Sigurtharkvitha en skamma (“A Short Poem of Sigurth”) is one of the longest poems preserved in the Codex Regius, and it is probably among the younger poems in the Poetic Edda. Its length is in spite of its title, which implies that the surviving Brot af Sigurtharkvithu must be the remains of a narrative poem that was very long. This poem gives us an abbreviated version of the tale of Sigurth’s marriage to Guthrun, of his life with her and her brothers (Gunnar, Hogni, and Gotthorm), and of Sigurth’s death at the hands of Gotthorm. In the version of the tale told in this poem, Brynhild’s motivation for wanting Sigurth dead appears to be simple jealousy, although she hints that Sigurth disguised himself as Gunnar when wooing her (st. 36), and that this must be avenged. Indeed, the largest constituent part of the poem (st. 50–70) comprises Brynhild’s regrets at not being married to Sigurth, her warnings to Gunnar and Guthrun about their own dark future, and her commandments for the lavish funeral that she orders for Sigurth and for herself.
IT WAS LONG AGO when Sigurth visited Gjuki— that young Volsung had killed a dragon. He and Gjuki’s sons, Gunnar and Hogni, became blood brothers— those bold men swore oaths.
They offered him a wife and abundant treasure. It was Guthrun they offered, their sister— for many days young Sigurth drank and talked with the sons of Gjuki.
Then they departed to woo Brynhild, and Sigurth came along with them on that journey; it was young Sigurth who showed them the way. That bride should have been his, but that was not his fate.
Sigurth, that famous Hun, laid a naked sword, his sharp weapon, between them in the bed. He never did kiss that woman, he never did hold her in his arms. Sigurth remembered she was promised to Gunnar.
That lady had never known sorrow, her life had contained not a hint of sadness. That innocent girl suspected no wrongdoing, but the cruel Norns intended otherwise for her.
She sat alone in the evening of that day, and she spoke openly, plainly: “I will have Sigurth— I will hold that young lord in my arms, or I will starve.
“Well, so I’ve spoken, but now I regret those words. He is married to Guthrun, I am married to Gunnar; the cruel Norns will make us suffer forever.”
Later, Brynhild would often take walks, lonely, sorrowing, over ice and snow, every evening, thinking of Guthrun in bed with Sigurth, thinking of Sigurth beneath the sheets, the Hunnish prince making love to another wife.
“I am deprived of that man, and of all joy. I must seek my comfort in cruel thoughts.”
She took her hatred and encouraged murder: “Gunnar! You will lose your lands, and even me, to Sigurth. And how could I ever love that man?
“I will go home to where I dwelled before, I will go back to be among my own family, and go again into long sleep, unless you kill Sigurth and prove yourself better than all other kings.
“And let the wolf-pup follow the wolf to Hel! You shouldn’t be so foolish as to nourish his son. You won’t have to worry so much about vengeance, if you kill the son together with the father.”
Gunnar was sad and downtrodden: he was anxious, he sat all day, he knew that he didn’t at all want to do the thing he knew he most had to do, the thing that would profit him the most. But he thought the death of Sigurth would be bad; he knew that Sigurth would be a great loss.
He thought long, he thought anxiously, he thought of the shame, the unprecedented shame that would be his— the shame of a man left by his wife. So he went for advice to his brother Hogni, and brought him into his confidence— there was a faithful friend.
Gunnar said, “I think Brynhild, daughter of Buthli, is better than all other women, she is the pride of all women. And I would rather lose my own life than lose such a treasure as this wife is to me.
“Do you want to betray a man, to increase our wealth? It would be good to control Sigurth’s treasure. If we had so much gold, would our lives not be happier, more leisurely?”
Bold Hogni answered his brother: “What a shameful deed you consider! To break our oaths, our sworn oaths, the words we pledged, with violence!
“I know of no happier people in all the world, as long as we brothers and our father rule the Goths, and that excellent Hun, Sigurth, lives with us. Nor do I know of any mightier men on earth. Let us and him raise our sons together, let us increase our good families.
