i,
Wrought the sons of Giuki,
This sore sorrow,
Yea, for their sister,
Most sore sorrow.

"So may your lands
Lie waste on all sides,
As ye have broken
Your bounden oaths!
Ne'er shalt thou, Gunnar,
The gold have joy of;
The dear-bought rings
Shall drag thee to death,
Whereon thou swarest
Oath unto Sigurd.

Ah, in the days by-gone
Great mirth in the homefield
When my Sigurd
Set saddle on Grani,
And they went their ways
For the wooing of Brynhild!
An ill day, an ill woman,
And most ill hap!"

Then spake Brynhild,
Budli's daughter--
"May the woman lack
Both love and children,
Who gained greeting
For thee, O Gudrun!
Who gave thee this morning
Many words!"

Then spake Gullrond,
Giuki's daughter--
"Hold peace of such words
Thou hated of all folk!
The bane of brave men
Hast thou been ever,
All waves of ill
Wash over thy mind,
To seven great kings
Hast thou been a sore sorrow,
And the death of good will
To wives and women."

Then spake Brynhild,
Budli's daughter--
"None but Atli
Brought bale upon us,
My very brother
Born of Budli.

When we saw in the hall
Of the Hunnish people
The gold a-gleaming
On the kingly Giukings;
I have paid for that faring
Oft and full,
And for the sight
That then I saw."

By a pillar she stood
And strained its wood to her;
From the eyes of Brynhild,
Budli's daughter,
Flashed out fire,
And she snorted forth venom,
As the sore wounds she gazed on
Of the dead-slain Sigurd.

ENDNOTES:
(1) This chapter is the Eddaic poem, called the first Lay of
Gudrun, inserted here by the translators.

CHAPTER XXXII. Of the Ending of Brynhild.

And now none might know for what cause Brynhild must bewail with weeping
for what she had prayed for with laughter: but she spake--

"Such a dream I had, Gunnar, as that my bed was acold, and that thou
didst ride into the hands of thy foes: lo now, ill shall it go with thee
and all thy kin, O ye breakers of oaths; for on the day thou slayedst
him, dimly didst thou remember how thou didst blend thy blood with the
blood of Sigurd, and with an ill reward hast thou rewarded him for all
that he did well to