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Oddrunagratr

The earth and heaven  high resoundedWhen Fafnir's slayer  the city saw.
17.[1] "Then battle was fought  with the foreign swords,And the city was broken  that Brynhild had;Not long thereafter,  but all too soon,Their evil wiles  full well she knew.
18.[2] "Woeful for this  her vengeance was,As so we learned  to our sorrow all;In every land  shall all men hearHow herself at Sigurth's  side she slew.
19.[3] "Love to Gunnar  then I gave,To the breaker of rings,  as Brynhild might;To Atli rings  so red they offered,And mighty gifts  to my brother would give.

    In stanzas 16-17 the underlying story seems to be the one used in Sigurtharkvitha en skamma (particularly stanzas 32-39), and referred to in Guthrunarkvitha I, 24, wherein Gunnar and Sigurth lay siege to Atli's city (it here appears as Brynhild's) and are bought off only by Atli's giving Brynhild to Gunnar as wife, winning her consent thereto by falsely representing to her that Gunnar is Sigurth. This version is, of course, utterly at variance with the one in which Sigurth wins Brynhild for Gunnar by riding through the ring of flames, and is probably more closely akin to the early German traditions. In the Nibelungenlied Brynhild appears as a queen ruling over lands and peoples. Fafnir's slayer: Sigurth.

  1. ↑ Cf. note on preceding stanza.
  2. ↑ Cf. Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, stanzas 64-70.
  3. ↑ In the manuscript lines 1-2 of stanza 15 follow line 2, resulting in various conjectural combinations. The manuscript marks line 3 as beginning a new stanza. Rings, etc.: possibly, as

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