Part One of this article can be found here.

Volund continued to perfect the world's most deadly weapon, a blade that he referred to as his sword of vengeance. He named it Gambantein and years would pass as he continued to improve it, etching powerful runes upon its length, laced with deadly spells, creating a weapon formidable enough to make even the greatest of the gods pale with dread.

But while Volund waged open warfare against the Asgardians, Loki remained with them as their sly and secret enemy. The power of the sun-god Baldur had, so far, withstood Volund's icy attack. Though Loki was no friend of Volund, it amused him to do the Aesir the greatest possible hurt – by killing Baldur. Interestingly, though, Odin's family had already been warned of danger through a prophecy. Baldur's mother, Frigg, was inspired to go forth and bind all of Creation under an oath, one that would forbid them to do harm to her son. But she unwisely ignored the harmless mistletoe and, consequently, failed to bind it. This mistake did not go unnoticed by Loki, who harvested the mistletoe and carried it to Volund in faraway Jotenheim. The trickster was frank about his plot against Baldur. Volund listened carefully, aware that Baldur's magic would always be a foil against the complete success of his Fimbul-Winter. So, though he despised Loki, the master craftsman agreed to work the mistletoe into a deadly dart. To this lethal device, one of the plotters gave the name of Laevateinn. To make a long story short, Loki put Laevateinn into the hands of a dupe, Baldur's much less glorious brother Hodur. Not knowing what he was doing, Hodur gave Baldur a death-blow. The grief due to the event spread across the face of the world.

Now Loki compounded his murder plot with further treachery. The goddess of the Dead offered to release the spirit of Baldur, provided that everything in Creation wept mournful tears at his departure. But there was found one giantess who refused to weep, and so Baldur remained with the dead. Many suspected that this evil creature was, in fact, Loki in disguise. In good time, the gods would punish the god of cunning for his infamy, chaining him in a place of torture for what they hoped would be eternity.

Volund, on his part, had been well rewarded for helping with Baldur's assassination. Without the heat of the Sun, the cold of Winter prevailed. The migration of giants from Jotunheim into Midgard expanded and they waged unrelenting wars there to make these new lands their own. The tribes of mankind, and also those of the elves, hungry and under attack, gave up on the frozen North and crowded into Aurvangaland, the regional name for the extreme south of Scandinavia. The stress upon so many close-packed and ill-sorted populations led to more war, with men desperate to gain the lion's share of the scant resources.

The eruption from the North continued. Even the bravest leaders realized that their tribes were doomed should they remained near the ice fields. They, accordingly, constructed ships with which to sail across the Baltic, determined to seize better lands with richer resources. This initiated a struggle of many years. In the course of it, the hero Halfdan – a son of the god Heimdall – stood out as a fierce and successful conqueror. After him, his son Hadding battled on, eventually surpassing even his own father in glory and honor. There is much that could be said regarding Hadding's career, but this is neither the time nor the place to tell a story so expansive.

At that moment, Volund seemed to stand on the brink of certain success. But it is an irony of literature, and also of life, that great successes are often followed by devastating defeats. The new trouble emerged within his own family. Although the three brothers, born of a Jotenheim giantess, had manfully endured the dreariness and harsh conditions of Jotenheim, their sisters, goddesses of vegetation, needed a better climate in which to thrive. Having lived for eight years under the gloom of continuous winter, they could bear the cold no more and so donned their swan dresses; these would carry them, in bird-shape, away to the south.

It may have been the absence of the goddesses that made Egil and Slagfin, too, wish to leave the snowbound world. Volund, nonetheless, remained determined to stand fast and see his plans through, though he gave his brothers leave to go. Left by himself, Volund continued with the fimbul-songs that were spreading winter's devastation far and wide. Likewise, he labored hard to increase the deadliness of his sword of vengeance. He hoped that the day was not far off when he could commence the slaughter of the whole Aesir tribe, beginning with Odin and his family.

Away from the Wolfdales, the world had sunk to such a wretched state that the gods of Asgard had no idea as to how to deal with the crisis. Without any other recourse, Urd, the foremost goddess of Fate, at last prevailed upon Mimir, the lord of the underworld, to pit his own great power against Volund's and bring the struggle to an end.

Accompanied by his seven oldest sons and also by his wife and daughters, the god rode forth into the Wolfdales. There, using the goddesses' magical arts, the hunting party masked their approach to the elf-prince's stronghold. Finally, having attained their objective, they discovered it empty. This allowed the adventurers to enter in and steal a particularly precious prize from Volund's home, an arm-ring that could periodically create duplicates of itself.

When Volund returned from his foraging, he did not realize that anyone had violated his inner sanctum. As he often did, he relaxed by counting his ring-treasures and found that the mother ring was missing. He could not conceive of any enemy bold enough to rob his very house, and so wrongly guessed that the thief must have been a friend. He most, of all, hoped that this unknown person could be his favorite sister Idun, to whom he felt especially close. The elf prince assumed that she had taken the ring to announce her arrival while she searched for her brother. He deemed it best to stay home and await the goddess's return. At last, exhausted from his many labors, the sorcerer slept.

Volund awakened surrounded by Mimir's family, his enemies. He had been bound by one of his own magical ropes, too strong even for his great strength to break. Mimir was wearing Volund's sword, Gambantein, on his belt, a dismaying sight. By so small an error, Volund had suddenly found himself undone. Even so, he remained calm and patient. Without futile gestures of defiance, he allowed the family to take him to their underworld abode and imprison him on an island not far from their palaces. Mimir's consort, fearing that this relentless enemy might escape and slay them all, argued insistently that he should be further weakened. Therefore his captors maimed the prince by cutting his hamstrings.

After that, Volund was allowed to pass his time at crafting, a labor that he continued to enjoy. He filled Mimir's vaults with admirable treasures. Meanwhile, using guile, he also constructed a suit that would let him fly away like a bird of prey. Not wanting to leave before taking vengeance upon Mimir, Volund offered friendship to his captor's youngest sons, who were allowed to visit him. He convinced them to return again secretly, so that he could give them gifts without others knowing about it. So the naïve boys returned very soon, and were never seen again.

The missing children were searched for by their family, and soon had to be given up for drowned. But by that time Volund had sent new gifts to Mimir and his wife, two drinking cups. Eventually, they would learn that these vessels, though well disguised, had been fashioned from their children's skulls. And, as a last act of vengeance before departure, Volund raped Bodvild, one of Mimir's daughters, when she came to ask him to repair a damaged piece of jewelry.

Volund's escape was soon discovered, plunging all his enemies into fear. Odin and the Asgardians favored another attempt at reconciliation but, now free of his oath to Volund, Loki craved the elf's final destruction. He guessed that the prince would most likely take refuge with his sister Idun and daughter Skaldi. In falcon disguise, Loki flew to Idun's abode and there seized the goddess. The incensed elf-smith donned his flight suit to give pursuit. This prolonged chase was part of Loki's plan, and he led his adversary back to Asgard, into the ambush that the Aesir had agreed to set. Coming within range, the eagle was wounded by flaming spears hurled by vengeful gods. Volund fell to earth and rose up again in his natural form. His impulse was to fight to the death, even though hampered by a pair of crippled legs. But, instead, Thor threw the hammer Mjollnir from a distance. It struck the sorcerer's skull and knocked him dead.

This incident was the end of Volund's earthly existence, but it was not the end of the destructive forces that he had set into motion. The world remained in disarray for some while the Fimbul-Winter only gradually loosened its grip upon the world. With their common enemy vanquished, the Vans and the Aesir chose this time to fall into dispute and commence open warfare. They chose to intervene into the wars that still raged on Midgard, hoping to subdue the other's worshipers. Though Volund was dead, the house of Ivaldi was honorably brought into the faction of the Vans; Egil's son Svipdag became leader of their earthly armies. Likewise, Hadding Halfdanson was raised up to champion the tribes that cleaved unto the Aesir. When peace eventually dawned, the ancient bliss failed to return. Instead, drift into darkness continued, and the gods would soon confront the greatest ordeal of all, Ragnarök. By the time that the battle for Asgard had ended, the gods were all slain by monsters, giants, and demons and the old world lay in ruins. But, as Fate had decreed, a new one was thereupon brought into being from its ashes.

The End.

NOTE: Despite the rejection of his work by the specialists of his day, admirers and supporters of Viktor Rydberg have successfully preserved the scholar's work through the agency of small scholastic societies. By their efforts, Rydberg's most important mythographical works have been kept available for modern readers. A net search will turn up numerous links to hard-copy reprints of his books, as well as new translations. Much of this material is also available digitally, as e-books and even free downloads. For those who would like to have a fresher and more detailed vision of the ancient gods of the North and their deeds, this author highly recommends it.

Glenn Rahman has been a student of legendary lore and mythology as far back as high school. He is the designer of several board games, including the award-winning DIVINE RIGHT, the third edition of which is expected out this year (2020). As a fiction-writer, sword and sorcery has been his favorite genre. Glenn is the author of HEIR OF DARKNESS (New Infinity), THE GARDENS OF LUCULLUS (Sidecar), and THE MINARIAN LEGENDS (Right Stuf), as well as numerous short stories. His tale “The Rune-Sword of Jotunheim,” which features Volund, will appear in an upcoming anthology from DMR Books.