In the Northland of Midgard, on a farmstead above a long fjord, lived a chief of the Volsungs whose name was Wulf. For as long as the memory of men, his hall had been an ancient seat of chieftains. It lay north of the fjord, rolling farmland sloping down to the blue water of the inlet, with high forested hills lying beyond the fields to the east. The houses stood in two rows enclosing a long courtyard; on the north side stood stables, sheds, byres and the barn, and on the south were the dwelling houses, the storehouses and the cookhouse. Some of the more distant outbuildings had fallen into decay, for Wulf maintained a smaller household than his ancestors; but he was careful of his holdings for the most part— dwelling houses and sheds and barn were kept in good repair.

  A stand of spruce and oaks grew above the stead, and there were birch and ash and cherry trees. In the spring the cherry trees blossomed white and bees hummed among the clover above the clear cloud-reflecting fjord. But in winter winds howled in fury across the fields, flinging drifts of snow higher than a man’s head, and the cattle huddled close in the byre, their breath hanging in frosty clouds.

  In the dawning of time, before men had ever come to the North, the land had been bound in ice and snow for a thousand thousand years. No bird had sung, no creature sheltered there; only a brooding stillness lay over it, and a deadly chill. Fathoms deep over granite the ice lay, its surface carved and hollowed by the howling winds; and the cold ocean waves veiled in spindrift pounded its steep gray cliffs.

  When at last the air grew warmer and the ice retreated, it left behind a harrowed and tumultuous land, gouged by ravines, cut by deep fjords. As the years passed birds flew over it, dropping seeds; winds blew over it, bearing spores. Oak forests sprang up, and the land was clothed with green. Grass and leaves softened its rugged contours, but made it no less harsh a land to dwell in.

  Of the tribes which came north at last, driven by need or land-hunger, the fiercest and most battle-hardy were those known as the Volsungs. In those long ago days Odin lay with a woman of the Volsungs, and she bore twins. Then the blood of the Aesir ran in the Volsungs’ veins, driving them to high deeds and into the thick of battles. They raged like fire through the land, subduing it to their will, until all other tribes went in fear of the Volsungs’ wrath.

  Of this line in latter days had come the chieftain called Wulf. By his time the fire in the blood was burning low, for peace had lain on the valleys and the high fells for many years. He lived in prosperity with his wife Gisl Siggeirsdotter, his small son and daughter, and their carles and maidservants. He did much trading by water, but his chief source of wealth lay in his horses and cattle and his lands, for he owned wide stretches to the east and south.

  One bitter winter’s night in the year Thor slew the giant Hrungnir, Odin determined to visit the Volsung chief. Wrapped in his gray cloak, with his wolves Geri and Freki at his heels, he mounted the great horse Sleipnir and rode down the Rainbow Bridge to the Northland. He came after hard riding to Wolfdale and the thick oak forests above Wulf’s stead. The trees offered some shelter from the storm, but when he emerged into the open the wind struck with a blast that made even Sleipnir stagger. Dismounting, Odin tied the horse to a branch and approached the farmhouse on foot, with the wolves ranging at his back.

  Gusts of snow whirled across the sky, blinding him. His boots crunched through the crusted snow. The lights of the farmhouse flickered through the storm, and it seemed a long weary time before he reached it. The wolves crouched behind him, and he lifted his hand and smote on the door.

  It was a raw, wild, bone-chilling night, but under the roof of Wulf’s hall lay warmth and cheer, a bubble of light enclosed against the ravening dark. So Siglinda felt as she crouched beside the long hearth, cradling the doll she had fashioned for herself from straw and bits of red and yellow cloth. She crooned a song to it, rocking it in her arms, but all the while her ears were open to the sounds of the long hall. At the high seat before the oak table sat her father Wulf, talking of weighty matters with the men who came to him. His broad brow was corrugated with thought, and the rumble of his slow careful speech underlay the crackling of the fire. Her mother Gisl sat spinning on the far side of the fire pit, her hands deftly turning the spindle. Siglinda gazed in adoration at her mother; she had been the fairest of Siggeir’s seven daughters, and in spite of the lines on her forehead and the fading of her bright hair, she was comely still.

  Her mother’s lips curved in a small proud smile, and Siglinda lifted her head eagerly, but the smile was not for her. Gisl was looking at her brother Sigmund, kneeling beside her on the hearthstones. He was her twin, like her nearly five years old, a sturdy, lithe-limbed child, slender for his age. He had his father’s open countenance and his mother’s pale flaxen hair and bright blue eyes, but he had a swift, decisive way of moving all his own, along with impatience with others’ slower ways. He was feeding sticks into the blaze, watching them catch fire. His eyes were bright as he lifted a slender twig with many-colored flames licking along its length. Siglinda watched him in awe at his boldness; she did not dare take such liberties with fire.

  “Sigmund,” said her mother sharply. “Put it back. You will burn yourself.”

  Wulf looked up with a frown. “Leave the boy alone, Gisl. He will do well enough.”

  “It is not you who has to nurse him back to health and dress his injuries,” said Gisl. “Sometimes I think you encourage him in recklessness.”

  Wulf heaved a sigh, and turned back to his conversation. Sigmund, with his mother’s penetrating eye on him, dropped the twig back into the fire pit. Seeing her mother still watching them, Siglinda gathered up her courage and rose to go to her chair.

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  She put a timid hand on Gisl’s sleeve. “See, mother,” she said, holding out her doll. “She has a dress, but she needs hair. Will you help me make some?”

