Andvari was the dwarf whose cursed gold and ring set in motion the greatest tragedy in all of Norse legend — the doom of the Volsungs and the slaying of the dragon Fafnir. A shape-shifting dwarf who hoarded a treasure beneath the water, he laid a terrible curse upon his ring when it was taken from him, and that curse brought ruin upon everyone who possessed it after.
The Dwarf of the Waterfall
Andvari (Old Norse Andvari) was a dwarf who possessed a great hoard of gold, which he guarded jealously, living in the form of a fish (a pike) in the waters beneath a waterfall. Among his treasures was a magical ring, Andvaranaut (“Andvari's gift”), which had the power to generate more gold, endlessly increasing his hoard. He lived hidden in the water, a shape-shifting dwarf hoarding his cursed wealth in the depths.
The Theft of the Hoard
Andvari's gold was seized as part of a chain of events set off by the gods. The trickster Loki, traveling with Odin and Hoenir, had killed an otter that was in truth a shape-shifted man named Otr; the dead man's father, Hreidmar, demanded a weregild (a death-payment) of gold enough to cover the otter's skin entirely. To pay it, Loki was sent to gather gold — and he caught Andvari (in his pike-form) in a net and forced the dwarf to surrender his entire hoard. Andvari gave up all his gold — but tried to keep back the one ring, Andvaranaut, that could make more. Loki saw it and took even that, stripping the dwarf of everything.
The Curse on the Ring
Robbed of his entire treasure, the furious Andvari laid a terrible curse upon the ring and the gold as Loki took them: that the treasure would destroy whoever owned it, bringing death and ruin to every possessor. This curse was the seed of one of the greatest tragedies in Norse legend. The gold was paid to Hreidmar as the weregild — and at once the curse began its work: Hreidmar was murdered for the gold by his own son Fafnir, who then turned himself into a dragon to guard the hoard. The hero Sigurd later slew Fafnir and took the cursed gold — and through it came his own doom and the destruction of the Volsungs and Nibelungs, a cascade of betrayal, murder and ruin that flowed from Andvari's curse.
The Curse That Doomed Heroes
Andvari endures as the dwarf whose cursed gold set the great tragic cycle of Norse legend in motion — the shape-shifting hoarder whose stolen ring carried a doom that destroyed dragons, heroes and whole dynasties. His curse on the gold is one of the most influential motifs in all of mythology, the ancestor of countless later tales of cursed treasure (and a direct inspiration for the cursed ring of later opera and fantasy). He embodies the deep theme that runs through the Volsung saga: that greed and stolen gold carry a curse, and that the lust for treasure brings ruin upon all who grasp it.
Robbed of his last gold ring, a dwarf laid a curse on it that no owner could escape — and that curse slew a dragon, doomed a hero, and destroyed whole dynasties.