Seiðr Loom

dwarf

Andvari

A dwarf living as a pike in a waterfall, from whom Loki extorts all his gold, including a ring he curses so that it will destroy whoever owns it.

Andvari is the dwarf whose hoard becomes the curse of the Völsung cycle. In Reginsmál he lives in a waterfall in the shape of a pike, doomed to the water by "an evil Norn", and names his father as Óinn Reginsmál, prose 1 Reginsmál 2. Loki, sent to find gold for Hreiðmarr's ransom, borrows the net of the sea-goddess Rán and catches him Reginsmál, prose 1. Andvari hands over all his gold but keeps back one ring. Loki takes that too. The dwarf goes into his rock and curses the gold: it will bring death to two brothers and evil to eight heroes Reginsmál, prose 2 Reginsmál 5.

Snorri tells it with different details. Loki goes to "the Land of the Black Elves" and catches Andvari with his hands. Andvari begs to keep the ring because he can multiply his wealth from it. Loki refuses, and Andvari curses the ring, not the whole hoard Skáldskaparmál 39. In both accounts the ring is Andvaranaut, and Loki gladly passes the curse on to Hreiðmarr. A dwarf named Andvari is also listed in Völuspá and in Snorri's dwarf-list Völuspá 15 Gylfaginning 14.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

Andvari am I, and Oin my father, In many a fall have I fared; An evil Norn in olden days Doomed me in waters to dwell.
Reginsmál 2 The dwarf names himself and his fate.
Now shall the gold that Gust once had Bring their death to brothers twain, And evil be for heroes eight
Reginsmál 5 His curse on the gold.
the dwarf declared that that ring should be the ruin of every one who should come into possession of it.
Skáldskaparmál 39 Snorri's version of the curse, placed on the ring.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Who 'Gust' was, whose gold Andvari says it once was; some take it as another name for Andvari himself.
  • Whether the Andvari of the dwarf lists in Völuspá and Gylfaginning is the same figure.

In modern culture

Not from the medieval sources.

Andvari is the original of Alberich in Wagner's Ring, the dwarf whose stolen gold is forged into a cursed ring; Wagner moved the story to the Rhine and made the theft of the gold its beginning.

Myths with Andvari

Otter's ransom and Andvari's curse Loki kills an otter that turns out to be a farmer's son. To buy their lives the gods must fill and cover its skin with gold, which Loki wrings from the dwarf Andvari, along with a ring Andvari curses. The curse starts working at once. Sigurðr slays Fáfnir Urged on by his foster-father Reginn, the young Sigurðr digs a trench on the dragon's path and stabs Fáfnir from below. A taste of the dragon's heart-blood lets him understand the birds, who warn him that Reginn means to kill him.

Related

Andvaranaut Andvaranautr The cursed gold ring taken from the dwarf Andvari, used to cover the last whisker of the otter's skin, and later worn by Brynhildr and sent as a warning by Guðrún. Loki The giant-born trickster counted among the Æsir: father of Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent and Hel, contriver of Baldr's death, bound until Ragnarök. Odin Óðinn Chief of the Æsir: a one-eyed god of wisdom, poetry, magic, war and the dead, who gave an eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, and who dies at Ragnarök. Otr Son of Hreiðmarr who fished in otter shape; Loki killed him with a stone, and the gold paid for his death carries Andvari's curse. Hreiðmarr Father of Otr, Fáfnir and Reginn, who makes the gods pay a gold ransom for his son's death and is killed by his own son for it. Fáfnir Son of Hreiðmarr who killed his father for the otter's ransom and lay on the gold as a dragon on Gnitaheiðr until Sigurðr killed him from a pit. Dwarves dvergar The underground smiths of Norse myth, made from the giant Ymir's flesh or blood; they forge the gods' greatest treasures, brew the mead of poetry, and fear the daylight. Rán Ægir's wife, the sea as a taker of lives: she owns a net in which she catches everyone who goes to sea, and the drowned are said to go to her.