United States or Anguilla ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She tells Gunnar that Sigurd has broken faith with him, and the Giukings with some reluctance murder their sister's husband. Brynhild springs on to the funeral pyre, and dies with Sigurd. Völsunga makes the murder take place in Sigurd's chamber, and one poem, the Short Sigurd Lay, agrees.
But in all probability the episode is due to a confusion of Signy's story with that of the German Chriemhild and Etzel. One point has still to be considered: the place of the Nibelungs in the story. In the Edda, the Hniflungs are always the Giukings, Gunnar and Högni, and Snorri gives it as the name of an heroic family.
When we saw in the hall Of the Hunnish people The gold a-gleaming On the kingly Giukings; I have paid for that faring Oft and full, And for the sight That then I saw." By a pillar she stood And strained its wood to her; From the eyes of Brynhild, Budli's daughter, Flashed out fire, And she snorted forth venom, As the sore wounds she gazed on Of the dead-slain Sigurd.
But Gudrun had no will to live longer after this deed so wrought, but nevertheless her ending day was not yet come upon her. Now the Volsungs and the Giukings, as folk tell in tale, have been the greatest-hearted and the mightiest of all men, as ye may well behold written in the songs of old time. But now with the tidings just told were these troubles stayed.
"Sweet sight for me Those twain to set eyes on, Sorli and Hamdir, Here in my hall! Then with bowstrings Would I bind them, And hang the good Giukings Aloft on the gallows!" Then spake Hrothglod From off the high steps, Spake the slim-fingered Unto her son, For a threat was cast forth Of what ne'er should fall "Shall two men alone Two hundred Gothfolk Bind or bear down In the midst of their burg?"
According to Snorri's paraphrase, Sigurd gives the ring to Brynhild when he goes to her in Gunnar's form. For the rest of the story we must depend chiefly on Gripisspa and Völsunga. The latter tells that Grimhild, the mother of the Giukings, gave Sigurd a magic drink by which he forgot Brynhild and fell in love with Giuki's daughter.
"I shall tell thee, Gunnar, Though well the tale thou knowest, In what early days Ye dealt abroad your wrong: Young was I then, Worn with no woe, Good wealth I had In the house of my brother! "No mind had I That a man should have me, Or ever ye Giukings, Rode into our garth; There ye sat on your steeds Three kings of the people Ah! That that faring Had never befallen!
Now the days of the Giukings bloomed fair, and chiefly because of those children, so far before the sons of men. On a day Gudrun says to her mays that she may have no joy of heart; then a certain woman asked her wherefore her joy was departed. She answered, "Grief came to me in my dreams, therefore is there sorrow in my heart, since thou must needs ask thereof."
The Shield-maiden too remembered, but thinking that Gunnar had fairly won her, accepted her fate until Gudrun in spite and jealousy revealed the trick that had been played on her. Of the treachery of the Giukings Brynhild takes little heed; but death alone can pay for Sigurd's unconscious betrayal.
The remaining poems of the cycle, all late in style and tone, deal with the fates of Gudrun and her brothers, and owe their existence to a narrator's unwillingness to let a favourite story end. The curse makes continuation easy, since the Giukings inherit it with the hoard. Gudrun was married at the wish of her kinsmen to Atli the Hun, said to be Brynhild's brother.
Word Of The Day