Gudrun is another main character of The Saga of the Volsungs. She was the daughter of king Gjúki and his wife, Grimhild. She had three brothers, Gunnar, Hogni and Guttormr.
She fell in love with Sigurd but he didn't care, because he was in love with Brynhild, whom he wanted to make his bride. But one day Grimhild, Gudrun's mother, gave a magic potion to Sigurd, and he fell in love with Gudrun and married her.
"Now fare these folk wide over the world, and do many great deeds, and slay many kings' sons, and no man has ever done such works of prowess as did they; then home they come again with much wealth won in war.
Sigurd gave of the serpent's heart to Gudrun, and she ate thereof, and became greater-hearted, and wiser than ere before: and the son of these twain was called Sigmund".
For some time they lived happily, Brynhild became a wife of Gudrun's brothee, Gunnar. However, one day Brynhild and Gudrun quarelled, and Gudrun said the truth about who had crossed the flames and proposed to Brynhild. That enraged her, and Brynhild decided to revenege. Gunnar had Sigurd killed, Gudrun's son also died. Brynhild predicted the bad end to Gudrun and all her family.
Later Gudrun married king Atli. As he was reslonsible for the death of her family, Gudrun took revenge for her by killing her and Atli's children.
"Then the king asked where his sons were, and Gudrun answered, "I will tell thee, and gladden thine heart by the telling; lo now, thou didst make a great woe spring up for me in the slaying of my brethren; now hearken and hear my rede and my deed; thou hast lost thy sons, and their heads are become beakers on the board here, and thou thyself hast drunken the blood of them blended with wine; and their hearts I took and roasted them on a spit, and thou hast eaten thereof."
Gudrun killed Atli and later tried to drown herself by jumping into the sea, but it didn't happen. The waves carried her to another place, where she married again, had three sons and where her daughter from Sigurd, Svanhild, was brought up. Unfortunately, Svanhild died and then died all her brothers, and Gudrun was mournful.
"To three men was I wedded, and first to Sigurd Fafnir's-bane, and he was bewrayed and slain, and of all griefs was that the greatest grief. Then was I given to King Atli, and so fell was my heart toward him that I slew in the fury of my grief his children and mine. Then gave I myself to the sea, but the billows thereof cast me out aland, and to this king then was I given; then gave I Swanhild away out of the land with mighty wealth; and lo, my next greatest sorrow after Sigurd, for under horses feet was she trodden and slain; but the grimmest and ugliest of woes was the casting of Gunnar into the Worm-close, and the hardest was the cutting of Hogni's heart from him.
"Ah, better would it be if Sigurd came to meet me, and I went my ways with him, for here bideth now behind with me neither son nor daughter to comfort me. Oh, mindest thou not, Sigurd, the words we spoke when we went into one bed together, that thou wouldst come and look on me; yea, even from thine abiding place among the dead?"
Gudrun had a very difficult life. In the very beginning, she was a lovely, beautiful and kind girl, but later she became evil and cruel. From that nice girld she turned into a demoness. The origin of her name shows her fate, it means battle and mistery, sign, rune.
In her desire to avenge she was unstoppable. She killed her own sons and felt no remorse. She was full of hate and anger.
Sources:
Comments