"In his vision Odin saw a ring, glittering and bright, a thing of great beauty and danger. And the face of a mortal man, stern and beautiful, his fair hair blowing in the wind of battle as the fire-edged sword in his hand rose and fell."

So Odin, lord of the nine worlds, saw Sigurd Dragonslayer for the first time. He alone could recapture the ring of power from the cruel dragon Fafnir. In his effort to regain the ring, Odin ensnared Sigurd and the race of the Volsungs in his schemes -- for if he failed, it would mean the beginning of Ragnarok, the end of all worlds.

Set in the savage, beautiful world of Norse legend, this is the epic quest of romance, enchantment, adventure and treachery from which Richard Wagner created his magnificent operatic cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. William Morris said of the tale of Sigurd, "This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the tale of Troy was to the Greeks."