113-530: Brunhild , also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild ( Old Norse : Brynhildr [ˈbrynˌhildz̠] , Middle High German : Brünhilt , Modern German : Brünhild or Brünhilde ), is a female character from Germanic heroic legend . She may have her origins in the Visigothic princess and queen Brunhilda of Austrasia . In the Norse tradition, Brunhild is a shieldmaiden or valkyrie , who appears as
226-727: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse
339-536: A development "would have had to have taken place gradually", and Edda in the sense of 'poetics' is not likely to have existed in the preliterary period. Edda also means 'great-grandparent', a word that appears in Skáldskaparmál , which occurs as the name of a figure in the eddic poem Rigsthula and in other medieval texts. A final hypothesis is derived from the Latin edo , meaning "I write". It relies on
452-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within
565-583: A feud that lasted until 613, when Chilperic's son Chlothar II captured and killed her. If this theory is correct, then Brunhild has essentially taken the role of Fredegund in the Nibelungen story while maintaining Brunhilda of Austrasia's name. A less widely accepted theory locates the origins of the Brunhild figure in the story of the Ostrogothic general Uraias . Uraias's wife insulted the wife of
678-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has
791-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive
904-612: A hall with a wall of fire around her. One day, Gunnar comes and sues for her hand, but she refuses. Then Sigurd comes, breaks through the wall of fire, and they sleep together. When he leaves, however, Gudrun and her mother Grimhild cast a spell on Sigurd so that he forgets Brunhild and marries Gudrun. Some time later Brunhild and Gudrun argue in the bath, with Gudrun refusing to share water with Brunhild. She reminds Brunhild that Sigurd took her virginity, whereupon Brunhild tells Högni (or in some versions, Gunnar) to kill Sigurd. Budli tries unsuccessfully to change his daughter's mind; once Sigurd
1017-662: A long conversation with Gunnar in which she prophesies the future. According to her wish, she is burned on the same pyre as Sigurd. Brunhild lived on as a character in several late medieval and early modern Scandinavian ballads. These often have sources both from the Scandinavian tradition and from the continental tradition, either via the Thidrekssaga or directly from German sources. In the Danish ballad Sivard og Brynild ( DgF 3, TSB E 101), Sigurd wins Brunhild on
1130-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,
1243-603: A main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. In the continental Germanic tradition, where she is a central character in the Nibelungenlied , she is a powerful Amazon-like queen. In both traditions, she is instrumental in bringing about the death of the hero Sigurd or Siegfried after he deceives her into marrying the Burgundian king Gunther or Gunnar . In both traditions,
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#17327910030881356-413: A man came who knew no fear. Odin places the sleeping Brunhild on mount Hindarfjall and surrounds her with a wall of shields. Eventually, Sigurd comes and awakens Brunhild. She makes foreboding prophecies and imparts wisdom to him. The two promise to marry each other. After this, Brunhild returns to Heimir. One day while Sigurd is hunting, his hawk flies up and lands at the window of the tower where Brunhild
1469-413: A man who rides through the flame. Gunnar is unable to do this, and Sigurd switches shapes with him, riding through the flames. Sigurd then weds Brunhild as Gunnar, but places a sword between the two of them on their wedding night. The next morning, he gives Brunhild a ring from the hoard of the Nibelungen, and Brunhild gives him a ring in return. Gunnar and Sigurd then return to their own shapes and return to
1582-465: A messenger to travel to Worms to inform the Burgundians. The messenger is received by Brunhild, who admits her responsibility for Siegfried's death and is shown to be greatly saddened by Gunther's death. She calls together all the nobles of the realm to decide on a course of action. Following a period of mourning, Brunhild and Gunther's son Siegfried is crowned as the new king of the Burgundians. In
1695-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to
1808-456: A potion to forget his previous vows to Brunhild, aids him. Brunhild can only be wed by a man who will ride through the flames around her tower; Gunnar is unable to do this, so Sigurd takes his shape and performs the deed for him. While Brunhild is reluctant to marry Gunnar, Sigurd in his disguise reminds her of her vow to marry the man who can cross the flames. The two then wed and Sigurd places his sword between them for three nights while they share