“And yet I know what lies behind all this: the ugly jealousy of Brynhild!”
Gunnar said, “Let us prepare Gotthorm, our young brother, to do the killing. He was too young to swear a pledge to Sigurth— he has no oath to break, no faithful promises to keep.”
Young Gotthorm was easily convinced. His sword pierced Sigurth’s hard, heroic heart.
The dying Sigurth rose from his bed; he threw his sword at the young man. His fierce iron blade, his good sword Gram, flew shining from his hand, and cut down Gotthorm.
The boy was split in two: his head and hands fell one way, his feet and hips fell another.
Guthrun was asleep, lying blithely in bed at Sigurth’s side, sorrowless and safe. But she awoke to the cold death of her hopes, she awoke in a pool of her husband’s blood.
She wrung her hands in uncontrollable sorrow; but Sigurth rose pridefully, and he spoke to his wife: “Don’t weep so sorely, Guthrun, dear wife! You’re a young woman— and your brothers still live.
“Our young son, my heir, Sigmund, still lives, but he cannot flee his enemies’ hall. And your brothers have cursed themselves with sorrow and shame for this treacherous act.
“But your brothers will never have such a son as mine, even if they have seven sons apiece. I know exactly who has engineered this: it was for Brynhild alone that they brought you this misery.
“She has more love for me than for anyone on earth, but I never gave Gunnar a reason to think I was untrue. I respected their marriage, I respected our oaths. Let no one ever say I was his wife’s lover.”
And so Guthrun lost her joy, and her husband lost his life. She wrung her hands in uncontrollable sorrow, she screamed, and the echo of her scream echoed far, and the geese in the field flew off shrieking.
And Brynhild, daughter of Buthli, laughed one time with all her heart, when, lying in her bed, she heard the scream of Guthrun, Sigurth’s broken-hearted wife.
King Gunnar spoke to her grimly: “You hateful woman, you aren’t laughing so happily about good news. Why are you so pale, why do you look so deathly, you creator of cruelties? I think you’re near death.
“Will you be worth it, woman, when we fight your brother, Attila, before your eyes? You will see the wounds bleed red from your brother, you will have to tend to his gruesome injuries.”
“No one is afraid of you,” said Brynhild. “I think you’ve committed your last murder, and Attila won’t care for your threats. He will live longer than you, Gunnar, and he’ll always be stronger.
“I will tell you, Gunnar, you yourself know this well, how you and your brothers were brought to these deeds. When I was young, without responsibility, and wealthy, I lived happily at my brother Attila’s home.
“I never wished to marry a husband, before you sons of Gjuki rode to our home. I saw three kings on horseback— it would have been better if you’d stayed at home.
“I promised myself to the man who sat on Grani’s back, loaded with gold. His brave eyes were not like yours, he did not resemble you in any way. But still, you all had the look of kings.
“My brother Attila told me in private that I would have no home, no possessions and no land, nothing of what was promised to me, of the inheritance given to me in my youth, unless I allowed myself to marry a man.
“I doubted for a long time. I wondered whether I should be a warrior, leave corpses on the battlefield, whether I should wear armor and disobey my brother. I would have become famous all over, I would have killed and saddened many men.
“From then on our peace was destined to end. I coveted the treasures of gold, the precious things that Sigurth owned. I did not covet the wealth of another man.
“I loved only one man, and never another, this Valkyrie’s heart was faithful. My brother Attila will know this is true, when he learns of my death here.
“He will learn that his weary sister would not live with you, a man I ought not to have married. And then he will decide to avenge my sorrows.”
Gunnar rose up, the king of the Niflungs, and he embraced his wife around her neck. Then, one after another, he and his household tried with all their heart to comfort her.
But Brynhild turned away from anyone who came to her, she would not let anyone dissuade her from killing herself.
