In the ancient and rugged lands of the North, where the frost-breath of winter bites deep into the bones of the earth, lived three brothers of the elven race: Völundr, Egil, and Slagfiðr. They were sons of the King of the Finns, and each possessed a spirit as wild as the Wolf-dales they called home. Völundr, however, was gifted beyond all others in the art of the forge. He could shape metal as if it were soft wax, coaxing beauty from the unyielding iron and light from the dullest gold. For a time, the brothers knew a rare and ethereal happiness. They encountered three valkyries—Hladgunnr Svanhvit, Hervör Alvitr, and Olrun—who had flown to the Wolf-dales in the guise of swans. For nine years, the brothers and the swan-maidens lived in harmony, bound by love and the quiet solitude of the mountains. But valkyries are not meant for the domesticity of the earth, and one morning, the brothers awoke to find their wives gone, their swan-skins vanished into the morning mist. Egil and Slagfiðr, consumed by grief, took up their skis and set out into the world to find their lost loves. But Völundr, more contemplative and perhaps more deeply wounded, chose to stay. He retreated into his smithy, where the roar of the fire was his only companion. He occupied his days by forging gold rings, hundreds of them, each one a perfect circle of memory. He strung them together on a rope of bast, waiting for the day his wife, Hervör, might return to him. This period of quiet labor was not to last, for news of the master smith’s skill and his hoard of golden rings reached the ears of Niðuðr, the greedy King of the Njars.
King Niðuðr was a man whose ambition was matched only by his cruelty. Desiring both the wealth and the matchless skill of Völundr, he sent his warriors under the cover of a moonless night. While Völundr slept, dreaming of the golden age with his valkyrie bride, the king’s men surrounded his lodge. They did not confront him as warriors, but crept like thieves. They entered his forge and saw the seven hundred rings hanging there. They stole one—a ring of exceptional beauty intended for Hervör—and then retreated into the shadows to wait for the smith to wake. When Völundr finally opened his eyes, he was not immediately alarmed. He went about his morning ritual, lighting the coals and counting his rings. When he realized one was missing, his heart leaped with a tragic hope; he believed his wife had returned and taken the ring. He sat by the fire, waiting for her to step out of the shadows. Instead, the King’s men fell upon him. They bound him in heavy iron chains, a mockery of the delicate jewelry he spent his life creating, and dragged him back to the court of Niðuðr. There, the King displayed the stolen ring, not on his own finger, but on the finger of his daughter, Böðvildr, while the King himself buckled Völundr’s own master-crafted sword to his hip.
The King’s queen, a woman of sharp intellect and even sharper malice, looked upon the captured smith and saw not a prisoner, but a threat. She noted the fire in Völundr’s eyes—a gaze that did not flicker with fear but burned with a cold, calculating intensity. 'His eyes are like those of a flashing snake,' she warned the King. 'He will seek his revenge if his legs remain whole.' On her advice, the King ordered a horrific act of cruelty: Völundr’s hamstrings were severed, leaving him a permanent cripple, unable to stand or walk. He was then banished to the small, rocky island of Sævarstaðr, just off the coast. There, he was forced to labor in a lonely smithy, forging trinkets, jewelry, and weapons for the royal family. No man was allowed to visit him save for the King, and the only sounds Völundr heard were the crashing of the waves against the cliffs and the rhythmic, hollow ring of his own hammer against the anvil. It was in this isolation, fueled by the agony of his maiming and the theft of his life, that Völundr began to plot a vengeance that would be sung of for centuries. He realized that while the King had taken his mobility, he had not taken his mind or his hands. In the dark of the island forge, he began to work on two secret projects: one for his enemies, and one for himself.
The opportunity for vengeance arrived when the King’s two young sons, driven by curiosity and a desire for the gold they knew the smith possessed, secretively rowed out to Sævarstaðr. They demanded to see the treasures Völundr was crafting. The smith, masking his hatred with a serpent’s smile, told them to return in secret the following day. When the boys returned, eager and unsuspecting, Völundr struck. He killed the princes, hidden from the world by the thick stone walls of the forge. With the cold precision of a craftsman, he transformed their remains into grotesque parodies of the jewelry the King so desired. He fashioned drinking cups from their skulls, encrusting them with silver to be sent to the King. From their eyes, he fashioned glowing gems for the Queen, and from their teeth, he shaped brooches for their sister, Böðvildr. The royal family wore and used these 'gifts,' entirely unaware of the gruesome origin of their new finery. Völundr watched from his island, the fire in his forge reflecting the burning satisfaction in his heart, but his work was not yet finished. He required a way to leave the island, a way to transcend the physical limitations imposed by the King’s blade. He began to look at the birds that circled the island—the gulls and the ravens that flew where he could not walk. He began to collect feathers, hundreds and thousands of them, carefully selecting those with the strongest quills and the softest down.