[8] langan orm á hringum ‘a long serpent on the rings’: This draws on the tradition that gold-hoards are protected by dragons or serpents, and perhaps specifically on the legend of the Rhine-gold, guarded by Fáfnir; see Guðrún Nordal (2001, 331-2). It is conceivable that the dragon is to be understood as a man – Búi – who has turned himself into a dragon in order to guard the hoard, as Fáfnir did (e.g. SnE 1998, I, 46).