Gunnar went to Hogni and said: “I want everyone to go to her, your men and mine, for there is great need now. If my wife dies, more misfortune will come, and we will be at the mercy of fate.”
Hogni, his bold brother, offered him an answer: “Let no one try to talk her out of killing herself, let the cursed woman never be reborn! She was the runt born to her mother, always destined to destroy our happiness, to bring sorrow to many men’s lives.”
Unsatisfied, her husband Gunnar went to where Brynhild was giving away her wealth.
She searched through all her belongings, she killed her maids and her serving-girls, she put a suit of armor on. She was all in a rage, and finally she put Sigurth’s sword through her own heart.
She sank down to the pillow at her side, and, mortally wounded, she began to speak:
“Come here, anyone who wants to get gold or gifts from me. I’ll give you all fine treasures, fine jewelry and clothes, fine tapestries.”
Everyone was silent when they heard her speak, till finally they gave her an answer: “Enough have died, we want to live. Even for serving-girls, life is more joy than death.”
But the thoughtful young queen spoke, clad in linen, and she made this response: “I do not wish for any of you to be killed, to follow me for my sake, unwillingly.
“Still, there will be fewer treasures, fewer jewels glowing on your bones, when your souls come to Hel with mine.
“Sit down, Gunnar! I will tell you how your lovely bride lost her hope of life. The ship of your life is still out at sea, even if mine is coming into harbor.
“You and Guthrun will reconcile sooner than you expect. She’ll remarry, and besides her new husband, she’ll have memories of her first one.
“She’ll give birth to a girl, Sigurth’s daughter. She will be brighter than the clear daylight sun, brighter than a ray of sunshine. Svanhild will be her name.
“You’ll marry Guthrun to a wealthy man, but she’ll cause the deaths of many men. She will not be willingly married, but she will marry Attila, son of Buthli, my own brother.
“I remember so much, I remember my misfortunes, how you betrayed me and caused my sorrow, how I was deprived of joy for the rest of my life.
“Soon you will want to marry my sister, Oddrun, but Attila will not marry her to you. Still the two of you will meet in secret, and she will love you like I should have, if the two of us had been truly fated to love.
“Attila will pay you back with a fierce punishment, he’ll lock you inside a suffocating snake-pit.
“But not long after, it will happen that Attila himself will lose his life, his joy, and the lives of his sons. It will be Guthrun who bloodies their bed with a sharp blade, with a vengeful mind.
“It would have been better for Guthrun to follow her first husband Sigurth and die with him. But she was never given good advice, and she did not have courage like mine.
“I speak in pain now, but I know that she will not lose her life for killing my brother. The high waves will carry her to the lands of King Jonaker.
“She will have sons with Jonaker, and raise Svanhild there. She will marry off Svanhild, her daughter and Sigurth’s.
“The advice of Bikki will cause Guthrun grief, when Jormunrekk kills her daughter Svanhild. Sigurth’s family will come to an end when Guthrun weeps for its last descendant.
“I will make one last request, the last request of my entire life: Let my funeral pyre be high and broad, let there be sufficient room for everyone who has died with Sigurth.
“Build up the pyre with tents and shields, with precious dyed cloths and foreign treasures. Let Sigurth, that Hunnish hero, burn alongside me.
“And at Sigurth’s other side, burn my servants, adorn their bodies with jewels. Place two of them at his head, and two of his hawks, then the funeral will be arranged properly.
“And between him and me, place the precious blade of his sharp sword, just like it lay between us the last time he and I shared a bed, when we pledged to become husband and wife.
“Do as I say, and it won’t be as if some man simply died at his home, with a single ring to his name. If he has such a following with him in Hel, no one will think that he died a poor man.
“He’ll be accompanied by five slavegirls, and eight slavemen captured from good families, all the slavemen given to me as a young girl by my father; that was how Buthli honored his daughter.
“I have spoken a long time, and I would speak longer, but the sword in my side will not give me more time. My voice fails me, my wounds sting, I have spoken the truth, and now I must die.”