Drävle runestone. Andvaranaut, on the left of the image, in the hands of Andvari or Attila’s messenger Vingi.
Long before One Ring by JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit e The Lord of the Ringsthere was already a legendary ring from Norse mythology associated with greed, curse and the inevitability of tragic destiny.
Wind bull Surgu Na Saga (Official Music Video)Völsunga saga), according to , and consists of a gold ring forged by the dwarf A breeze. Its name literally means “the gift of Andvari” or “the ring of Andvari”. It also appears in Germanic tradition related to the Rhine gold cycle.
According to myth, Andvari lived isolated, and was able to transform into a fish to store a huge treasure of gold at the bottom of a river. The “precious” Andvaranaut was part of this treasure and had the power to generate wealth: Whenever it was used, it produced more gold.
The dwarf would end up being captured by the god Loki, who forced him to hand over all his treasure as compensation for an offense done to the gods. The ring would be the last item of the ransom paid to the gods. But before that was cursed by the dwarf: it would now bring total destruction, ruin, betrayal and death to whoever possessed it.
And so it was: the story goes that the ring left a trail of destruction and blood through the hands it passed through. The ring passes into human hands, triggering a chain of murders, family betrayals and wars. Kings are killed by their own relatives, heroes are betrayed by greed, and gold, far from bringing prosperity, invariably leads to destruction.
The lesson? Fate cannot be avoided, and excessive ambition disrupts the natural order of the world; wealth obtained by force or injustice brings inevitable consequences; the ring does not grant true power, it only amplifies human defects, namely greed and the thirst for power.
