Brynhild: Shieldmaiden and Queen of Norse Legend
Explore Brynhild, the valkyrie, shieldmaiden, and queen of the Völsung saga — her meeting with Sigurd, her awakening, her deception, and her tragic death.
Brynhild is the most fully realised female figure of the Norse heroic tradition. A valkyrie, a shieldmaiden, a teacher of heroes, a queen of the Gjükungs, and a suicide of tragic grandeur, she is the central female agent of the Völsunga saga and of the Eddic poems of the Codex Regius, and her figure is taken up in the continental Nibelungenlied under the name Brünhild and in the Norse Þiðreks saga under the name Brunhild. Her relationship with Sigurd the Völsung is the central love-story of the saga, and the doom of the great houses of the Völsungs and the Gjükungs is the doom of her rage.
Brynhild in the Eddic Corpus
The figure of Brynhild appears in a remarkable number of the Eddic poems of the Codex Regius, and the figure is one of the central characters of the heroic corpus. The principal poems are Sigrdrífumál, in which the valkyrie Sigrdrífa (clearly identified with Brynhild) teaches the hero Sigurd the runes of victory; Helreið Brynhildar, in which the dead Brynhild makes her journey to the realm of the dead; and the great cycle of Guðrún poems, in which Brynhild’s death is the central event of the action.
The figure of Sigrdrífa in Sigrdrífumál is the older form of the figure of Brynhild. She is a valkyrie, a warrior of the divine order, who has been pricked with the sleep-thorn by Odin for her disobedience in granting a victory contrary to the divine will. The hero Sigurd wakes her, and she becomes his teacher, instructing him in the runes of victory, the runes of the ale, the runes of the sea, the runes of the limb, the runes of the speech, the runes of the mind, the runes of the welcome, the runes of the clouds, the runes of the journey, and the runes of the arm. The figure of the valkyrie as the teacher of the hero is one of the great motifs of the older tradition.
The figure of Brynhild in the later Eddic poems and the Völsunga saga is the more elaborate redaction of the same figure. She is a mortal woman of the heroic age, the daughter of Buðli and the sister of the dwarf Atli (different from the Hunnish Atli of the saga’s later action), and she is the wife of Gunnar of the Gjükungs after the deception by Sigurd. The later redaction is more complex and more tragic: the valkyrie has become a mortal woman, and her tragedy is the tragedy of a mortal woman in a world of male deception and male violence.
The Awakening of Brynhild
The awakening of Brynhild is one of the great set-pieces of the Völsunga saga. Sigurd, after the slaying of Fafnir, rides to the mountain of Hindarfjall, and there he finds a great hall, surrounded by a wall of fire, with a sleeping warrior within. Sigurd cuts the armour from the warrior with his sword Gram, and the sleeper wakes: she is the valkyrie Sigrdrífa, a daughter of the king Buðli, whom Odin has pricked with the sleep-thorn for her disobedience. Sigurd and Sigrdrífa exchange vows of love, and Sigrdrífa teaches him the runes. The pair agree to be married, and Sigurd leaves to fulfil his other tasks.
The scene of the awakening is one of the great encounters of the heroic tradition. The figure of the sleeping warrior in a fire-walled hall is a motif that recurs in the Celtic tradition (the sleeping warriors in the Welsh Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig and the Irish traditions of the Suibhne Geilt) and in the Indian tradition (the figure of the sleeping ascetic in the Mahabharata). The motif is a type of the older Indo-European myth of the goddess of the sleep-thorn, a woman of supernatural power who is awakened by the hero and who becomes his bride. The figure of the valkyrie is, in this sense, a development of an older mythological figure, and the scene of her awakening is one of the great scenes of the world mythology. The runes that Sigrdrífa teaches Sigurd are the central gift of the older tradition. The runes are the magical signs of the Rúnatál (Rune-Magic) that the völva lays out on her magic tent-cloth and that the skald composes on his tongue. The runes of Sigrdrífa are the runes of victory, of the ale, of the sea, of the limb, of the speech, of the mind, of the welcome, of the clouds, of the journey, and of the arm. Each rune is addressed to a specific divine power, and each is supposed to give the hero mastery over a particular aspect of his world. The runes are one of the principal channels through which the heroic hero communicates with the gods, and the figure of the valkyrie is the figure of the divine intermediary. The runic tradition is treated in detail on the Norse runes page.