1921-427: A prose interlude, tells how she had disobeyed Odin who then demanded she marry. She refused and said she would only marry a man without fear. She proceeds to teach Sigurd wisdom and the runes. The condition that Sigrdrífa will only marry a man without fear is the same as Brunhild will later make, perhaps pointing to the two figures originally being identical. Brot af Sigurðarkviðu is only preserved fragmentarily:
2034-406: A series of three feats of strength that any suitor for her hand must complete; should the suitor fail any one of these feats, she will kill him. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther by using his cloak of invisibility ( Tarnkappe ) to aid Gunther during the challenges, while Gunther will simply pretend to accomplish them himself. He and Gunther agree that Siegfried will claim to be Gunther's vassal during
2147-476: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after
2260-608: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It
2373-467: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created
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#17327910030882486-596: A wide variety of sources, including versions of poems that survive into today in a collection known as the Poetic Edda . The Prose Edda consists of four sections: The Prologue , a euhemerized account of the Norse gods; Gylfaginning , which provides a question and answer format that details aspects of Norse mythology (consisting of approximately 20,000 words), Skáldskaparmál , which continues this format before providing lists of kennings and heiti (approximately 50,000 words); and Háttatal , which discusses
2599-405: A woman sleeping wearing armor. He cuts the armor from her, and she wakes up, and says that she was a valkyrie named Hild, but called Brunhild. Sigurd then rides away. Later, Sigurd brings Gunnar to Brunhild's brother Atli to ask for Brunhild's hand in marriage. Brunhild lives on a mountain called Hindarfjall, where she is surrounded by a wall of flame. Atli tells them that Brunhild will only marry
2712-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding
2825-470: Is "unlikely, both in terms of linguistics and history " since Snorri was no longer living at Oddi when he composed his work. Another connection was made with the word óðr , which means 'poetry or inspiration' in Old Norse. According to Faulkes, though such a connection is plausible semantically, it is unlikely that "Edda" could have been coined in the 13th century on the basis of "óðr", because such
2938-591: Is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some extent written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar, lawspeaker , and historian Snorri Sturluson c. 1220. It is considered the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology , the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples , and draws from
3051-426: Is called Edda. Snorri Sturluson has compiled it in the manner in which it is arranged here. There is first told about the Æsir and Ymir, then Skáldskaparmál (‘poetic diction’) and (poetical) names of many things, finally Háttatal ('enumeration of metres or verse-forms') which Snorri has composed about King Hákon and Earl Skúli . Scholars have noted that this attribution, along with that of other primary manuscripts,
3164-544: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke
3277-403: Is dead, Brunhild collapses in grief. The Nibelungenlied (c. 1200) represents the first attestation of Brunhild in either the continental or Scandinavian traditions. The German Brunhild was nevertheless still associated with Scandinavia, as shown by her kingdom being located on Island ( Iceland ). It has been suggested that this may show knowledge of Norse traditions about Brunhild. In general,
3390-465: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At
3503-403: Is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian
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3616-568: Is impossible. Much of the Brunhild material is taken to have a relatively recent origin. In Grípisspá , Sigurd receives a prophecy of his life from his uncle Grípir. Among the prophesied actions are that he will awaken a valkyrie who will teach him the runes. Later, he will betroth himself to Brunhild at the court of Heimir. He will marry Gudrun but then aid Gunnar in wooing Brunhild, marrying but not sleeping with her. She, however, will later accuse Sigurd of taking her virginity and have him killed. The poem appears to distinguish between Sigrdrífa in
