Helreið Brynhildar
Encyclopedia
Hel (realm)
In Norse mythology, Hel, the location, shares a name with Hel, a female figure associated with the location. In late Icelandic sources, varying descriptions of Hel are given and various figures are described as being buried with items that will facilitate their journey to Hel after their death...
-Ride is a short Old Norse poem that is found in the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
. Most of the poem (except stanza 6) is also quoted in Norna-Gests þáttr
Norna-Gests þáttr
Norna-Gests þáttr or the Story of Norna-Gest is a legendary saga about the Norse hero Norna-Gest.-Summary:Norna-Gest was the son of a Danish man named Thord of Thinghusbit, who once dwelt on the estate of Grøning in Denmark. When he was born, three Norns arrived and had foretold the child's...
.
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...
says in his commentaries that the poem is a masterpiece with an "extraordinary degree of dramatic unity" and that it is one of the "most vivid and powerful" poems in the Poetic Edda. It has, however, been argued that some parts originally belonged to Sigrdrífumál
Sigrdrífumál
Sigrdrífumál is the conventional title given to a section of the Poetic Edda text in Codex Regius....
, and the two poems are anyway very close in content. The material is mostly Scandinavian and there are few elements that connect it with the corresponding German tradition found 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....
.
Synopsis
The poem deals with how the dead SigurdSigurd
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...
and Brynhildr
Brynhildr
Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...
are burnt on two pyres. First they burn Sigurd and then they burn Brynhildr who is lying on a richly clad wagon. This wagon takes Brynhildr on her journey to the afterlife
Hel (realm)
In Norse mythology, Hel, the location, shares a name with Hel, a female figure associated with the location. In late Icelandic sources, varying descriptions of Hel are given and various figures are described as being buried with items that will facilitate their journey to Hel after their death...
. During her journey, she passes a house where a giantess (gýgr) lived.
The giantess accuses Brynhildr of having caused the deaths of heroes and of having wanted another woman's husband (Sigurd). The giantess further accuses Brynhildr of having caused the fall of the house of Nibelung
Nibelung
The German Nibelungen and the corresponding Old Norse form Niflung is the name in Germanic and Norse mythology of the royal family or lineage of the Burgundians who settled at Worms....
s (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....
's sons). Brynhildr responds that she will tell her the truth and how the sons of Gjúki made her an unhappy oath-breaker.
Formerly, she used to be called Hildr the helmed and she lived in a dwelling of valkyries called Hlymdalir. Then a monarch (presumably Agnarr) captured Brynhildr and her seven sisters' by taking their swan-robes that he found under an oak. She was only twelve winters old when she married the young king.
Against the will of Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
, she then made the aged Hjalmgunnar, the king of the Goths, die and instead she gave victory to Auða's young brother (Agnarr). The angry Odin imprisoned her in Skatalund within red and white overlapping shields, and cursed her to sleep until a man without fear would set her free. In order to make it even harder to liberate her, Odin also created a circle of fire around her resting place.
Sigurd then arrived on 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:...
and brought her Fafnir's gold. The hero shared her bed during eight nights without them touching each other. Still, Gudrun
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:...
would reproach her for having slept in Sigurd's arms, and then admit to her that they had tricked her out of her relationship with Sigurd and made her take another man instead (Gunnar).
Brynhildr finishes the poem by stating that men and women live in this world to suffer, but that she and Sigurd would never part again:
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