Imagine a creature: lean, bare-footed, of small stature, crooked and ragged, its eyes glowing with malice and greed for power and riches. To complete the picture, the creature constantly gleefully mutters the words: "My precious…"

Who comes to mind? Most probably, you thought of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. However, that description suits another character who's no less infamous and fascinated by gold rings. This story will be about a dwarf from Norse mythology called Andvari.

 Let's start our tale with the fact that Andvari is a thief. He stole a hoard of gold from the water spirits, the Rhinemaidens, and hid it in a cliff. Then he ordered his subjects – he was the ruler of the dwarfs, after all – to forge various decorations out of the gold. Andvari himself didn't just stand idly by: he crafted a mighty, magical ring. The ring attracted gold, making Andvari even richer. The more gold the dwarf had, the more powerful he became.

So, Andvari created the precious ring and greatly admired his own handiwork. The Rhinemaidens, meanwhile, cried rivers of tears, mourning the loss of their shiny gold. They tried appealing to the god Loki to aid them, but… Well, you know that old trickster. He just made fun of them and left.

In the meantime, Andvari hid in an underground lake in case somebody started searching for him. And his concerns proved justified: rumors about the magic ring spread throughout the whole of the North. The giants demanded the mighty ring from the Asgard gods as payment for building Valhalla, a celestial hall where warriors who are killed in battle go after death. To cap it all, the giants also took the goddess of fertility, Freyja, hostage.

Therefore, the gods Odin, Loki, and Honir set out in search of Andvari. Their journey was long, so they decided to spend the night in the house of the sorcerer Hreidmar. They planned on sacrificing an animal as a gift to the master of the house, so on the way there, Loki killed an otter with a stone – no big deal, surely! Hreidmar, however, recognized his own son in the slain otter. (Life in Norse myths can be so difficult: you might accidentally step on a little bug, and the next moment, the bug turns out to be a sorcerer's son, a mage's daughter, or a wizard's stepchild.)

Hreidmar was enraged and cast a spell that deprived the gods of their magic power. Then, he called for his other two sons and ordered them to tie up his uninvited guests by their hands and feet. And that's not all: he also demanded the treasure that belonged to the dwarf Andvari from the gods as compensation for the death of his son, the otter. (As you can see, the situation is just getting worse and worse: now both the giants and the sorcerer want the gold. The fees that the Asgard gods need to pay are accumulating, and they're up to their eyeballs in debt…)

So, Loki was sent to visit the goddess of the sea, Ran, to ask her for a magic net. He suspected that Andvari must have been hiding in an underground lake. After all, everyone knows that dwarves love dark caves! Besides, rumor had it that Andvari might have turned into either a snake or a fish. And someone even suggested that he might have transformed into a huge pike.

Loki was right on the money! He managed to catch Andvari in a lake grotto and took his gold treasure and the mighty, magical ring from him. The dwarf was incensed and cast a curse on the ring, which heralded death for anyone who possessed it. The first to die due to the cursed ring was the sorcerer Hreidmar – he was killed by his own son Fafnir, who dreamed of possessing Andvari's gold. Fafnir soon met his end too.

And the number of deaths has been growing ever since…

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