  “Later, Siglinda.” Gisl put her aside absently, without glancing at the doll, and returned to her spinning. “I am working now.”

  Siglinda went back to the hearth beside Sigmund. She sat on her favorite stone, an oval pinkish one with a chipped corner, and leaned against her brother’s knee. To the top of her doll’s head she whispered, “She does need hair.”

  “Wait,” he whispered back. He slid past her to where Gretl the housemaid sat intent on her sewing, and with a deft hand extracted from the work basket at her feet some strands of bright yellow embroidery floss. Sliding back to Siglinda, he smoothed the floss over the doll’s head with fingers as nimble as her own. With a sigh of happiness she pulled a needle from her bodice and sewed the hair in place. “There, she is as pretty as mother now,” she said, hugging the doll to her breast.

  He gave her a patronizing smile. Then glancing over his shoulder, he bent and whispered in her ear, “If I tell you what I did today, will you promise not to tell?”

  “Yes.” She hugged the doll closer and shivered in anticipation.

  “I climbed out when she thought I was asleep, and went with Egill to the pasture. He let me ride the red bull.”

  She gazed at him in awe. “How could you?”

  He shrugged. “He is old and tired and has only one eye. It was no great feat. But don’t tell mother. She will be angry at Egill and forbid him to take me again.”

  “I won’t. But you should not do it again.”

  He shifted in discontent, with a sidelong glance toward the turning spindle. “I know.”

  Siglinda knew how he felt. She thought of him as nearly grown, he seemed so capable to her, but to Gisl he was her baby. He was the pride and delight of her life; she hovered over him constantly for fear of illness or injury. Siglinda was not jealous, or at least felt no more than an occasional twinge. She loved him so much and thought so little of her own merit that it seemed only natural that everyone else should love him best. In a life often bewildering and comfortless, her twin was her refuge, her one true friend. She leaned closer to his comforting warmth, resolved to help him elude Gisl’s watchfulness in whatever small way she could.

  He was gazing into the flames. They encircled the hewn boughs with flickering bracelets and armrings of flame, like red gold transformed to an airy substance. “Look,” he murmured, pointing, and she saw the flames reflected in his eyes. “When I am grown I will have wide rings of gold. I will be a great chief.”

  She knew it would be so. She looked into the flames, and saw there fantastic shapes, flickering figures, hissing throngs of embattled spears, flame-crowned

  heights and gold-roofed halls. What they portended she could not tell, but she could have gazed at them forever, tracing strange designs in the glowing coals and tongues of fire.

  There was a knock at the door. Siglinda looked up, but no one else had noticed it; the wind was howling shrilly outside. It came again, a heavy pounding, and this time her father heard and gestured for the housecarl to open it. Egill hurried to lift the latch. The storm tore the door from his hand and battered it wide, flinging a flurry of snow across the hall.

  The storm stood in the doorway. At least it seemed so to Siglinda, looking up from the hearth at a being gray-cloaked and hooded, hair and beard crusted with snow, with snow driving over his shoulders and eddying between his boots. He was immense and terrifying. He filled the doorway, and behind his massive form she could see nothing but the white flurry. She shrank closer to Sigmund, who looked up in curiosity.

  The stranger strode in, and behind him slunk two gray creatures, their ruffs white with snow. Siglinda stared wide-eyed, for they looked as fierce as wolves to her. When the stranger spoke, she jumped, for his voice was as rough and powerful as the storm’s, but he threw back the hood and she saw that he was only a man after all.

  “Peace and plenty to this house,” he said. “I am called the Wanderer. Grimnir is my name. I have heard that there is hospitality for travelers in the house of Wulf of the Volsungs.”

  “You are welcome here,” said Wulf. “It is an ill night for traveling. Come and sit by the fire.”

  The stranger took off his cloak, shaking a heap of snow to the floor, but he did not at once move to the bench Wulf indicated before the hearth. His gaze roved around the room, and Siglinda saw with a thrill of horror that he had only one eye. The heavy lid fell over the empty socket of the other. Beneath the lid, where a crack showed, seemed to lurk a vault of darkness that filled her with terror.

  Sigmund showed no such fear, but rose and stood with his sturdy legs braced, gazing up at the stranger. Wulf had seated himself again, but the stranger advanced to Sigmund, and with a sudden sweep as if an avalanche stooped down, bent and lifted the boy into the crook of his arm.

  Siglinda put her hand over her mouth, and Gisl drew near, her hands knotted

  in her apron, but Sigmund gazed fearlessly at the stranger’s one blue eye and the other lid that hid the empty socket. “Are you a chieftain like my father?” he asked.

  “I am,” said Grimnir. “What is your name?”

  “I am called Sigmund.”

  “And what will you be when you are grown?”

  “A chieftain and a warrior,” said the boy without hesitation. “I will have a sharp sword, sharper than anyone else’s, and I will fight everyone and make them do as I say.”

  “Oh, no,” burst from Gisl’s lips. The stranger glanced at her, and she made a fluttering gesture of embarrassment. “He is so small,” she said. “He does not know what he is saying. The old nurse tells him such tales—”

  Grimnir gave a grim smile that Siglinda did not like; his teeth were white and even. He swung the boy to the floor. “If he grows up to follow in his forebears’ footsteps, he will be a leader of men.”

  He strode away to the bench, and Gisl hastened to catch up Sigmund and carry him off to the kitchen with her, despite his protests. Siglinda knew that look on her mother’s face, an anxious, harried look, as if she feared some danger. She often looked that way at Sigmund.