Sigurd the Volsung: 2 (William Morris Library) - Tapa blanda

Published in 1876, this is Morris's poetic retelling for English readers of what he called "the Great Story of the North", that of the hero Sigurd, which Morris regarded as at least as important as the better known Homeric stories. He based his energetic and dramatic version on the Icelandic sagas, at the same time that Wagner was using the German version, in which the hero is Siegfried, as the basis for his operatic cycle, "The Ring". Seldom reprinted, Sigurd is a poem to which Morris attached the highest importance.