Tyrfing
Encyclopedia
Magic sword
The term magic sword refers to any kind of mythological or fictional sword imbued with magical power to increase its strength or grant it other supernatural qualities. The archetype originated in myth and legend, and occurs regularly in fantasy fiction....
in Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, which figures in a poem from the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
called Hervararkviða, and in Hervarar saga
Hervarar saga
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...
. The name is also used in the saga to denote the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
and the form Tervingi was actually recorded by Roman sources in the 4th century.
Svafrlami
Svafrlami
Svafrlami was in the H and U version of the Hervarar saga the son of Sigrlami, who was the son of Odin. In the R version, Svafrlami is called Sigrlami and his parentage is not given. Svafrlami was the king of Gardariki and the first owner of the magic sword Tyrfing.One day, he was hunting on his...
was the king of Gardariki, and Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
's grandson. He managed to trap the Dwarves Dvalinn and Durin
Durin (Norse mythology)
In Norse mythology, Durinn is the name of a dwarf attested in the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá and repeated in Gylfaginning from the Prose Edda. He was the second created after the first and foremost dwarf Mótsognir. He is also attested in Hervarar saga, where he forged the magic sword Tyrfing with the...
when they had left the rock where they dwelt. Then he forced them to forge a sword with a golden hilt that would never miss a stroke, would never rust and would cut through stone and iron as easily as through clothes.
The Dwarves made the sword, and it shone and gleamed like fire. However, in revenge they cursed it so that it would kill a man every time it was drawn and that it would be the cause of three great evils. They finally cursed it so that it would also kill Svafrlami himself.
When Svafrlami heard the curses he tried to slay Dvalin, but the Dwarf disappeared into the rock and the sword was driven deep into it, though missing its victim.
Svafrlami was killed by the berserker
Berserker
Berserkers were Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk. Berserkers are attested in numerous Old Norse sources...
Arngrim
Arngrim
Arngrim was a berserker, who figures in Hervarar saga, Gesta Danorum, Lay of Hyndla, a number of Faroese ballads and Orvar-Odd's saga in Norse mythology.-Hervarar saga:...
who took the sword in his turn. After Arngrim, it was worn by Angantyr
Angantyr
Angantyr was the name of three characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, in Gesta Danorum and Faroese ballads....
and his eleven brothers. They were all slain at Samsø
Samsø
Samsø is a Danish island in the Kattegat off the Jutland Peninsula. Samsø is located in Samsø municipality. The community has 4,300 inhabitants called Samsingers and is 114 km² in area. Due to its central location, the island was used during the Viking Age as a meeting place...
, by the Swedish champion Hjalmar
Hjálmar
- Current :*Þorsteinn Einarsson - Guitar and vocals*Sigurður Halldór Guðmundsson - Keyboards and vocals*Guðmundur Kristinn Jónsson - Guitar* Valdimar Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson - Bass* Helgi Svavar Helgason - Percussion- Former :...
, and his Norwegian sworn brother Orvar-Odd
Orvar-Odd
Örvar-Oddr is a legendary hero about whom an anonymous Icelander wrote a fornaldarsaga in the latter part of the 13th century. Örvar-Odds saga, the Saga of Örvar-Odd, became very popular and contains old legends and songs...
; but Hjalmar
Hjálmar
- Current :*Þorsteinn Einarsson - Guitar and vocals*Sigurður Halldór Guðmundsson - Keyboards and vocals*Guðmundur Kristinn Jónsson - Guitar* Valdimar Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson - Bass* Helgi Svavar Helgason - Percussion- Former :...
, being wounded by Tyrfing, has only time to sing his death-song before he dies, and asks Orvar-Odd to bring his body to Ingeborg, daughter of Yngvi at Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 16,231 inhabitants in 1991.As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political centre...
.
Angantyr's daughter, Hervor
Hervor
Hervor is the name of two female characters in the cycle of the magic sword Tyrfing, presented in Hervarar saga with parts found in the Poetic Edda. The first Hervor was the daughter of Angantyr...
(by his wife Tófa
Tofa (Poetic Edda)
Tófa is the wife of Angantyr and mother of Hervor, in Hervararkviða, a poem from the Poetic Edda which is part of the Tyrfing Cycle.-In the Poetic Edda:She is mentioned only once, in Hervor's appeal to Angantyr:...
) is brought up as a bond-maid, in ignorance of her parentage. When at last she learns it, she arms herself as a shieldmaiden
Shieldmaiden
A shieldmaiden was a woman who had chosen to fight as a warrior in Scandinavian folklore and mythology. They are often mentioned in sagas such as Hervarar saga and in Gesta Danorum. Shieldmaidens also appear in stories of other Germanic nations: Goths, Cimbri, and Marcomanni. The mythical Valkyries...
, and goes to Munarvoe in Samsø
Samsø
Samsø is a Danish island in the Kattegat off the Jutland Peninsula. Samsø is located in Samsø municipality. The community has 4,300 inhabitants called Samsingers and is 114 km² in area. Due to its central location, the island was used during the Viking Age as a meeting place...
, in quest of the dwarf-cursed weapon. She finds it and marries Hofund. They have two sons, Heidrek and Angantyr. Hervor secretly gave her son the sword Tyrfing. While Angantyr and Heidrek walked, Heidrek wanted to have a look at the sword. Since he had unsheathed it, the curse the Dwarves had put on the sword made Heidrek kill his brother Angantyr.
Heidrek became king of the Goths. During a voyage, Heidrek camped at the Carpathians (Harvaða fjöllum, cf. Grimm's law
Grimm's law
Grimm's law , named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European stops as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC...
). He was accompanied by eight mounted thralls, and when Heidrek slept at night, the thralls broke into his tent and took Tyrfing and slew Heidrek. This was the last one of Tyrfing's three evil deeds. Heidrek's son Angantyr
Angantyr
Angantyr was the name of three characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, in Gesta Danorum and Faroese ballads....
caught the thralls, killed them and reclaimed the magic sword, and the curse had ceased.
Angantyr
Angantyr
Angantyr was the name of three characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, in Gesta Danorum and Faroese ballads....
was the next king of the Goths, but his illegitimate half-Hun brother Hlod
Hlöd
Hlod or Hlöd was the illegitimate son of Heidrek, the king of the Goths.He appears in the Hervarar saga and probably also as Hlith in Widsith, line 115, together with his father Heiðrekr , half-brother Angantyr , and his mother Sifka .-Claiming his inheritance:Hlöd had grown up with his grandfather...
(or Hlöd, Hlöðr) wanted half of the kingdom. Angantýr refused, and Gizur called Hlod a bastard and his mother a slave-girl. Hlod and 343,200 mounted Huns invade the Goths (See The Battle of the Goths and Huns). The Huns greatly outnumber the Goths. The Goths win because Angantyr uses Tyrfing. He kills his brother Hlod. The bodies of the numerous warriors choke the rivers, causing a flood which filled the valleys with dead men and horses.