The Saga of Hervor and Heidrek is the story of the sword Tyrfing, which was forged by dwarves under duress, with as many curses as blessings. Like the Rhinegold in The Saga of the Volsungs, its tale is one of tragedy and bloodshed, as it falls into the hands of owner after owner, causing chaos and mayhem as it does so. The saga is renowned for its sequences of mystical horror, including the first Hervor's visit to the grave of her father, the undead berserk Angantyr, in which she wins back the cursed sword after a long dialogue with his ghost. This was the inspiration for the Romantic poet Anna Seward, the 'Swan of Lichfield', who based Herva, at the Tomb of Argantyr. A Runic Dialogue upon it. Another writer who found inspiration in this saga, among many others, was JRR Tolkien, who used the Riddles of Gestumblindi as one of the models for his riddle game in The Hobbit. Also of interest in the saga are the echoes it contains of real history as well as mythology; the early history of the Goths, before they left their kingdom in what is now the Ukraine to cut a bloody swathe across the declining Roman Empire. The name Tyrfing has been connected with that of the Tervingi, an early Gothic dynasty mentioned by Roman writers, and 'Gryting' with the Greutungi, another Gothic clan. Some of the characters who appear in the later sequence are also mentioned in the Anglo Saxon poem Widsith line 115.It has not become as famous as The Saga of the Volsungs, although it has inspired art and literature in modern times, but it has more often been used as a quarry from which other writers have extracted material. An uneven work in many ways, it nevertheless contains a great deal of interest: dwarves, magic swords and curses, warrior maidens and the undead, giants and gods, riddles and fate, all culminating in an epic battle between Goths and Huns, after which the legendary story continues into recorded history as far as the later Viking Age, linking the glorious Goths of history with the Swedish kingdom, a tradition that in many ways was revived during Sweden's imperial expansion in the seventeenth century, when, like the Goths before them, possessed by the "furor teutonicus", almost as if Tyrfing had returned, they issued forth from the womb of nations to lay waste kingdoms and empires.

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• Literature & FictionMythology & Folk TalesMythology
• Science Fiction & FantasyFantasyFairy Tales

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