Two dwarfs forge a sword that will never miss and never rust and can cut through iron and stone — and, taken against their will, they curse it: it must draw blood every time it is bared, and it will work three great evils before it is done. Every hand that takes it believes it can be the one to master it.

It kills the king who commissioned it, and on the isle of Samsø it takes the life of Hjálmarr — the first evil. Buried in a howe with a dead warrior-king, it is woken by his own daughter, who walks into the fire of the grave and takes the blade from her father's hand though he tells her plainly what it will cost her line. It passes to her son, who draws it and cuts down his own brother — the second evil.

For a time nothing withstands it; the sword's cold hymn plays over victory after victory, though the beauty of the sound always belongs to the blood and never to the man who holds it. Then a stranger comes trading riddles, and at the last the king swings the sword at him and draws no blood — its single failure, against a god in disguise. That night thralls take the blade and kill the king in his sleep — the third evil, and the curse is spent.

But the sword outlives its curse, and men no longer need it to do what it once compelled. An inheritance is split, a war rises that no spell requires, a shield-maiden falls at the wall, and on Dun Heath a man kills his own half-brother with the blade — and the sword's most beautiful hymn of all plays over a fratricide nothing forced. The dwarfs cursed three evil deeds. They did not curse the fourth.

Every hand believes it can master Tyrfing. By the time the curse is spent, men no longer need it.