Illustrations
Frontispiece
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani roasting Fáfnir’s heart. Having burnt his thumb, Sigurðr puts it to his mouth; tasting the heart-blood, he is granted the ability to understand bird-speech. Detail from Hylestad Stave Church door panels (late twelfth century), now in the Kulturhistorisk museum, Oslo. Photo by Marieke Kuijjer (2010), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hylestad_-_Sigurd_Sucking_Thumb.jpg