The Volsungs Before Sigurd Trivia Quiz

Answer: Eat a golden apple

The giant Hrimnir sends his daughter, in crow form, with the apple. The unnamed queen is pregnant for six years before she finally asks the son to be cut out of her womb. She dies after kissing her newborn son, Volsung. Translations are not always clear which parent eats the apple or if both do. Long pregnancies are not unusual in mythology. Japanese mothers of heroes are often pregnant for two years before giving birth.

In one Duala myth, a woman is pregnant with a hero, Jeki, for so long that he grows to adult size in her womb.

Answer: He wants the sword Sigmund pulled from a tree.

Betrothing a woman against her will always bodes ill in a saga. The god Odin leaves a sword in a tree at Signy's wedding; though Siggeir wants it, her twin Sigmund claims it, and Siggeir plans to get it by killing the Volsungs. When Signy warns her father, Volsung admonishes her for betraying her husband. Talk about an ungrateful father. Siggeir meets Volsung's army in battle and kills him, but does not get the sword he seeks.

Answer: Wolf

The wolf is said to be Siggeir's mother in a shapeshifted form. Signy has nine younger brothers in addition to her twin. Their mother is Hljod, who brought Volsung's parents the apple that allowed Volsung to be conceived.

Answer: Cover him with honey

It takes her nine days, and nine brothers, to figure out this bizarre plan. The servant covers his head with honey and puts some in his mouth. The wolf stops to lick the honey from Sigmund's face before eating him. When she puts her tongue in his mouth to get the rest, he bites through it; her eagerness to get away breaks his bonds, and he is free.

This part always makes me laugh through the sheer oddity and audacity.

Answer: He puts a snake in a flour bag and tells them to make bread.

The boys are too frightened of the snake to make bread, so Signy asks Sigmund to kill his nephews. After all, if they're afraid of a little snake, how can they avenge their grandfather and uncles? No mention is made of how Signy explains to her husband how their boys suddenly died.

Answer: Sigmund and Signy

As her sons with her husband are not tough enough to avenge their kinsmen's deaths, Signy believes a only full-blooded Volsung heir can do it. She tricks Sigmund into sleeping with her by switching appearances with a wandering witch, and Sinfjotli is born nine months later. Neither Sigmund nor Sinfjotli seem upset when they learn the truth, but that's typical in sagas: you rarely if ever get characters' direct thoughts. Sinfjotli passes the poisonous-snake-in-the-bag test by baking the snake into the bread. He cannot eat it because he's not immune to poison, like Sigmund is.

In the opera "Die Walkure", which is in part inspired by this saga, the twins (called Siegmund and Sieglinde) are well aware that they are twins before consummating their love. Their son is Siegfried, analogous to Sigurd in this saga. Both sons slay a dragon and fall in love with Brynhild/Brunnhilde after riding through a wall of fire.

Answer: Wolves

In the second instance of werewolf-ism in this saga, Sigmund and his nephew-son find wolf skins, put them on, become wolves, and can't get them off. Sigmund nearly kills Sinfjotli when Sinfjotli smart-mouths his uncle-father after breaking a promise, but Sigmund saves him by watching weasels fight, then following a bird to a special healing leaf. Sagas have the strangest happenings, don't they?

Answer: She gives them Sigmund's sword to cut their way free.

The men are put in a cairn covered by a thick rock. Signy tosses in the coveted sword, which is later named Gram. The blade is sharp enough to (slowly) cut through the rock, and soon they are free.

Answer: Sigmund and Sinfjotli set his hall on fire.

At least two decades must have passed since Volsung and his sons were killed. This vengeance is best served cold, indeed. When Sigmund wishes to praise her for her aid, she says the actions she perpetuated to bring about her vengeance have rendered her "by no means fit to live". Considering she had her four sons by Siggeir murdered by her brother and son-nephew, tricked her brother into sleeping with her, and betrayed her husband by helping Sigmund so much, she may have a point.

She stays in the hall and burns to death too. Sigmund can then reclaim his kingdom.

Answer: He imbibes a poisoned drink.

His father is immune to all poison, but Sinfjotli is only immune to exterior poison (presumably poisoned weapons and the like). Sigmund's wife Borghild, whose brother Sinfjotli killed, eggs her son-in-law into drinking an elixir he knows is poisoned. Sigmund tells him to filter it through his beard, meaning to simply pour it on his face and let it all run onto the floor, acting like he's drinking some. Sinfjotli doesn't take the hint and drinks it all, resulting in his death.

Sigmund sends his wife away, and she dies. Overcome with grief, Sigmund takes Sinfjotli out and encounters a figure who is presumably Odin, who takes his son's body away. As Sinfjotli is mentioned sitting in Valhall in the Eddas, he is the only recorded warrior to go to Valhall without dying in battle.

Lemminkainen from the Finnish epic "Kalevala" is the one who is killed when a man throws a viper at him. Thanks to his mother's tireless work, he is recalled to life.