The Legend of Fafnir

a cautionary tale regarding the appropriate behaviour for heroes.

Late in the Dawn Age, Fafnir was a Dwarven jewel and weaponsmith who forged cunning weapons of great power and subtlety out of stone and all manner of materials, but never metal. His fame brought many heroes, particularly of the Storm pantheon, to his cave in East Bezirk, in the westernmost foothills of the Amleg Mountains, to purchase his works, for which they paid many king’s ransoms. Fafnir thereby amassed a great treasure of gems, for he would accept no coin – not even gold – not even iron!

The great Typhonian hero, Prince Sigurd, visited Fafnir to purchase a weapon with which to slaughter the Chaos hordes then encroaching on the northern borders of Bezirk. Fafnir offered Sigurd an axe with a blade of black stone named Nothung, asking what he would pay for it.

Sigurd arrogantly told the Dwarf that Fafnir already had more treasure than he could possibly need and, since Sigurd was a great hero, how could Fafnir prevent him from simply taking Nothung, and all his treasure, for that matter?

Fafnir replied that Sigurd would be wise to leave the axe and the treasure, for the treasure would bring him no joy and Nothung would bring only ruin.

Sigurd took these words for insolence and attacked the Dwarf. They fought hard but with the stolen Nothung Sigurd wounded Fafnir in the shoulder. The Dwarf fell to the floor of his cave and Sigurd claimed Nothung, the cave and the treasure, bidding Fafnir be gone.

Fafnir grinned at Sigurd and told him he was doubly cursed and that his dishonourable act would bring ruin on himself and upon Bezirk.

Sigurd followed Fafnir as he crawled from the cave, thinking to finish the Dwarf before he could tell anyone of Sigurd’s evil. But then he noticed that, where it fell on the ground, the Dwarf’s blood smoked!

Now fearful, outside the cave Sigurd raised Nothung for the death-stroke only to see the Dwarf vanish, to be replaced by a huge grey Dragon with a wounded forelimb. Before Sigurd could strike, the Dragon breathed upon him and poison robbed Sigurd of all his strength.

The Dragon said, “I could crush your bones with one claw or I could devour you whole, body and soul, but I think I will let you live and with glee shall I gloat over your doom and that of your kingdom”. With that the Dragon flew away, up and into the mountains, and Fafnir was never seen again.

Needless to say, all the evils predicted came to pass and Sigurd III lived to rue his arrogance ten times over before suffering a miserable death – but that’s another story.

Many have since searched in vain for Fafnir’s lost cave and its hoard of gems. Rikard Wagner’s epic poem Siegfried relates how the hero slays Fafnir but it is a complete work of fiction conflating Siegfried, the third king of Bezirk in Dawn Age, with Sigurd the Cursed who was Bezirk’s last king at the end of the Dawn Age.