Guðrúnarkviða I or the First Lay of Guðrún

Guðrún

Guðrún is one of the most frequently given female names in Iceland. In 2004, it was ranked first before Anna and Sigríður.According to Icelandic custom, people are generally referred to by first and middle names and patronyms are used if disambiguation is required.In Old Norse, Goðrún was an...

is simply called Guðrúnarkviða in Codex Regius

Codex Regius

Cōdex Rēgius is an Icelandic manuscript in which the Poetic Edda is preserved. It is made up of 45 vellum leaves, thought to have been written in the 1270s. It originally contained a further 8 leaves, which are now missing...

 where it was found together with the other heroic poems of the Poetic Edda

Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...

. Henry Adams Bellows

Henry Adams Bellows

Henry Adams Bellows was a lawyer, state legislator, and jurist born in Rockingham, Vermont. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Littleton, New Hampshire in 1839. He was subsequently elected again to the House from Concord, New Hampshire in 1856–1857, and served as...

 considered it to be one of the finest of the eddic poems with an "extraordinary emotional intensity and dramatic force". It is only in this poem that Gjúki

Gjúki

Gjúki was the King of the Burgundians in the late 4th century until his death in or around 407. He was the father of Gundomar I, Giselher, and Gunther....

's sister Gjaflaug and daughter Gollrönd are mentioned, and the only source where Herborg, the queen of the Huns, appears. The Guðrún lays show that the hard-boiled heroic poetry of the Poetic Edda also had place for the hardships of women.

Bellows considers it to be one of the oldest heroic lays and with very few Scandinavian additions. Brynhild's only role is the cause of Sigurd's death and Guðrún's enemy.

Alfred Tennyson's poem Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead was inspired by Benjamin Thorpe

Benjamin Thorpe

Benjamin Thorpe was an English scholar of Anglo-Saxon.-Biography:After studying for four years at Copenhagen University, under the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, he returned to England in 1830, and in 1832 published an English version of Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of portions of the...

's translation of the lay.

Synopsis

Guðrún sat beside her dead husband, Sigurð, but she did not weep with tears like other women, although her heart was bursting with grief.

1. Ár var, þats Guðrún gerðisk at deyja, er hon sat sorgfull yfir Sigurði; gerði-t hon hjúfra né höndum slá, né kveina um sem konur aðrar.

1. Then did Guthrun think to die, When she by Sigurth sorrowing sat; Tears she had not, nor wrung her hands, Nor ever wailed, as other women.

A prose section informs that Guðrún had had a taste of Fafnir

Fafnir

In Norse mythology, Fáfnir or Frænir was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Ótr. In the Volsunga saga, Fáfnir was a dwarf gifted with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guarded his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems...

's heart from Sigurð and could understand the song of birds. Bellows notes that this information serves no purpose in the poem, but that the Völsunga saga

Volsunga saga

The Völsungasaga is a legendary saga, a late 13th century Icelandic prose rendition of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan . It is largely based on epic poetry...

also mentions that she had eaten some of Fafnir's heart, after which she was both wiser and grimmer.

In order to show sympathy and to console her, both jarl

Earl

An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...

s and their spouses came to Guðrún to tell her that they too carried great sorrow in their lives.

2. Gengu jarlar alsnotrir fram, þeir er harðs hugar hana löttu; þeygi Guðrún gráta mátti, svá var hon móðug, mundi hon springa. - 3. Sátu ítrar jarla brúðir, gulli búnar, fyr Guðrúnu; hvar sagði þeira sinn oftrega, þann er bitrastan of beðit hafði.

2. To her the warriors wise there came, Longing her heavy woe to lighten; Grieving could not Guthrun weep, So sad her heart, it seemed, would break. - 3. Then the wives of the warriors came, Gold-adorned, and Guthrun sought; Each one then of her own grief spoke, The bitterest pain she had ever borne.

Her aunt Gjaflaug (Gjúki

Gjúki

Gjúki was the King of the Burgundians in the late 4th century until his death in or around 407. He was the father of Gundomar I, Giselher, and Gunther....

's sister) told her that she had lost five husbands, two daughters, three sisters and eight brothers, but still carried on living.

Herborg, the queen of the Huns, told her that she had lost her husband and seven of her sons in the south. She had also lost her father, mother and four brothers at sea. She had buried all of them with her own hands, and there was no one to console her. Within the same six months, the queen had even been taken as war booty and had had to bind the shoes of a queen who beat her and abused her. The king was the best lord she had ever known and his queen the worst woman.

Herborg's foster-daughter, and Guðrún's sister, Gollrönd had Sigurð's corpse unveiled and she put Sigurð's head on Guðrún's knees. Gullrönd asked Guðrún to kiss Sigurd as if he were still alive. Guðrún bent over Sigurð's head with his clotted hair and her tears began to run like raindrops.

Gullrönd said that Guðrún's and Sigurð's love was the greatest one she had ever seen. Her sister then answered that Sigurð was a greater man than their brothers and that Sigurð had found her a higher lady than the Valkyrie

Valkyrie

In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...

s:

18. "Svá var minn Sigurðr hjá sonum Gjúka sem væri geirlaukr ór grasi vaxinn eða væri bjartr steinn á band dreginn, jarknasteinn yfir öðlingum. - 19. Ek þótta ok þjóðans rekkum hverri hæri Herjans dísi; nú em ek svá lítil sem lauf séi oft í jölstrum at jöfur dauðan.

17. "So was my Sigurth o'er Gjuki's sons As the spear-leek grown above the grass, Or the jewel bright borne on the band, The precious stone that princes wear. - 18. "To the leader of men I loftier seemed And higher than all of Herjan's maids Valkyrie In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin... ; As little now as the leaf I am On the willow hanging; my hero is dead.

She then turned towards her brothers talking of their crime, and she cursed her brothers that their greed for Fafnir's gold would be their undoing. She then directed her words against Brynhildr

Brynhildr

Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...

 and said that their home was happier before she appeared.

Brynhildr, who was present, responded that Guðrún's sister Gollrönd was a witch who had made Guðrún's tears flow and used magic to make her speak. Gullrönd retorted that Brynhildr was a hated woman who had brought sorrow to seven kings and made many women lose their love. Brynhildr then answered by putting the blame on her brother Atli

Atli

-Characters:* Atli, one of the names of the Norse god Thor* Atli in the Völsunga saga, believed to be a romanticized version of Attila the Hun* Atli Buðlason* Atli Hringsson* Atli Iðmundsson* Atli the Slender, a 9th-century earl of Sogn, Norway-Poetry:...

 (Attila the Hun

Attila the Hun

Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...

), because he had forced her to marry Gunnar against her will. The last stanza dwells on Brynhild's anger:

Stóð hon und stoð, strengði hon efli; brann Brynhildi Buðla dóttur eldr ór augum, eitri fnæsti, er hon sár of leit á Sigurði.

25. By the pillars she stood, and gathered her strength, From the eyes of Brynhild, Buthli's daughter, Fire there burned, and venom she breathed, When the wounds she saw on Sigurth then.

The lay ends with a prose section which tells that Guðrún went into the wilderness and travelled to Denmark where she stayed for three years and a half with Thora, the daughter of Hakon. Referring to Sigurðarkviða hin skamma, the prose section ends by telling that Brynhildr would soon take her own life with a sword after having killed eight of her thralls and five of her maids in order to take them with her.