Völundarkviða

Vǫlundarkviða (Old Norse: 'The lay of Völund';[1] modern Icelandic spelling: Völundarkviða) is one of the mythological poems of the Poetic Edda.

In visual sources, the story told in Vǫlundarkviða seems also to be portrayed on the front panel of the eighth-century Northumbrian Franks Casket and on the eighth-century Gotlandic Ardre image stone VIII, along with a number of tenth-to-eleventh-century carvings from Northern England, including the Leeds Cross, a fragment in Leeds City Museum, and Sherburn in Elmet fragments 2 and 3.

[5] The poem relates the story of the artisan Völundr, his capture by Níðuðr, implicitly a petty-king of Närke (currently in Sweden), and Vǫlundr's brutal revenge and escape.

[6] Vǫlundarkviða begins with a prose introduction, setting the scene, giving background about the characters, and partly summarising the poem.

Slagfiðr and Egill go in search of their women, but Vǫlundr remains at home instead, forging baugar (‘(arm-)rings’) for his woman.

From Ardre image stone VIII. Vǫlundr's smithy in the centre, Níðuðr's daughter to the left, and Níðuðr's dead sons hidden to the right of the smithy. Between the girl and the smithy, Vǫlundr can be seen flying away, apparently in bird form.
Völundr and his two brothers see the swan-maidens bathing. Illustration by Jenny Nyström , 1893.
"The three smith boys spy and later marry three valkyrie maidens" (1882) by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine .