A Comparison of Signy’s Physique
By Abby Levasseur.
Signy, the only daughter of King Volsung, is a primary female character in the Volsunga Saga. The medieval prose focuses on her demonic actions, leaving her physical attributes out of the story. The reader is left to draw his/her own assumption on what Signy looks like. Meanwhile, William Morris’s version hones in on Signy’s beautiful, yet unique physical qualities, that serve to compliment her heinous actions.
Volsunga Saga
The Volsunga Saga spends ample time describing the physical features of the males in the story, while Signy is merely “fine-looking,” and that’s all the reader receives, despite the large role she plays (Saga, p.37). The omission of Signy’s physical characteristics is interesting because male characters who play minor roles are given extensive physical descriptions. For example, an entire paragraph is dedicated to the appearance of an unnamed man (Odin), who wears a “mottled cape” and “linen breeches,” walks barefoot with his head held low, is “very tall, is gray with age, and has only one eye” (Saga, p.38). Later in the prose, when Signy swaps shapes with a sorceress, she is again, not given any physical attributes, and neither is the sorceress. For the medievalists, it’s clear that a woman’s physical characteristics are ill-important. Perhaps this is because women in medieval texts are “one-size-fits-all” characters? In my brief knowledge of reading medieval texts, I’ve noticed that most royal women, no matter the context, are beautiful, fair-skinned, slim, and blonde, and submissive, with their hands and eyes cast away from any encroaching males. Rarely, do I find that a medieval female character waivers from this trope. So, I ask, are we meant to assume that Signy is blonde, fair-skinned, and beautiful? 
William Morris
William Morris’s poetic saga brings more life to Signy, allowing her “body” to embody the crucial character she is. Morris describes her as “a glorious bride forsooth, ruddy and white was she wrought as the fair-stained sea-beast’s tooth, but she neither laughed nor spake, and her eyes were hard and cold” (Morris, p.4). Through Morris’s writing, it is clear that Signy embodies the medieval female trope (fair-skinned and submissive) but in a unique way. Her beauty is evident in “glorious bride,” and her submission in “she neither laughed nor spake,” and her mischievous intelligence is foreshadowed in “eyes were hard and cold.” But despite the trope, there is something significant in comparing Signy to a sea-beast’s tooth, for she does turn into a classic monster by turning on her husband and sentencing her children to death. The act of calling her “stained” might imply that Signy’s fair-skinned beauty is tainted because of the actions previously mentioned. Her “cold eyes” also hint at her willpower, and possible heartlessness — a characteristic not often used to describe women, who in classic literature, are very in touch with their romantic, “courtly love” emotions. I find that the physical description of Signy helps the reader form an accurate picture of her in their head, and it further foreshadows her later actions.
