Guðrúnarkviða II
Encyclopedia
Gudrun
Gudrun is a major figure in the early Germanic literature centered on the hero Sigurd, son of Sigmund. She appears as Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied and as Gutrune in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.-Norse mythology:...
, or Guðrúnarkviða hin forna, The Old Lay of Gudrún is probably the oldest poem of the Sigurd cycle, according to Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows was a lawyer, state legislator, and jurist born in Rockingham, Vermont. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Littleton, New Hampshire in 1839. He was subsequently elected again to the House from Concord, New Hampshire in 1856–1857, and served as...
.
The poem was composed before the year 1000 and Bellows considered to be in a "rather bad shape", but it was in that shape that it provided material for the Völsunga saga
Volsunga saga
The Völsungasaga is a legendary saga, a late 13th century Icelandic prose rendition of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan . It is largely based on epic poetry...
, where it was faithfully paraphrased. He states, however, that it is the only Old Norse poem from an earlier period than the year 1000 in the Sigurd tradition that has come down to modern times in a roughly complete form. The other older poems, Reginsmál
Reginsmál
Reginsmál or Sigurðarkviða Fáfnisbana II is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript...
, Fáfnismál
Fáfnismál
Fáfnismál is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows Reginsmál and precedes Sigrdrífumál, but modern scholars regard it as a separate poem and have assigned it a name for convenience.The poem forms a more coherent whole than...
and Sigrdrifumál
Sigrdrífumál
Sigrdrífumál is the conventional title given to a section of the Poetic Edda text in Codex Regius....
, are collections of fragments and only the last part of Brot af Sigurðarkviðu
Brot af Sigurðarkviðu
Brot af Sigurðarkviðu is the remaining 22 stanzas of a heroic Old Norse poem in the Poetic Edda. In the Codex Regius, there is a gap of eight leaves where the first part of the poem would have been found, and also the last part of the Sigrdrífumál. Luckily, the missing narrative is preserved in the...
remains. The remaining poems in the cycle are generally dated to the 11th century and the 12th century.
Bellows states that another reason for assuming that the poem derives from a lament
Lament
A lament or lamentation is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing grief, regret, or mourning.-History:Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by...
originating in Germany is the fact that Sigurd's death takes place in the forest, as in the Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
, and not in his bed. Other elements relating closely to the German tradition are her mother and her brother insisting that she marry Atli, the slaying of the Gjukungs and her future revenge on Atli.
Synopsis
King ÞjóðrekrTheodoric the Great
Theodoric the Great was king of the Ostrogoths , ruler of Italy , regent of the Visigoths , and a viceroy of the Eastern Roman Empire...
was staying at the court of Atli
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
, and Þjóðrekr had just lost most of his warriors in battle.
Þjóðrekr and Atli's queen Guðrún
Gudrun
Gudrun is a major figure in the early Germanic literature centered on the hero Sigurd, son of Sigmund. She appears as Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied and as Gutrune in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.-Norse mythology:...
were alone together and discussed their sorrows. Guðrún told Þjóðrekr that she was a young maiden when her father Gjúki
Gjúki
Gjúki was the King of the Burgundians in the late 4th century until his death in or around 407. He was the father of Gundomar I, Giselher, and Gunther....
gave her away to Sigurd
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
with a dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
of gold. Then her brothers murdered her hero Sigurd:
|
Thing (assembly) A thing was the governing assembly in Germanic and introduced into some Celtic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead... ran Grani Grani In Norse mythology, Grani is a horse owned by the hero Sigurd. He is the horse that Sigurd receives through advice from an old man . Grani is a descendant of Odin's own steed, Sleipnir.-Attestations:... |
Guðrún held the rein of the horse and began to cry, as she understood what had happened:
|
|
When she met her brothers, Gunnarr was bowing his head, but Högni
Hagen (legend)
Hagen or Högni is a Burgundian warrior in tales about the Burgundian kingdom at Worms. Hagen is often identified as a brother or half-brother of King Gunther .In the Nibelungenlied, he is called Hagen of Tronje...
told her the news that Sigurd had been slain, but that he had taken their brother Guthormr with him. He further told her that she could find Sigurd on the southern road where she would hear the cry of ravens and howling wolves. Guðrún went into the forest to search for what was left by the wolves and found Sigurd.
