the form of a
story told by Regin to his foster-son Sigurd, to incite him to slay
the dragon. Regin was one of three brothers, the sons of Hreidmar;
one of the three, Otr, while in the water in otter's shape, was seen by
three of the Aesir, Odin, Loki and Hoeni, and killed by Loki. Hreidmar
demanded as wergild enough gold to fill the otter's skin, and Loki
obtained it by catching the dwarf Andvari, who lived in a waterfall
in the form of a fish, and allowing him to ransom his head by giving
up his wealth. One ring the dwarf tried to keep back, but in vain;
and thereupon he laid a curse upon it: that the ring with the rest
of the gold should be the death of whoever should get possession of
it. In giving the gold to Hreidmar, Odin also tried to keep back the
ring, but had to give it up to cover the last hair. Then Fafni, one of
the two remaining sons, killed his father, first victim of the curse,
for the sake of the gold. He carried it away and lay guarding it in
the shape of a snake. But Regin the smith did not give up his hopes of
possessing the hoard: he adopted as his foster-son Sigurd the Volsung,
thus getting into his power the hero fated to slay the dragon.

The curse thus becomes the centre of the action, and the link between
the two parts of the story, since it directly accounts for Sigurd's
unconscious treachery and his separation from Brynhild, and absolves
the hero from blame by making him a victim of fate. It destroys in turn
Hreidmar, the Dragon, his brother Regin, the dragon-slayer himself,
Brynhild (to whom he gave the ring), and the Giukings, who claimed
inheritance after Sigurd's death. Later writers carried its effects
still further.

This narrative is also told in the pieces of prose interspersed through
_Reginsmal_. The verse consists only of scraps of dialogue. The first
of these comprises question and answer between Loki and the dwarf
Andvari in the form of the old riddle-poems, and seems to result
from the confusion of two ideas: the question-and-answer wager, and
the captive's ransom by treasure. Then follows the curse, in less
general terms than in the prose: "My gold shall be the death of two
brothers, and cause strife among eigh