Volsung

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A figure belonging to the Völsung family, the legendary royal line of Norse and Germanic heroic sagas such as the Volsunga saga
2. A descendant of the mythical Völsung clan, celebrated in medieval Icelandic epic literature for its heroes and tragic fate
3. One of the legendary kin of King Völsung, whose dynasty of warriors and kings appears prominently in Old Norse heroic poetry

Etymology: Volsung is the name of a legendary Norse family, and the hero the word usually points to is Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, who belonged to it. Its best-known appearance in English is the Volsunga saga, a prose saga written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, which retells the story of Sigmund, Sigurd and their kin. The saga traces the line back to Odin, who is said to have given the family a sword that was later broken and then reforged, a detail that connects it to the wider Germanic tradition of heroic swords. The name itself is Old Norse "Völsungr", most likely meaning "descendant of Völsi," where Völsi is a figure in the saga's own genealogy. Old Norse "Völsungar" is the plural used for the family as a whole. English readers met the name mainly through nineteenth-century translations, and William Morris's 1870 retelling, "The Story of Volsung and the Niblungs," helped bring it to a wider audience, while Wagner drew on the same material for his Ring cycle.