Sons of Hunding
The kinsmen who demand redress from Helgi and are killed in the ensuing battle.
Overview
Hunding's sons demand payment in blood after their father's death. The poem treats them as a group rather than supplying individual identities, and this record preserves that collective form.
Key facts
Demand requital and fall
They first demand requital, then the poem says Helgi makes Hunding's sons fall.
A collective name retained from the source
This record does not invent individual identities for the sons the lay leaves unnamed.
Relationships
- Helgi Hundingsbanedemand redress from
Hunding's sons demand payment from Helgi for their father and property.
- Helgi Hundingsbanekills
At the battle of Logafjoll, Helgi kills Hunding's sons.
- Sigurdkills Hunding’s sons
kills Hunding’s sons
Story appearances
- The First Lay of Helgi HundingsbaneSons who seek requital
Hunding's sons turn their father's death into a new blood-debt and ultimately fall before Helgi.
- Reginsmol: Gold, Sword, and Broken OmensFigure or artifact in Reginsmol
The kinsmen who demand redress from Helgi and are killed in the ensuing battle.
- Gripir’s Prophecy: Asking Fate to Its EndFigure or hoard in Gripisspo
The kinsmen who demand redress from Helgi and are killed in the ensuing battle.
Ancient sources
MythWeave distinguishes ancient-source evidence from later adaptations and modern interpretation.
- Anonymous, Poetic Edda, Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, Bellows stanzas 1–58: Helgi's birth, Hunding and his sons, Sigrun's pledge, voyage, Hothbrodd, and the battle at Frekastein; stanzas 33–48 flyting are outside this story spine.
- Anonymous; translated by Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda: Reginsmol, Prose and stanzas 16–26: Hnikar, voyage, battle omens, the fight with Hunding’s sons, and Regin’s renewed urging.
- Anonymous; translated by Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda: Gripisspo, Stanzas 7–19: Gripir foretells vengeance on Hunding’s sons, Fafnir and Regin, the hoard, a sleeping woman, and Heimir.