Brynhild spake:

11. On Grani rode | the giver of gold,
Where my foster-father | ruled his folk;
Best of all | he seemed to be,
The prince of the Danes, | when the people met.

12. "Happy we slept, | one bed we had,
As he my brother | born had been;
Eight were the nights | when neither there
Loving hand | on the other laid.

13. "Yet Guthrun reproached me, | Gjuki's daughter,
That I in Sigurth's | arms had slept;
Then did I hear | what I would were hid,
That they had betrayed me | in taking a mate.

14. "Ever with grief | and all too long
Are men and women | born in the world;
But yet we shall live | our lives together,
Sigurth and I. | Sink down, Giantess!"

[11. This stanza is presumably an interpolation, reflecting a different version of the story, wherein Sigurth meets Brynhild at the home of her brother-in-law and foster-father, Heimir (cf. Gripisspo, 19 and 27). Grani: Sigurth's horse. Danes: nowhere else does Sigurth appear in this capacity. Perhaps this is a curious relic of the Helgi tradition.

12. Eight nights: elsewhere (cf. Gripisspo, 4.2) the time is stated as three nights, not eight. There is a confusion of traditions here, as in Gripisspo. In the version of the story wherein Sigurth met Brynhild before he encountered the Gjukungs, Sigurth was bound by no oaths, and the union was completed; it is only in the alternative version that the episode of the sword laid between the two occurs.

14. The idea apparently conveyed in the concluding lines, that Sigurth and Brynhild will be together in some future life, is utterly out of keeping with the Norse pagan traditions, and the whole stanza indicates the influence of Christianity.]

 



Brynhildr kvað:

11. Reið góðr Grana gullmiðlandi,
þars fóstri minn fletjum stýrði;
einn þótti hann þar öllum betri
víkingr Dana í verðungu.

12. Sváfu við ok unðum í sæing einni,
sem hann minn bróðir of borinn væri;
hvárki knátti hönd yfir annat
átta nóttum okkart leggja.

13. Því brá mér Guðrún Gjúka dóttir,
at ek Sigurði svæfak á armi,
þar varð ek þess vís, er ek vildig-a-k,
at þau véltu mik í verfangi.

14. Munu við ofstríð alls til lengi
konur ok karlar kvikvir fæðask;
við skulum okkrum aldri slíta
Sigurðr saman. Sökkstu, gýgjar kyn."










 


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