Brynhildr

Summary

Brynhildr, daughter of King Buðli and sister of Atli in the Scandinavian myths, is a valkyrie, one of the warrior-women who choose the slain. She vowed to marry only a man who knew no fear, was married by deceit to a man other than the one she had chosen, brought about that man's killing, and then killed herself to be burned with him. Her story is told in the poems of the Poetic Edda, among them a poem in which she tells it in her own voice on her way to the house of the dead; in Snorri's Skáldskaparmál; and in the Völsunga saga.

She tells her story in that poem. Everyone who knew her in Hlymdalir called her "Hildr under the helmet". A bold king took the shape-skins of her and her sisters, eight in all, and carried them under an oak, and she gave him oaths when she was twelve years old. Two kings were at war, old Hjalmgunnarr and Agnarr, brother of Auða, and Odin had promised the old man victory; she struck him down and gave the victory to Agnarr. Odin was angry: he shut her in sleep among red and white shields, and said that only a man who would fear nothing in any land should wake her; he set a high fire round her hall, and only the man who brought her Fáfnir's gold would ride through it.

Sigurd came to her after killing Fáfnir. He saw a light on the mountain like fire reaching the sky, and behind a wall of shields found a warrior asleep in full armour; he lifted the helmet and saw it was a woman, her mail fast to her body as though it had grown into her flesh, and he cut it open with his sword Gramr from the neck down through both sleeves. She woke and asked: what has cut the mail, what has broken my sleep? Then she gave him a drink of remembrance, taught him runes and wisdom, and they pledged themselves. Later he met her again in the house of her foster-father Heimir, where she sat embroidering Sigurd's deeds in gold; they pledged themselves again and he gave her a ring.

Then at King Gjúki's Sigurd was given a drink that made him forget her; he married Gjúki's daughter Guðrún and rode with her brother Gunnarr to woo Brynhildr for him. She sat in a hall ringed with flickering fire and had vowed to marry only the man who rode through it. Gunnarr's horse would not face it, so the two men changed shapes, and Sigurd rode through in Gunnarr's likeness, reminded her of her vow, and she accepted him. He lay beside her with the sword between them, eight nights in her own poem and three in the saga, and neither touched the other. Then she married Gunnarr.

The two queens went to the river to wash their hair. Brynhildr waded farther out than Guðrún and said she would not have on her head the water that ran from Guðrún's hair, since her own husband was the bolder. Guðrún said: the one who rode the fire and lay beside you was Sigurd, and showed her the ring. Brynhildr went home in silence, then told Gunnarr: you will lose me and my lands unless you kill Sigurd; I will go back to my kin. Sigurd was killed in his bed, and when Brynhildr heard Guðrún's cry she laughed once with all her heart. Then she looked over her possessions, put on a golden mail-coat, stabbed herself with the sword, and asked for a broad pyre with Sigurd on one side and herself on the other, and the sword between them as it had lain in the bed.

After her death Sigurd was burned first, then she on a second pyre, in a wagon hung with rich cloth, and she drove the wagon along the road to the house of Hel. She passed the dwelling of a giantess, who stood in her way and said: you shall not pass through my stone-built courts; you have washed a man's blood from your hands. Brynhildr answered: I will tell you how Gjúki's heirs made me loveless and an oath-breaker, told her story, and ended: we two shall live together, Sigurd and I; sink, giant-kin!

The idea the story turns on is choice and oath. Brynhildr was one of those who choose: she chose who fell in battle, and was punished for choosing other than Odin had chosen; then she chose her husband by a single condition, that he be without fear. The condition she set to protect her choice became the door through which the deceit came in, for the man she had chosen rode the fire in the likeness of a man she had not. When she learned the truth she could not undo the marriage, so she undid the oath between Sigurd and his in-laws, and then chose death so as to return to his side, with the sword between them.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method, since the essay does not read it. The final r of Brynhildr is the Old Norse nominative ending; it drops in the accusative, Brynhildi, as in Grípisspá 27, leaving Brynhild-. It is a compound of brynja, a coat of ring-mail, and hildr, battle. Hildr is the name she gave herself on waking in Snorri's account, and the name she was called by: "Hildr under the helmet". We read hild as Arabic jilād: j belongs to the group with k and q that becomes k and g, and an old k becomes h in Germanic, as the essay sets English horn against Arabic qarn; l and d stay as they are. In Lane jilād is fighting with swords, jāladahu bi-l-sayf mujālada wa-jilādan, and jalīd is a hardy, enduring man. We read bryn- as badan, which Lane gives as a short coat of mail of the measure of the body. On this reading Brynhildr is the sword-fighter in mail, which is what the story makes her: she slept in mail that had grown fast to her until Sigurd cut it, and she put on a golden mail-coat before she stabbed herself. One thing remains: the r of bryn- answers the d of badan, which is not a regular correspondence.

