The Volsunga Saga has preserved the memory of certain ordeals typical of the initiations of
berserkers. By treachery, King Siggeir obtains possession of his nine brothers-in-law, the Volsungs.
Chained to a beam, they are all eaten by a she-wolf, except Sigmund, Who is saved by a ruse of his
sister Signy. Hidden in a hut in the depths of the forest, where Signy brings him food, he awaits the
hour of revenge. When her first two sons have reached the age of ten, Signy sends them to Sigmund
to be tested. Sigmund finds that they are cowards, and by his advice Signy kills them. As the result
of her incestuous relations with her brother, Signy has a third son, Sinfjotli. When he is nearly ten,
his mother submits him to a first ordeal: she sews his shirt to his arms through the skin. Siggeir's
sons, submitted to the same ordeal, had howled with pain, but Sinfjotli remains imperturbable. His
mother then pulls off his shirt, tearing away the skin, and asks him if he feels anything. The boy
answers that a Volsung is not troubled by such a trifle. His mother then sends him to Sigmund, who
submits him to the same ordeal that Siggeir's two sons had failed to sustain: he orders him to make
bread from a sack of flour in which there is a snake. When Sigmund comes home that night, he
finds the bread baked and asks Sinfjotli if be did not find anything in the flour. The boy answers
that he remembers having seen something, but he paid no attention to it and kneaded everything up
together. After this proof of courage Sigmund takes the boy into the forest with him. One day they
find two wolfskins hanging from the wall of a hut. The two sons of a king had been transformed
into wolves and could only come out of the skins every tenth day. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put on the
skins, but cannot get them off. They howl like wolves and understand the wolves' language. They
then separate, agreeing that they will not call on each other for help unless they have to deal with
more than seven men. One day Sinfjotli is summoned to help and kills all the men who bad attacked
Sigmund. Another time, Sinfjotli himself is attacked by eleven men, and kills them without
summoning Sigmund to help him. Then Sigmund rushes at him and bites him in the throat, but not
long afterward finds a way to cure the wound. Finally they return to their cabin to await the moment
when they can put off their wolfskins. When the time comes, they throw the skins into the fire.
With this episode, Sinfjotli's initiation is completed, and he can avenge the slaying of the Volsungs.
The initiatory themes here are obvious: the test of courage, resistance to physical suffering,
followed by magical transformation into a wolf. But the compiler of the Volsunga Saga was no
longer aware of the original meaning of the transformation. Sigmund and Sinfjotli find the skins
by chance and do not know how to take them off. Now transformation into a wolf-that is, the ritual
donning of a wolfskin constituted the essential moment of initiation into a men's secret society. By
putting on the skin, the initiand assimilated the behaviour of a wolf, in other words, he became a
wild-beast warrior, irresistible and invulnerable. 'Wolf' was the appellation of the members of the
Indo-European military societies.