The Potion of Forgetfulness
The potion of forgetfulness is the central event of the second half of the Völsung story. The Völsunga saga tells the story as follows. After leaving Brynhild on Hindarfjall, Sigurd rides to the hall of the Gjükungs, the sons of Gjúki: Gunnar, Högni, and Guttorm. Their mother Grímhild is a queen of great magical power, and she administers to Sigurd a potion of forgetfulness mixed with mead. The potion causes Sigurd to forget his love for Brynhild and to fall in love with the Gjüking princess Guðrún, the sister of Gunnar, Högni, and Guttorm. Sigurd marries Guðrún, and he swears blood-brotherhood with Gunnar and Högni.
The potion of forgetfulness is a motif of the older heroic tradition. It appears in the Irish traditions of the Longes Mac nUislenn (the exile of the sons of Uisnech), in the Welsh traditions of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, and in the continental German tradition of Tristan und Isolde (where the love-potion of Tristan and Isolde is the model for the Brynhild story). The motif is a type of the older Indo-European myth of the forgetting of the divine wife, a woman of supernatural power who is forgotten by the hero who is to be bound to a mortal bride. The figure of the potion is the central motif of the deception of Brynhild, and the doom of the Völsungs is the working-out of the moral order that the potion violates.
The swearing of blood-brotherhood is one of the great institutions of the heroic tradition. The figures of Sigurd, Gunnar, and Högni are bound by an oath that has a sacred character, and the violation of the oath is one of the great sins of the heroic age. The swearing of the oath is described in the Völsunga saga in a long and elaborate passage that is one of the great set-pieces of the saga. The oath is the central moral bond of the saga, and its violation is the cause of the doom of the great houses.
The Deception of Brynhild
The deception of Brynhild is the great test of the blood-brotherhood, and the deception is the cause of the doom of the saga. The story is told as follows. The widowed Brynhild, after the departure of Sigurd, has retired to a hall surrounded by a wall of fire, and has vowed to marry only the man who can ride through the fire. Gunnar, who has heard of the vow, rides to Brynhild’s hall to win her for his bride, but he cannot ride the fire-wall. Sigurd, who is the only one who can ride the fire, agrees to take Gunnar’s place, and he exchanges forms with Gunnar (with the help of the magic helmet of the dwarf Grímnir, which has the power to change the appearance of the wearer). Sigurd wins Brynhild for Gunnar, and the pair are married.
The exchange of forms is a motif of the older Indo-European tradition. The Indian Mahabharata tells the story of the exchange of forms between the hero Arjuna and the bridegroom Yudhishthira at the wedding of Draupadi. The Welsh Mabinogi tells the story of the exchange of forms between the hero Pwyll and the otherworld lord Pryderi. The Norse tradition also preserves the motif in the Hrólfs saga kraka, in which the hero Böðvarr Bjarki is exchanged with his follower Hott.
The truth comes out at a feast in the Gjüking hall. The queen Guðrún, in a fit of jealousy, confronts Brynhild, and the truth of the deception is revealed. Brynhild is consumed with rage, and she procures the murder of Sigurd by her brother Guttorm (who is not bound by the blood-oath). The deception of Brynhild is the central moral event of the saga, and the doom of the great houses is the working-out of the moral order that the deception violates.
The Death of Brynhild
The death of Brynhild is the central event of the last third of the Völsunga saga, and the death is one of the great set-pieces of the heroic tradition. The death is described in the Völsunga saga and in the Eddic poem Helreið Brynhildar, and the two descriptions are in essential agreement on the central events. Brynhild, after the death of Sigurd, refuses to be comforted, and she withdraws from the world of the living. She arranges her funeral with great care, and she is burned on the same pyre as Sigurd, with his sword between them and his horse Grani and his treasure laid out beside her.
