Wikipedia / Sigar
Wikipedia / Sigar
The name Sigar can refer to four people in Scandinavian mythology, surrounding the legends of Sigurd the dragon slayer. One of them only appears as the friend of Helgi Hjörvarðsson in the eddic lay Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar. The other two appear as the villainous members of the same clan in several sources.
Icelandic sources
Snorri Sturluson writes in the Skáldskaparmál that two Sigars belong to the same clan, the Siklings, and that they are the relatives of Siggeir, the villainous Geatish king in the Völsunga saga.
In Hversu Noregr byggðist, it is given in more detail that Sigar the elder had two sons, Sigmund and Siggeir who killed Völsung. Sigmund had the son Sigar the younger, who killed Hagbard.
It is told in the Völsunga saga that Sigar the younger was in a feud with Hagbard and Haki and his sons. He had kidnapped one of Haki's daughters and murdered a second:
Sigar the younger is also mentioned in Háleygjatal (as quoted in Ynglinga saga), where a gallows is referred to as "Sigar's steed" (Sigars jó):
Gesta Danorum
In Gesta Danorum (book 7), a figure named Sigar () is a legendary king of Denmark, the son of Siwald (), son of Yngwin.
Sigar had three sons. One of his sons was Alf, who went aviking. On a raiding tour to Finland, he met Alfhild, the daughter of king Siward, in Götaland. Alfhild had her own fleet of Viking ships, some of them staffed with maidens. Alf and Alfhild later married, and they had a daughter, named Gurid.
Sigar also had a daughter named Signy. Sigar was in a feud with Haki's brother Hagbard, but was informed by Signy's handmaid, that Hagbard had a secret love affair with Signy. Sigar decided to hang Hagbard, who, however, managed to inform Signy of this. Signy set her house on fire and succumbed in the flames while Hagbard executed himself in the gallows. Sigar tried in vain to save both Hagbard and Signy but failed. His only consolation was to bury the treacherous maid alive.
In a war fought against a revolting Danish Viking clan, Sigar, Alf and Alf's brothers were killed, while defending their Danish subjects. At the end of the war, Alf's comrade, Borgar, arrived with fresh cavalry from Scania, and slew all the enemies. But without a king, the country fell apart, and chieftains took control of the different parts.
Only Alf's daughter, Gurid, had survived, of the royal family. She later married one of Borgar's sons, Halfdan, and they had a son, named Harald, who became the new king. Harald restored the Danish kingdom to its former glory and unity.
References