In this article I argue for the significance of Volundr's creations as social commentary and social corrective, particularly in relation to the two key spaces and communities in Volundarkvida. (1) This poem has received ample scholarly attention, as Armann Jakobsson's use of litotes emphasizes: "Few Eddie poems have suffered less from scholarly neglect." (2) Little of the scholarship on Volundarkvida, however, examines the emphasis in the poem on both artisanal creation and spatial relations. Three categories of scholarship concern this article: first, studies of the language (especially the hapax legomena and descriptions of artifacts), metrics, and compositional contexts of the poem; second, studies of the poem alongside other written and archaeological evidence about smiths in medieval Germanic settings; third, abstract and comparative studies of Volundr, often in relation to archetypal figures (smiths, shamans, dwarves) in the Germanic tradition and beyond. For too long Volundr has been scrutinized for creating artifacts described only by hapax legomena while, in other contexts, he has been transported into the company of central Siberian tribal idioms. (3) Why not study Volundr and his creations within the spaces described in the poem? (4) Volundarkvida is a poem of details, particularly in terms of spatial relations and material creations. Volundr is therefore not just a smith, and certainly not a smith divorced from his specific environs. The poem itself emphasizes the importance of spatial details and their significance to the artifacts and techniques associated with them. For example, although representations of the Germanic smith Volundr proliferate, only Volundarkvida portrays the smith in his brothers' settlement, with their wives, before he is abandoned, abducted, and enslaved in King Nidudr's settlement. This juxtaposition of two settlements provides a context in which to understand Volundr's gruesome gifts not only as revenge but also as social commentary: Volundr's gifts are specifically designed to reinforce the horizontal and reciprocal nature of exchanges between highly skilled artisans and the aristocrats that depend upon those artisans. It is for these reasons that attention is due to the details the poem provides about this specific smith, his creations and his specific social and spatial settings.

I. THE SHORE OF ULFSIAR--THE SWAN-MAIDENS AND THE BROTHERS:

Before examining Volundr's artisanal creations in the spaces of Volundarkvida, each spatial and artisanal motif must first be considered individually. I consider these motifs in the order in which they appear in the verse. (The order in the prose differs slightly.)

The first settlement in Volundarkvida is located on the saevar strond (beach of a lake) (5) of Ulfsiar in Ulfsdalir (1.5, 5.2, 6.4, 13.6). (6) The prose prelude and the verse characterize this location differently. The prose prelude initially describes a hus (house or farmstead) (7) which the three brothers gora (build). In a few instances, hus refers to temporary huts or outbuildings. (8) The prelude later describes a singular skali, (dwelling, house) (9) where the brothers live with the swan-maidens. Skali (or the plural skalar) can refer to "a hut, shed," a structure put up for...