The Helreið Brynhildar (“Brynhild’s ride to the realm of the dead”) is the great Eddic poem in which the death of Brynhild is presented from her own perspective. The poem is preserved in full in the Codex Regius, and it tells the story of Brynhild’s journey to the realm of the dead. On her journey she meets a giantess, who accuses her of having brought the doom of the great houses by her own rage, and Brynhild defends herself. The poem is one of the great laments of the Old Norse tradition, and it is the principal source for the figure of Brynhild in the later heroic literature. The burning of Brynhild is one of the great set-pieces of the saga, and the description is a clear echo of the older Indo-European institution of the Sati (the burning of the wife with the husband). The figure of the wife who chooses death with her husband is one of the great tragic figures of the Indo-European tradition, and the figure of Brynhild is one of its most fully realised embodiments. The description of the funeral in the Völsunga saga is one of the great set-pieces of Norse prose, and the parallel to the funeral of Beowulf at the end of the Old English poem is striking.
The moral responsibility for the death of Brynhild is one of the central topics of the saga. The saga is unsparing in its account of the moral failures of the heroes, and the death of Brynhild is presented as the result of the combined deceit of Sigurd and the rage of Brynhild herself. The figure of Brynhild is, in this sense, both a victim of male deception and a perpetrator of terrible rage, and the author of the saga is interested in the moral complexity of the figure.
Brynhild in the Continental Tradition
The continental German tradition preserves a parallel figure under the name Brünhild, and the figure is the central female figure of the Nibelungenlied of c. 1200. The German tradition differs from the Norse in a number of important respects. The German Brünhild is a queen of Iceland, a chivalric invention with no counterpart in the Norse sources. The German Siegfried wins her by the same test (the throwing of a great stone and the leaping of a great distance) that the Norse Sigurd wins the dragon’s treasure, and the deception by the exchange of forms is preserved in the German tradition under the form of an exchange of clothes and rings.
The Nibelungenlied tells the story of the deception of Brünhild by Siegfried, the marriage of Brünhild to Gunther, the long series of feuds that follow, and the marriage of Kriemhild to Etzel (Attila the Hun) and her terrible revenge. The figure of Brünhild is recast in the chivalric idiom of the High Middle Ages. The Norse Brynhild is a woman of the heroic age, and her rage is the rage of a woman of the heroic age. The German Brünhild is a woman of the chivalric age.
The Þiðreks saga of Norway, written in the thirteenth century, is a Norse redaction of much of the German material, drawing on Low German sources and preserving a number of lost German lays in Norse translation. The figure of Brunhild in the Þiðreks saga is a development of both the Norse and the German figures, and the figure combines the heroic and the chivalric elements. The saga includes a much fuller version of the Brunhild story than is found in the Nibelungenlied.
The Figure of Brynhild in the Eddic Laments
The figure of Brynhild is the central figure of the great cycle of the Guðrún laments in the Eddic corpus, and the figure is one of the most complex in the entire Old Norse tradition. The laments include Guðrúnarqvida in fyrsta (the first lament of Guðrún), Guðrúnarqvida in önnur (the second lament), Guðrúnarqvida in þriðja (the third lament), Oddrúnargrátr (the lament of Oddrún), Guðrúnarhvöt (the incitement of Guðrún), and the Hamðismál (the last stand of the sons of Guðrún). In each of these poems, the figure of Brynhild is present, and the figure is the figure of the woman whose death is the cause of the doom of the great houses.
The Guðrúnarqvida in fyrsta is the great Eddic poem in which the dead Sigurd is lamented by Guðrún. The poem is one of the most moving laments in the Old Norse tradition, and the figure of Guðrún is the figure of a woman who has lost her husband by the deception of another woman. The figure of Brynhild is present in the poem as the absent cause of the lament.
