WAYLAND THE SMITH, hero of romance (Stand. V olundr, Ger. Wieland). The legend of Wayland probably had its home in the north, where he and his brother Egill were the types of the skilled workman, but there are abundant local tradi tions of the wonderful smith in Westphalia and in southern Eng land. His story is told in one of the oldest songs of the Edda, the VolundarkiJa, and, with considerable variations, in the prose parekssaga (Thidrek's saga), while the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and Deor's Lament contain allusions to it. The first part of the tale contains obviously mythical features connected with his parentage and marriage. The second part concerns Volundr, lord of the elves, the cunning smith, who, with his sword Mimung, made famous in German epic poetry, defeated in fight at the court of king Nifiqr, the smith Amilias. Nipojr, in order to secure Vo lundr's services, lamed him and established him in a smithy. The smith avenged himself by the slaughter of Nitor's two sons and the rape of his daughter Bodvildr, then soared away on wings he had prepared. The story in its main outlines strongly resembles the myth of Daedalus, but the denouement of this tale, which first appeared in European literature in the De obedientia (Opera, Venice, 3 vols., 1518-19) of Jovianus Pontanus (d. 1503), is dif ferent. The Aaron of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus was derived from this source. King Rhydderich gave a sword fashioned by
Wayland to Merlin, and Rimenhild one to Child Horn. English local tradition placed Wayland Smith's forge in a cave close to the White Horse 'in Berkshire.
The earliest extant record of the Wayland legend is the repre sentation in carved ivory on a casket of Northumbrian work manship of a date not later than the beginning of the 8th century. The fragments of this casket, known as the Franks casket, were presented to the British Museum by Sir A. W. Franks. One frag ment is in Florence.
See also Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus poet. bor. (i. pp. 168-174, Oxford, 1883) ; A. S. Napier, The Franks Casket (Oxford, 1901) ; G. Sarrazin, Germanische Heldensage in Shakespere's Titus Andronicus (Herrig's Archiv., xcvii. Brunswick, 1896) ; P. Maurus, Die Wieland sage in der Literatur (Erlangen and Leipzig, 1902) ; C. B. Depping and F. Michel, Mind le Forgeron (Paris, 1833). Sir Walter Scott handled the Wayland legend in Kenilworth; there are dramas on the subject by Borsch (Bonn, 1895), English version by A. Comyn (London, 1898) ; August Demmin (Leipzig, 188o) ; H. Drachmann (Copenhagen, 1898) ; and one founded on K. Simrock's heroic poem on Wieland is printed in Richard Wagner's Gesammelte Schrif ten (vol. iii. 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1887).