Andvari
;)
or Alberich, as he was known in later German legend, was a craftsman dwarf who lost his hoard of treasure to the fire god Loki. On an expedition to Midgard (the land of men), Loki killed a sleeping otter with a stone. Carrying the dead otter, he, Odin and Honir came across a farm and offered to share the otter's meat with the household in return for a night's lodgings. To the horror of Hreidmar, the farmer, the offering was none other than his own son Otter. First of all, Hreidmar chanted a spell to weaken his guests and then his two surviving sons, Fafnir and Regin, bound them hand and foot. Odin protested their innocence and pointed out that they would not have come straight to the farm had they known the otter was the farmer's son. So, eventually, Hreidmar settled on a death-price: enough gold to cover Otter's skin, inside and out. Because the flayed skin was endowed with magic powers, it was capable of being stretched to a great size and so no ordinary amount of gold could be accepted in compensation.
Loki was allowed by Hreidmar to seek his great treasure, while Odin and Honir (in some versions just Honir) remained at the farm as hostages. The fire god was not permitted to wear his sky-shoes, however, and these were also kept as security against Loki's return. Having borrowed the drowning-net of Ran, wife of the sea god Aegir, Loki descended through a maze of dripping tunnels to an underground lake, where he caught a large pike. This fish, like the otter before, turned out to be more than it first seemed. For it was in fact the dwarf Andvari, who was the richest of those who dwelt underground. Only because of Loki's terrible threats, Andvari surrended all his immense hoard of gold, including his magic gold-making ring. But in his anger the dwarf laid a terrible curse on the ring which would cause the doom of whoever wore it. When Loki returned to the farm with the gold and Odin and Honir were released, he told Hreidmar of Andvari's curse and in this way passed it on to the farmer. Indeed, Hreidmar was soon after killed by his son Fafnir, who then ran away with the cursed treasure.
The hero Sigurd was later persuaded by his foster-father Regin to pursue Fafnir, who had by this time become a dragon. The hero duly searched for the creature and eventually found it in its lair and slew it. However, when Sigurd realized that for the sake of the treasure Regin intended to kill him in turn, he made sure that he slew his foster-father first. Thus it was that Andvari's curse continued to cling to the stolen gold and brought about the death of all those who attempted to possess it.