The Language of Birds
"Sigurd cut out the dragon's heart, and Regin drank the blood. Then the wonder smith bade the young hero to roast the heart for him while he lay down to sleep. The lad thrust a rod through it and roasted it over a fire. When the heart frizzled he laid his finger on the spot, lest the blood should come forth, and then he thrust his finger in his mouth. When he did that he at once understood the language of birds." - The Völsunga saga
Select characters in Norse literature are able to comprehend the language of birds. Ranging from Sigurðr’s tasting the blood of the dragon Fáfnir to Óðinn’s daily dialogue with the ravens Huginn and Muninn. Birds consistently offer important information to individuals associated with kingship and are considered as nature’s purveyors of wisdom. Capable of flight and song, birds universally hold a special place in human experience as symbols of transcendence and numinous knowledge and their effective communication to people in Old Norse lore offers another example of their unique role in humanity’s socio-cosmic reality.
"... and when he tasted the blood from the dragon’s heart, he knew the language of the birds."
In the Völsunga saga, after slaying the dragon Fáfnir and tasting his magical blood, Sigurðr comprehends the speech of birds. They warn him of Reginn’s intended betrayal, advise him to take the dragon’s treasure for himself, and direct him towards the Valkyrja Brynhildr. The dragon-slaying symbolizes a heroic initiation whereby a numinous ability is acquired.
K. Dielitz
In Guðrúnarkviða I, Guðrún tastes Fáfnir’s blood and also gains this skill; and in Ragnars saga loðbrókar, Sigurðr’s daughter Áslaug learns from three birds of her husband Ragnar’s deceitful plan to wed another woman.
"The diversity of a language of birds understood by ‘the initiated’ indicates that this motif is universal to the human condition. Carl Jung proposed that birds can symbolize movement from the conscious to the unconscious mind; and Mircea Eliade wrote extensively on the connection between shamanism and mythical bird-imagery—named the Magical Flight— an idea with clear links to the deity Óðinn. Birds are a special class of species in humanity’s perception of nature; medieval Icelandic texts demonstrate this truth. Although other animal species are occasionally able to communicate with people, only birds are considered nature’s communicators of numinous knowledge."
- Timothy Bourns, The Language of Birds in Old Norse Tradition
Óðinn is a god able to understand the speech of birds, specifically the ravens Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) and transformed into the shape of a bird, who spits the mead of poetry from his mouth—a clear form of bird-speech in highly mythicized form. Huginn and Muninn are said to fly through the world(s) each day to bring Óðinn knowledge. The ravens sit on the Óðinn’s shoulders and tell him of worldly events.
The Heimskringla passage contains an added feature: their relationship is mutually beneficial. While Huginn and Muninn are one of Óðinn’s primary sources of knowledge, he provides them with the ability to speak his language as well, therefore unlike the other examples in which a character understands the bird language, Óðinn is their benefactor.
For an in depth, more academic essay on the language of birds in Norse mythology, I direct readers to, The Language of Birds in Old Norse Tradition by Timothy Bourns: