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Poetic Edda

13.[1] "Happy I grew  in the hero's hallAs the warriors wished,  and they loved me well;Glad I was  of my father's gifts,For winters five,  while my father lived.
14.[2] "These were the words  the weary king,Ere he died,  spake last of all:He bade me with red gold  dowered to be,And to Grimhild's son  in the South be wedded.
15.[3] "But Brynhild the helm  he bade to wear,A wish-maid bright  he said she should be;For a nobler maid  would never be bornOn earth, he said,  if death should spare her.
16.[4] "At her weaving Brynhild  sat in her bower,Lands and folk  alike she had;
  1. ↑ The manuscript indicates line 3 as the beginning of a new stanza; many editions combine lines 1-2 with stanzas 12 and lines 3-4 with lines 1-2 of stanza 14. The hero: Buthli, father of Oddrun, Atli, and Brynhild.
  2. ↑ The manuscript indicates line 3, but not line 1, as the beginning of a new stanza; some editions combine lines 3-4 with lines 3-4 of stanza 15. Making Buthli plan the marriage of Oddrun and Gunnar may be a sheer invention of the poet, or may point to an otherwise lost version of the legend.
  3. ↑ Lines 1-2 have here been transposed from the middle of stanza 19; cf. note on stanzas 10-20. Wish-maid: a Valkyrie, so called because the Valkyries fullfilled Othin's wish in choosing the slain heroes for Valhall. The reference to Brynhild as a Valkyrie by no means fits with the version of the story used in stanzas 16-17, and the poet seems to have attempted to combine the two contradictory traditions; cf. Fafnismol, note on stanza 44. In the manuscript stanzas 10-11 follow line 4 of stanza 15.
  4. ↑

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