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Poetic Edda

own. And while this particular poem is, as critics have generally agreed, one of the latest of the collection, it probably represents one of the earliest parts of the entire Sigurth cycle to take on verse form.

Guthrunarkvitha I, so far as the narrative underlying it is concerned, shows very little northern addition to the basic German tradition. Brynhild appears only as Guthrun's enemy and the cause of Sigurth's death; the three women who attempt to comfort Guthrun, though unknown to the southern stories, seem to have been rather distinct creations of the poet's than traditional additions to the legend. Regarding the relations of the various elements in the Sigurth cycle, cf. introductory note to Gripisspo.

[1]Guthrun sat by the dead Sigurth; she did not weep as other women, but her heart was near to bursting with grief. The men and women came to her to console her, but that was not easy to do. It is told of men that Guthrun had eaten of Fafnir's heart[2], and that she understood the speech of birds. This is a poem about Guthrun.

1.[3] Then did Guthrun  think to die,When she by Sigurth  sorrowing sat;Tears she had not,  nor wrung her hands,Nor ever wailed,  as other women.
  1. ↑ Prose. The prose follows the concluding prose of the Brot without indication of a break, the heading standing immediately before stanza 1.
  2. ↑ Fafnir's heart: this bit of information is here quite without point, and it is nowhere else stated that Guthrun understood the speech of birds. In the Volsungasaga it is stated that Sigurth gave Guthrun some of Fafnir's heart to eat, "and thereafter she was much grimmer than before, and wiser."
  3. ↑ This stanza seems to be based on Guthrunarkvitha II, 11-12.

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