rimhild, the mother of the Giukings,
gave Sigurd a magic drink by which he forgot Brynhild and fell in love
with Giuki's daughter. Gudrun's brothers swore oaths of friendship
with him, and he agreed to ride through the waverlowe, or ring of
fire, disguised and win Brynhild for the eldest brother Gunnar. After
the two bridals, he remembered his first passing through the flame,
and his love for Brynhild returned. The Shield-maiden too remembered,
but thinking that Gunnar had fairly won her, accepted her fate until
Gudrun in spite and jealousy revealed the trick that had been played
on her. Of the treachery of the Giukings Brynhild takes little heed;
but death alone can pay for Sigurd's unconscious betrayal. She tells
Gunnar that Sigurd has broken faith with him, and the Giukings with
some reluctance murder their sister's husband. Brynhild springs on to
the funeral pyre, and dies with Sigurd. _Voelsunga_ makes the murder
take place in Sigurd's chamber, and one poem, the _Short Sigurd Lay_,
agrees. The fragment which follows _Sigrdrifumal_, on the other hand,
places the scene in the open air:

"Sigurd was slain south of the Rhine; a raven on a tree called aloud:
'On you will Atli redden the sword; your broken oaths shall destroy
you.' Gudrun Giuki's daughter stood without, and these were the first
words she spoke: 'Where is now Sigurd, the lord of men, that my kinsmen
ride first?' Hoegni alone made answer: 'We have hewn Sigurd asunder
with the sword; the grey horse still stoops over his dead lord.'"

This agrees with the _Old Gudrun Lay_ and with the Continental German
version, as a prose epilogue points out.

Of the Giuking brothers, Gunnar appears only in a contemptible light:
he gains his bride by treachery, and keeps his oath to Sigurd by a
quibble. Hoegni, who has little but his name in common with Hagen von
Tronje of the _Nibelungen Lied_, advises Gunnar against breaking his
oath, but it is he who taunts Gudrun afterwards. The later poems of
the cycle try to make heroes out of both; the same discrepancy exists
between the first and second halves of the _Nibelungen Lied_. Their
half-brother, Gutthorm, plays no part in the story except as the
actual murderer of Sigurd.

The chief effect of the influences of Christianity and Romance on
the legend is a loss of sympathy with the heroic type of Brynhild,
and an attempt to give more dignity to the figure of Gudrun. The
Shield-maiden of divine origin and unearthly wisdom