3729-560: Is included here. The saga-author can nonetheless be shown to have changed some details to accord with Scandinavian traditions, of which he was aware. According to the Thidrekssaga , Brunhild is the daughter of king Heimir and lives in the castle of Saegard in Swabia . There she runs a stud farm that produces excellent horses. Sigurd encounters Brunhild shortly after he has killed the dragon Regin; he breaks into her castle and kills several of her warriors, but Brunhild recognizes Sigurd, tells him
3842-498: Is known as "Hild under the helmet" ( Hildr und hjálmi ) and is raised to be a shieldmaiden or valkyrie. When she is twelve years old, King Agnar steals Brunhild's magical swan shirt, and she is forced to swear an oath of loyalty to him. This causes her to intervene on Angar's behalf when he is fighting Hjálmgunnar, despite Odin's desire for Hjálmgunnar to win. As punishment, Odin stuck her with a sleep thorn and declared that she must marry. She swore that she would not awaken to marry unless
3955-453: Is living. Sigurd feels love when he sees her and, despite her insistence she wants only to fight as a warrior, convinces her to renew her vow to marry him. Meanwhile, Gudrun has had a foreboding dream and goes to Brunhild to have her interpret it. Brunhild tells Gudrun all of the misfortune that will befall her. Soon afterward, Gunnar, Gudrun's brother, decides to woo Brunhild to be his wife. Sigurd, who has married Gudrun after having been given
4068-406: Is mentioned that Brunhild and Gunther have a son, whom they name Siegfried. Some years later, Brunhild, still disturbed by Siegfried's failure to behave as a vassal, convinces Gunther to invite Siegfried and Kriemhild to Worms. Once the guests arrive, Brunhild becomes increasingly insistent that her husband is superior to Kriemhild's. This culminates when the two queens encounter each other in front of
4181-584: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to
4294-461: Is not clear whether or not Snorri is more than the compiler of the work and the author of Háttatal or if he is the author of the entire Edda . Faulkes summarizes the matter of scholarly discourse around the authorship of the Prose Edda as follows: Whatever the case, the mention of Snorri in the manuscripts has been influential in a common acceptance of Snorri as the author or at least one of
4407-516: Is only able to subdue Brunhild due to the Tarnkappe granting him the strength of twelve men. Gunther is secretly present during all of this, and is able to confirm that Siegfried did not sleep with Brunhild. Once Siegfried has subdued Brunhild, Gunther takes Siegfried's place and takes Brunhild's virginity, which results in the loss of her superhuman strength. As a trophy, Siegfried takes Brunhild's ring and belt, which he later gives to Kriemhild. It
4520-459: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of
4633-484: Is the last section of Prose Edda . The section is composed by the Icelandic poet , politician, and historian Snorri Sturluson . Primarily using his own compositions, it exemplifies the types of verse forms used in Old Norse poetry. Snorri took a prescriptive as well as descriptive approach; he has systematized the material, often noting that the older poets did not always follow his rules. The Prose Edda has been
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4746-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩
4859-506: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on
4972-586: The Rosengarten zu Worms version D (after 1250), Brunhild is mentioned as among the spectators watching the tournament in Kriemhild's rose garden. Although the Þiðrekssaga (c. 1250) is written in Old Norse, the majority of the material is translated from German (particularly Low German ) oral tales, as well as possibly some from German written sources such as the Nibelungenlied . Therefore, it
5085-470: The Faroe Islands , Brynhildar táttur (the song of Brynhild, TSB E 100), also tells a version of the story of Brunhild. The original form of this ballad likely dates to the fourteenth century, though it is clear that many variants have been influenced by the Danish ballads. In the ballad, Brunhild refuses all suitors; she will only marry Sigurd. To attract him, she tells her father Budli to create
5198-477: The Hel , the Scandinavian underworld. On her way, she encounters a giant who accuses her of having blood on her hands. In response, Brunhild tells the story of her life, defending herself and justifying her actions. She accuses the Burgundians of having deceived her. Brunhild hopes to spend the afterlife together with Sigurd. As Brunhild narrates her life, she is clearly identified with the valkyrie Sigrdrífa and combines
5311-484: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation
