Niðhad
Germanic saga king
King Niðhad, Níðuðr, Niðungr or Niduth was a cruel king in Germanic legend.
He appears as Níðuðr in the Old Norse Völundarkviða, as Niðung in the Þiðrekssaga, and as Niðhad in the Anglo-Saxon poems Deor and Waldere.
The legend of Níðuðr and Wayland also appears on the Gotlandic Ardre image stone VIII from the 8th century and possibly on the front panel of the 7th century Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket. However, Austin Simmons has recently argued that it is not Niðhad who is depicted, but his daughter Bodvild (twice).
Völundarkviða
In Völundarkviða, Níðuðr appears to be a king of Närke (the Njars) and captures Völund. Níðuðr orders Völund hamstrung and imprisoned on the island of Sævarstaðir. There, Völund was forced to forge items for the king. Völund's wife's ring was given to Bodvild and Níðuðr wore Völund's sword.
For revenge, Völund killed the king's sons when they visited him in secret, fashioned goblets from their skulls, jewels from their eyes, and a brooch from their teeth. He sent the goblets to the king, the jewels to the queen and the brooch to the kings' daughter.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Niðhad” as germanic saga king. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as germanic saga king. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1987427. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Niðhad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.