WAYLAND, the Smith (Attg.-S1IX. VELAND; old Norse, V(LUNDR; Ger. WIELAND), was. according to the old German saga (the principal traits of which are already con tained in the older Edda, but which is related in the most detailed form in the Viltin asaga), a son of the sea-giant Wate, a nephew of king Wilkinus, and of the sea-nymph Wac-hilt. His father had bound him, at first, apprentice to the celebrated smith, Mimi, then took him across the sea to the most skillful dwarfs, from whom he not only soon learned all their science, but far surpassed them.* lIe afterward dwelt a long time in Ulfdaler (the wolf's valley, which, by comparison with other sagas, appears to corre spond to the Greek labyrinth) along with his two brothers—Eigil, the best archer," to whom the oldest form of the Tell legend attaches; and Slagfidr, whom the saga has not father characterized. The brothers here met three swan-nymphs, and lived with them for seven years, when they flew away to follow battles as Walkyries (q.v.). After ward, Wayland came to king Nidung, who made him lame, by cutting the sinews of his feet, and put him in prison, for which himself by putting the king's two sans to death, and violating his daughter Beadohild, who afterward gave birth to Wittich, a powerful champion of the German hero-legends. Wayland then flew away in a feather-robe, which he himself manufactured, and which his brother Eigil had tried first, but was precipitated to the ground. Skillfully putting together and supplementing
the various old legends, Simrock has produced the saga of Wayland, as a whole, in his poem Wieland der &larded (Bonn, 1835), and in the 4th part of his Ilelden,buch (Stuttg. 1843). The legend was a favorite one among all the Germanic nations, as is shown by the frequent allusions to it in Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, English, and German poems, as well as by the numerous fragments yet extant in oral tradition throughout all Teu tonic countries. The German poems to which the Viltinasaga appeals, which were in existence up to the 13th c., have been utterly lost. Even beyond the bounds of Ger many, old French poems and traditions tell of Gallaus the Smith. See Deppins- and Veland le Forge on (Par. 1833). The legend of Wayland is in fact one of myths common to the Indo-Germanic family. Besides the German tradition, it is found most distinctly among the Greeks, in the different stories of Daedalus, Hephxstus, Erich thonius, etc. Next to Jacob Grimm's profound discussion in the German _Mythology, Kuhn has pointed out in the best. manner the signification and ramifications of the myth in his treatise, Die Sprachrergleichung and die Urgeschichte der Germ. Volker, in the Zeit schr0 fur vergleichende Sprachforschung ( v ol. iv., Berl. 1854).