The Oddrúnargrátr is the great Eddic poem in which Brynhild’s sister Oddrún laments the death of Brynhild and her own unfulfilled love for the hero Gunnar. The poem is one of the most powerful laments in the Old Norse tradition, and the figure of Oddrún is the figure of a woman who has lost her sister and her lover to the doom of the great houses. The figure of Brynhild is present in the poem as the absent cause of the lament.
The Memory of Brynhild in the Later Norse Tradition
The memory of Brynhild was preserved in the Norse tradition long after the composition of the Völsunga saga. The rímur of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preserved the figure of Brynhild in a continuous oral-formulaic tradition into the modern period. The most important of the rímur is the rímur af Sigurði Fölni (“the thin-steed Sigurd”), in which the figure of Brynhild is the central figure of the second half of the cycle.
The Danish ballad tradition preserved the figure of Brynhild in ballads that are still sung in Denmark and the Faroes, the most important being “Brynilds Drøm” (“Brynhild’s Dream”), in which the sleeping Brynhild dreams of the doom that is to befall her, and the Faroese “Brunilds Væv” (“Brunhild’s Weaving”).
The figure of Brynhild has been taken up in the modern reception of the Norse heroic tradition. The Richard Wagner Ring cycle preserves the figure in the great role of Brünnhilde, and the figure is one of the central figures of the cycle. The figure of Brünnhilde in the Walküre and the Götterdämmerung is one of the most fully realised tragic figures of the operatic tradition. The figure of Brynhild has also been taken up in the modern fantasy tradition: the figure of Galadriel in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has something of the same tragic grandeur.
Brynhild and the Cult of the Dead
The figure of Brynhild has its place in the older cult of the dead that is preserved in the funerary practices of the Migration Period and the early Viking Age. The burning of Brynhild with Sigurd on the same pyre, the laying out of his horse Grani and his treasure, the description of the great pyre and the great smoke that rises from it, all recall the funerary practices of the heroic age. The figure of the wife who chooses death with her husband is one of the great tragic figures of the older tradition, and the figure of Brynhild is one of its most fully realised embodiments.
The archaeological evidence for the funerary practices of the heroic age is rich. The great Oseberg ship-burial of c. 834, the Gokstad ship-burial of c. 900, the Tune ship-burial of c. 900, the Ladby ship-burial of c. 950, the great Vendel boat-graves of c. 550–790, the Valsgärde boat-graves of the same period, and the Sutton Hoo ship-burial of c. 625–635 are all examples of the same general type of princely burial. The figure of the wife buried with the husband is attested in the Oseberg ship-burial, in which the two women buried with the great ship may have been the wife and the daughter of a king.
Brynhild in the Modern Reception
The modern reception of Brynhild is one of the richest of any figure of the Norse heroic tradition. The figure of Brynhild has been the subject of some of the most remarkable works of art in the Western tradition: the great Wagnerian role of Brünnhilde in the Walküre and the Götterdämmerung, the long narrative poems of the rímur tradition, the paintings of the Danish Golden Age and the Norwegian national-romantic period, and the films and video games of the modern era.
The Wagnerian Brünnhilde is the most widely known version of the figure, and the figure is one of the most fully realised tragic figures of the operatic tradition. The figure of Brünnhilde in the Walküre is the figure of a divine valkyrie who disobeys the divine will, who is punished by being put to sleep on a fire-walled rock, who is awakened by a mortal hero, and who is doomed to lose him. The figure of Brünnhilde in the Götterdämmerung is the figure of a woman who is consumed by the same rage that consumed the Norse Brynhild, and who is destroyed by it. The Wagnerian figure is not the same as the Norse figure, but it is clearly descended from it, and the Wagnerian reception has profoundly influenced the way in which the figure is received in popular culture.
The modern fantasy tradition has also taken up the figure of Brynhild. The figure of Éowyn in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has something of the same tragic grandeur, and the figure of the valkyrie in the modern fantasy literature (in the works of Robert E. Howard, C. S. Lewis, and Stephen R. Lawhead) has its roots in the same tradition. The figure of Brynhild is one of the great figures of the world mythology, and her story is one of the great stories of the world tradition.