Fafnir (Marvel Comics) first encountered in the guise of an old man by the warrior Volstagg, who with his companions is currently exploring the ruined realm of Nastrond, an extradimensional realm on the continent of Asgard. Fafnir explains he was the King of Nastrond, and that the King of the Norse Gods Odin destroyed Nastrond due to the evil nature of its people. Fafnir himself was left to die in a ruined wasteland, but survives by drinking from a pool of water with magical properties. The water, however, transforms Fafnir into a massive dragon. Knowing that Volstagg and his allies were sent by
Germanic peoples 1814, and was in full bloom by the 1830s, with Jacob Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie" giving an extensive account of reconstructed Germanic mythology and composing a German dictionary ("Deutsches Wörterbuch") of Germanic etymology. Jacob Grimm also coauthored with his brother Wilhelm, the famous Grimm's Fairy Tales. Apart from linguistic studies, the subject of what became of the Roman era Germanic tribes, and how they influenced the Middle Ages and the development of modern Western culture was a subject discussed in the Enlightenment by such as writers as Montesquieu and Giambattista Vico. Later still, the development of Germanic studies as an academic