Wayland the Smith

Wayland the Smith, in Scandinavian, German, and Anglo-Saxon legend, a smith of outstanding skill. He was, according to some legends, a lord of the elves. His story is told in the Völundarkvida, one of the poems in the 13th-century Icelandic Elder, or Poetic, Edda, and, with variations, in the mid-13th-century Icelandic prose Thidriks saga. He is also mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poems Waldere and “Deor,” in Beowulf (all from the 6th to the 9th century), and in a note inserted by Alfred the Great into his 9th-century translation of Boëthius.

Wayland was captured by the Swedish king Nídud (Nithad, or Níduth), lamed to prevent his escape, and forced to work in the king’s smithy. In revenge, he killed Nídud’s two young sons and made drinking bowls from their skulls, which he sent to their father. He also raped their sister, Bödvild, when she brought a gold ring to be mended, and then he escaped by magical flight through the air.

An English tradition connects Wayland with a stone burial chamber near White Horse Hill, Berkshire, known as Wayland’s Smithy. A local legend says the chamber is haunted by an invisible smith who will shoe a horse for a traveler, provided that a coin is left on a stone and that the traveler absents himself while the work is in progress. If he tries to watch or if he looks toward the smithy, the charm will fail. Similar stories have been recorded in Germany, Denmark, and Belgium. Some large stones at Sisebeck in Sweden and a site at Vellerby in Jutland are traditionally said to be Wayland’s burial places.