Which Norse heroine retrieved the cursed sword Tyrfing from her father’s burial mound? Hervor.
Hervor retrieved the cursed sword Tyrfing from her father Angantyr’s burial mound. Her story appears in the medieval Hervarar saga and in the poetic section known as Hervararkviða, where the determined shieldmaiden travels to the island of Samsø and summons her dead father.
Angantyr had been buried with Tyrfing after dying in a duel. When Hervor demands the weapon, his ghost warns that the sword is dangerous and will bring disaster to her descendants. She refuses to leave without it, challenges the dead warriors in the mound, and finally forces Angantyr to surrender the blade. The scene combines inheritance, supernatural confrontation, and a heroine claiming the martial status denied to her by ordinary custom.
Tyrfing itself was said to be forged and cursed by the dwarfs Dvalinn and Durin. It was extraordinarily sharp, shone like sunlight, and could not be drawn without causing a death. Hervor later passed it to her son Heidrek, allowing the curse and the sword’s lineage to continue through the saga.