Linguistic Root

Brynhildr, the sword-fighter in mail

Cleasby–Vigfusson gives hildr as "battle, only in poetry", and as the "name of one of the Valkyrias", Odin's handmaids, in Grímnismál 36; it often forms the second part of women's names: Brynhildr, Gunnhildr, Svanhildr, Grímhildr. Orel derives it from Germanic *xelþiz and sets it beside Old Irish coll, "destruction". Brynja is "a coat of mail, in olden times woven of rings"; Orel derives it from *brunjōn, "borrowed from Celtic, cf. OIr bruinne 'breast'".

Lane, under j-l-d: jāladahu, "he contended with him in fight, whether the fight were with swords or not"; jāladahu bi-l-sayf, mujālada wa-jilādan, "he contended with him in fight with the sword"; ijtaladū, they fought one another with swords; jaluda, he was hardy, strong, enduring; jalīd, a hardy, enduring man, and also "hoar-frost, or rime" and "congealed, or frozen, water; ice". In the Short Lay of Sigurd Brynhildr goes out every evening "filled with ill, with ice and glaciers" when she sees Sigurd and Guðrún go to their bed. Under b-d-n: badan, the body, and "a coat of mail of the measure of the body", short, or any coat of mail.

In its table of shared words the Arabic essay sets English horn against Arabic qarn and calls it a common origin. A Germanic h at the start of a word answers an older k or q, as Latin cornu is horn. By this path the j of jilād answers the h of hildr, since j, q and k form one group in the Juthoor sound laws, which becomes k and g.

In the first member b is b, n is n, and r stands against d, which is the weak point. Bryn- could also be read with Arabic burnus, which Lane gives as "any garment of which the head forms a part", noting that some take its n as augmentative and derive it from birs, cotton; it keeps b, r and n but adds s.

Historical Context

Sigrdrífa and Brynhildr

The texts do not agree that the woman asleep on the mountain is Brynhildr. The word sigrdrífa begins with sigr, "victory", the same member that begins Sigurd's name, so it may be a title as much as a name.

So the poems that tell of the sleep, the waking and the teaching of runes call the sleeper Sigrdrífa, while the poem Brynhildr speaks in her own voice makes the sleep her own story, and Snorri and the saga follow that poem.

Key Mythic Narratives

What she taught Sigurd

Sigrdrífa tells Sigurd that he must know victory-runes if he wants victory, carve them on the sword's hilt and blade, and name Týr twice; and know ale-runes, carving them on the horn and on the back of his hand, so that another man's wife cannot betray his trust. Then she lists runes for birth, the sea, healing, speech and thought, and ends with counsels on oaths, drink, quarrels and the dead. The runes Odin won, as told under culture heroes, here reach a man from the mouth of a valkyrie.

At Heimir's

The saga says that Sigurd's hawk flew to a tower window; he followed it and saw Brynhildr embroidering his deeds in gold. When he spoke to her she said: I am a shield-maiden and wear the helmet like the war-kings, and you will marry Guðrún, Gjúki's daughter. The saga also says that she had by Sigurd a daughter, Áslaug, whom she left with Heimir.

The laugh and the last fire

In the Short Lay of Sigurd Brynhildr says: I shall have Sigurd, or die. Then she urges Gunnarr and tells him: do not rear the wolf-cub, meaning Sigurd's son. When she laughs at Guðrún's cry, Gunnarr says to her: you do not laugh for any good you foresee. At the end of the poem she asks that her servants, her jewels and two hawks be burned with her, and that the sword be laid between her and Sigurd.

Symbolic Reading

The Norse rereading essay reads the valkyries as women who choose warriors, saying that in Scandinavian society a woman held the right to choose her husband, so that "the valkyrie chooses who dies" is an image of "the woman chooses who is worthy". The essay does not name Brynhildr, but her story in the texts is that image: a valkyrie who chooses who falls, then a woman who vows to marry only one worthy of her, who tells Sigurd in the saga that she would choose him though she had all men's sons to choose from, and who, deceived in her choice, tears down everything built on it.

The poem she speaks in her own voice rests on oaths: she swore to a king at twelve, she swore to Sigurd, and the text has her say that Gjúki's heirs made her "loveless and oath-breaking". The betrayal in the story is a broken pledge before it is a broken love.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

Brynhildr's drive in her wagon to the house of Hel is a Norse case of descent to the underworld. Hermóðr rides to Hel and the warden of the bridge asks him who he is, since he has not the colour of the dead; the giantess stands in Brynhildr's way on the road to Hel, forbids her to pass through her courts, and reproaches her with the blood on her hands. Hermóðr is a living man seeking a dead one; Brynhildr is a dead woman seeking a dead man, and she answers the warden with her story and goes on.

In the Akkadian text Ishtar stands at the gate of "the land of no return" and tells the gatekeeper: open your gate so that I may enter, or I will smash it and raise the dead to eat the living. Brynhildr stands at the giantess's walls, is reproached, and answers: sink, giant-kin. In both stories a woman stopped at the border of the dead answers the guardian with the words of the strong, not those of a suppliant.