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Guthrunarkvitha II

In like princes  came they all,The long-beard men,  with mantles red,Short their mail-coats,  mighty their helms,Swords at their belts,  and brown their hair.
21.[1] Each to give me  gifts was fain,Gifts to give,  and goodly speech,Comfort so  for my sorrows greatTo bring they tried,  but I trusted them not.
22.[2] A draught did Grimhild  give me to drink,Bitter and cold;  I forgot my cares;

    supply the names of Atli's messengers, the "long-beard men" of line 4, who have come to ask for Guthrun's hand. Some commentators assume, as the Volsungasaga does, that these messengers went with the Gjukungs to Denmark in search of Guthrun, but it seems more likely that a transitional stanza has dropped out after stanza 19, and that Guthrun received Atli's emissaries in her brothers' home. Long-beards: the word may actually mean Langobards or Lombards, but, if it does, it is presumably without any specific significance here. Certainly the names in the interpolated two lines do not fit either Lombards or Huns, for Valdar is identified as a Dane, and Jarizleif and Jarizskar are apparently Slavic. The manuscript indicates line 5 as beginning a new stanza.

  1. ↑ Each: the reference is presumably to Gunnar and Hogni, and perhaps also Grimhild. I suspect that this stanza belongs before stanza 20.
  2. ↑ Stanzas 22-25 describe the draught of forgetfulness which Grimhild gives Guthrun, just as she gave one to Sigurth (in one version of the story) to make him forget Brynhild. The draught does not seem to work despite Guthrun's statement in stanza 25 (cf. stanza 30), for which reason Vigfusson, not unwisely, places stanzas 22-25 after stanza 34. Blood of swine: cf. Hyndluljoth, 39 and note.

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