Source text: “Fragment of a Lay of Sigurd”

Brot af Sigurðarkviðu

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English translation by Henry Adams Bellows (1923), in the public domain; stanza numbers may differ from the original.

The fire raged, the earth was rocked,
The flames leaped high to heaven itself;
Few were the hardy heroes would dare
To ride or leap the raging flames.

Sigurth urged Grani then with his sword,
The fire slackened before the hero,
The flames sank low for the greedy of fame,
The armor flashed that Regin had fashioned.

After Sigurth has spent three nights with Brynhild, laying his sword between them (cf. Gripisspo, 41 and note), he and Gunnar return home, while Brynhild goes to the dwelling of her brother-in-law, Heimir, and makes ready for her marriage with Gunnar, 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 that
Will men recall while the world remains;
But little boldness thy brother had
To 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 burst
His 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).

1

Hogni spake: 1.
"(What evil deed has Sigurth) done,
That the hero's life thou fain wouldst have?"

2

Gunnar spake: 2.
"Sigurth oaths to me hath sworn,
Oaths hath sworn, and all hath broken;
He betrayed me there where truest all
His oaths, methinks, he ought to have kept."

3

Hogni spake: 3.
"Thy heart hath Brynhild whetted to hate,
Evil to work and harm to win;
She grudges the honor that Guthrun has,
And that joy of herself thou still dost have."

4

They cooked a wolf, they cut up a snake,
They gave to Gotthorm the greedy one's flesh,
Before the men, to murder minded,
Laid their hands on the hero bold.

5

Slain was Sigurth south of the Rhine;
From a limb a raven called full loud: "Your blood shall redden Atli's blade,
And your oaths shall bind you both in chains."

6

Without stood Guthrun, Gjuki's daughter,
Hear now the speech that first she spake:
"Where is Sigurth now, the noble king,
That my kinsmen riding before him come?"

7

Only this did Hogni answer:
"Sigurth we with our swords have slain;
The gray horse mourns by his master dead."

8

Then Brynhild spake, the daughter of Buthli:
"Well shall ye joy in weapons and lands;
Sigurth alone of all had been lord,
If a little longer his life had been.

9

"Right were it not that so he should rule
O'er Gjuki's wealth and the race of the Goths; Five are the sons for ruling the folk,
And greedy of fight, that he hath fathered."

10

Then Brynhild laughed— and the building echoed—
Only once, with all her heart;
"Long shall ye joy in lands and men,
Now ye have slain the hero noble."

11

Then Guthrun spake, the daughter of Gjuki:
"Much thou speakest in evil speech;
Accursed be Gunnar, Sigurth's killer,
Vengeance shall come for his cruel heart."

12

Early came evening, and ale was drunk,
And among them long and loud they talked;
They slumbered all when their beds they sought,
But Gunnar alone was long awake.

13

His feet were tossing, he talked to himself,
And the slayer of hosts began to heed
What the twain from the tree had told him then,
The raven and eagle, as home they rode.

14

Brynhild awoke, the daughter of Buthli,
The warrior's daughter, ere dawn of day:
"Love me or hate me, the harm is done,
And my grief cries out, or else I die."

15

Silent were all who heard her speak,
And nought of the heart of the queen they knew,
Who wept such tears the thing to tell
That laughing once of the men she had won.

16

Brynhild spake: 16.
"Gunnar, I dreamed a dream full grim:
In the hall were corpses; cold was my bed;
And, ruler, thou didst joyless ride,
With fetters bound in the foemen's throng.

17

"..............
..............
Utterly now your Niflung race
All shall die; your oaths ye have broken.

18

"Thou hast, Gunnar, the deed forgot,
When blood in your footprints both ye mingled;
All to him hast repaid with ill
Who fain had made thee the foremost of kings.

19

"Well did he prove, when proud he rode
To win me then thy wife to be,
How true the host-slayer ever had held
The oaths he had made with the monarch young.

20

"The wound-staff then, all wound with gold,
The hero let between us lie;
With fire the edge was forged full keen,
And with drops of venom the blade was damp."

Here it is told in this poem about the death of Sigurth, and the story goes here that they slew him out of doors, but some say that they slew him in the house, on his bed while he was sleeping. But German men say that they killed him out of doors in the forest; and so it is told in the old Guthrun lay, that Sigurth and Gjuki's sons had ridden to the council-place, and that he was slain there. But in this they are all agreed, that they deceived him in his trust of them, and fell upon him when he was lying down and unprepared.