Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies
Völundr, Lord of Elves
The smith Völundr, called a chief of the elves in Völundarkviða though his story is set at Úlfdalir.
In Thorpe’s translation
“There were three brothers, sons of a king of the Finns”
13. “Then cried Nidud, the Niarars’ lord: ‘Whence gottest thou, Volund! Alfars’ chief! our gold, in Ulfdal?’”
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völundarkviða (Lay of Volund), prose introduction and stanza 13 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
What the sources say
The prose introduction to Völundarkviða says that Völundr was one of three sons of a king of the Finns. He and his brothers hunt on snow-shoes and settle at Úlfdalir by a water called Úlfsjár, where they take three swan-maidens as wives. When the women fly away, Völundr stays and forges gold, and King Níðuðr has him seized.
The poem itself calls him “the Alfar’s companion” and, in stanza 13, when Níðuðr accuses him of stealing gold, “Alfars’ chief”. The poem does not explain the epithet. His home and his forge are at Úlfdalir, and nothing in the poem puts him in Álfheimr.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völundarkviða, prose introduction and stanzas 10, 13 Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Names and background
Thorpe, in a note, remarks that the title “chief of the elves” is hard to square with the prose calling him a son of a king of the Finns. He suggests it may be explained by the poem hardly belonging to the Odinic mythology and having been composed as that system declined, giving way to heroic or romantic tales. That is one editor’s guess, and the epithet is otherwise unexplained.
The name appears in other forms elsewhere, as Wieland and Veland in Thorpe’s note. The elves in the title are not placed in any realm, and this entry does not connect him to the Álfheimr of Grímnismál. The page for the elves and Æsir covers how the poems group them.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völundarkviða, note on stanza 13 Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Where the sources attest it
The epithet is attested in Völundarkviða (stanza 13 in Thorpe’s numbering; stanza 10 has a similar phrase). The poem is in the Poetic Edda, and its prose introduction comes from the same collection. Other editions number the stanzas differently, and the exact wording of the epithet depends on the translation. No archaeological or pictorial evidence for this link to the elves is known. The prose introduction names Úlfdalir and the water Úlfsjár; the epithet and the setting are therefore kept apart in the poem.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völundarkviða Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).