Sigurd and the Dragon Fafnir

Classical Stories · No. 46 — Dragon's blood, the speech of birds, and a treasure with a curse on it.

• Classical Stories
• 42 min
• Ages 8–13
• 6 chapters

About this audiobook

Fafnir was once something like a man, but greed for a cursed hoard of gold twisted him into a monstrous dragon that coils upon his treasure. The young hero Sigurd, guided (and secretly used) by the smith Regin, reforges the shattered sword of his father, digs a trench across the dragon's path to the river, and strikes upward as the great beast passes over. When he roasts the dragon's heart and burns his thumb, he licks it — and the blood lets him understand the birds, whose chatter warns him that the smith who sent him means to betray him for the gold. Sigurd takes the hoard and the curse along with it, and the birds sing of all the sorrow still to come.

Why it's worth a listen

A young hero reforges his father's broken sword, digs a pit on a dragon's path, and slays the great worm Fafnir — then tastes the dragon's blood by accident and suddenly understands the warning-song of the birds. The Norse dragon-slaying that shaped a thousand later stories, wrapped around a hoard of gold that ruins everyone who touches it.

A question to keep

If a treasure is cursed, does taking it make the curse yours too?

Based on the book by A tale from The Norse World, published by Emma's Library original retelling

Chapters

1. The Weight of Gold
2. The Sparks of the Forge
3. In the Path of the Beast
4. The Strike in the Dark
5. The Language of the Wind
6. A Question to Keep