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Poetic Edda

directing Heimir to care for her daughter by Sigurth, Aslaug. The wedding takes place, to be followed soon after by the quarrel between Guthrun and Brynhild, in which the former betrays the fact that it was Sigurth, and not Gunnar, who rode through the flames. Brynhild speaks with contempt of Guthrun and her whole family, and the following stanza, which presumably belongs to the same Sigurth lay as the Brot, is quoted at this point:

Sigurth the dragon  slew, and thatWill men recall  while the world remains;But little boldness  thy brother hadTo ride or leap  the raging flames.

Gunnar and Sigurth alike try to appease the angry Brynhild, but in vain. After Sigurth has talked with her, his leaving her hall is described in the following stanza, introduced by the specific phrase: "as is said in the Lay of Sigurth":

Forth went Sigurth,  and speech he sought not,The friend of heroes,  his head bowed down;Such was his grief  that asunder burstHis mail-coat all  of iron wrought.

Brynhild then tells Gunnar that she had given herself wholly to Sigurth before she had become Gunnar's wife (the confusion between the two stories is commented on in the note to Gripisspo, 47), and Gunnar discusses plans of vengance with his brother, Hogni. It is at this point that the action of the Brot begins.

Beginning with this poem, and thence to the end of the cycle, the German features of the narrative predominate (cf. introductory note to Gripisspo).

  Hogni spake:1.[1] "(What evil deed  has Sigurth) done,That the hero's life  thou fain wouldst have?"
  1. ↑ The fragment begins with the last words of line 1 (probably line 3 of the stanza). A few editors ascribe this speech to Gunnar and the next to Brynhild; one reconstruction of lines 1-2 on this probably false assumption runs: "Why art thou, Bryn-

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