When she found Sigurd, Guðrún did not cry, wail or wring her hands, although she was so sad that she did not want to live anymore. She left the mountains and travelled for five days, until she saw the hall
Hall
In architecture, a hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers...
of Halfr, in Denmark, where she stayed for three and a half years with Thora, the daughter of Hakon.
Thora and Guðrún enjoyed themselves by weaving tapestries of southern halls, Danish swans and warriors:
|
Sigmund This article is about the mythological hero Sigmund; for other meanings see: Sigmund .In Norse mythology, Sigmund is a hero whose story is told in the Völsunga saga. He and his sister, Signý, are the children of Völsung and his wife Hljod... 's ship Sigar The name Sigar can refer to three people in Scandinavian mythology, surrounding the legends of Sigurd the dragon slayer. One of them only appears as the friend of Helgi Hjörvarðsson in the eddic lay Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar... and Siggeir Siggeir Siggeir is the king of Gautland , in the Völsunga saga. In Skáldskaparmál he is given as a Sikling and a relative of Sigar who killed the hero Hagbard... , Funen Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the... . |
Her mother Grimhild
Grimhild
In Norse mythology, Grimhild was a beautiful but evil woman. She was married to king ],] kind of southern Rhine, Burgundy. She had three sons named; Gunnar, Hogni, Guttorm, and a daughter Gudrun. She is the sorceress who gave Sigurd a magic potion that makes him forget that he ever married his...
asked her sons Gunnarr and Högni what kind of wergild they would like to give their sister for the killing of her husband Sigurd and her son Sigmund, and they were both ready to compensate their sister. Guðrún met her mother, brothers and Valdar
Valdar
Valdar was the name of one or several legendary Danish kings.-Hervarar saga:The Hervarar saga tells that Ivar Vidfamne made Valdar the viceroy of Denmark and gave him his daughter Alfhild. When Valdar died, his son Randver became the king of Denmark, while his son Harald Wartooth became the king of...
, the king of Denmark, and three men named Jarizleif, Eymoth and Jarizskar.
They wanted to give her gifts to console her but she did not trust them. Then, her mother gave her a something to drink, a potion
Potion
A potion is a consumable medicine or poison.In mythology and literature, a potion is usually made by a magician, sorcerer, dragon, fairy or witch and has magical properties. It might be used to heal, bewitch or poison people...
of forgetfulness:
|
Lindworm Lindworm in British heraldry, is a technical term for a wingless bipedal dragon often with a venomous bite.-Etymology:In modern Scandinavian languages, the cognate lindorm can refer to any 'serpent' or monstrous... |
The, the poem relates that Guðrún forgot and the three kings kneeled before her and Grimhildr began to speak. Her mother told her that she gave her all her father's wealth, and that she would also have Buðli's wealth because she was to become Atli's wife.
|
|
Guðrún answered that she did not wish to marry Atli, but her mother responded that with Atli she would be as happy as if both Sigurd and her son Sigmund were still alive. Furthermore, if she did not marry Atli, she would live without husband for the rest of her life. Guðrún responded that her mother should not be so eager to giver her away to the Huns, and she prophesied that Atli would kill Gunnarr and tear out the heart of Högni. Grímhildr began to weep when she heard the prophecy\b and told Guðrún that she was forced to give her away to Atli.
Guðrún then continued her lament by telling that she married Atli for her kinsmen's sake. She was never happy with Atli and she lost her sons when her brothers died, and she would kill Atli.
She travelled to Atli first a week through cold lands, then a week on water and lastly a week through land that lacked water. They arrived to high walls and guardians opened the gates.
Bellows comments that there appears to be a large lacuna following her arrival to Atli. He adds that the ending of the lament appears to have been replaced another poem, because it deals with how Atli told Guðrún that he had had foreboding dreams of being killed by her. The description of the dream begins with this stanza:
|
|
Without understanding the meaning of the dream, Atli describes his future eating of his own sons, served to him by their own mother Guðrún, in revenge for Atli's killing her brothers.
|
|
There the poem ends in a few crypic lines where Guðrún says that people will talk of a sacrifice
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
.