5424-549: The Poetic Edda . The etymology of "Edda" remains uncertain; there are many hypotheses about its meaning and development, yet little agreement. Some argue that the word derives from the name of Oddi , a town in the south of Iceland where Snorri was raised. Edda could therefore mean "book of Oddi." However, this assumption is generally rejected. Anthony Faulkes in his English translation of the Prose Edda comments that this
5537-529: The Poetic Edda . It follows the plot given in the Poetic Edda fairly closely, although there is no indication that the author knew the other text. The author appears to have been working in Norway and to have known the Thidrekssaga (c. 1250), a translation of continental Germanic traditions into Old Norse (see § Þiðrekssaga ). Therefore, the Völsunga Saga is dated to sometime in the second half of
5650-667: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks
5763-562: The Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse
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#17327910030885876-668: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for
5989-417: The "glass mountain" and then gives her to his friend Hagen. One day, Brunhild fights with Sigurd's wife Signild, and Signild shows Brunhild a ring that Brunhild had given Sigurd as a love gift. Brynhild then tells Hagen to kill Sigurd, and Hagen does this by first borrowing Sigurd's sword then killing him with it. He then shows Brunhild Sigurd's head and kills her too when she offers him her love. A ballad from
6102-557: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within
6215-979: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants
6328-668: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian
6441-528: The Codex Upsaliensis: The other three manuscripts are AM 748; AM 757 a 4to; and AM 738 II 4to, AM le ß fol. Although some scholars have doubted whether a sound stemma of the manuscripts can be created, due to the possibility of scribes drawing on multiple exemplars or from memory, recent work has found that the main sources of each manuscript can be fairly readily ascertained. The Prose Edda' remained fairly unknown outside of Iceland until
6554-572: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French
6667-520: The Ostrogothic king Ildibad , and the king's wife then had Uraias murdered. Brunhild was a popular figure in Scandinavia , with traditions about her firmly attested around 1220 with the composition of the Prose Edda . The Scandinavian tradition about Brunhild shows knowledge of the continental Germanic traditions as well. The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson is the earliest attestation of
6780-541: The Prologue in the Prose Edda . Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Nordic gods , and many other aspects of Norse mythology . The section is written in prose interspersed with quotes from eddic poetry. Skáldskaparmál (Old Icelandic 'the language of poetry' ) is the third section of Edda , and consists of a dialogue between Ægir , a jötunn who is one of various personifications of
6893-458: The Scandinavian version of Brunhild's life, dating to around 1220. Snorri tells the story of Brunhild in several chapters of the section of the poem called Skáldskaparsmál . His presentation of the story is very similar to that found in the Völsunga saga (see below), but is considerably shorter. After Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir, he rides up to a house on a mountain, inside of which he finds
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#17327910030887006-473: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused
7119-442: The accusation that she is responsible for Sigurd's death and accuses her brother Atli of responsibility. In a prose section at the close of the poem, Brunhild commits suicide with several slaves. The dialogue between Brunhild and Gudrun is characterized by immense hostility, and Brunhild is portrayed as evil. Sigurðarkviða hin skamma repeats the story of Sigurd once again. Sigurd wins Brunhild for Gunnar and weds her for him, but
7232-591: The association with Iceland being secondary. Her kingdom is twelve days journey by boat from the Burgundian capital of Worms , marking her as living outside the bounds of courtly society. Brunhild is introduced to the story when word of her immense beauty reaches Worms one day, and King Gunther decides he wishes to marry her. Siegfried , who is familiar with Brunhild, advises him against this marriage, but Gunther convinces Siegfried to help him woo Brunhild by promising to let Siegfried marry Gunther's sister Kriemhild. Gunther needs Siegfried's help because Brunhild has set
7345-504: The authors of the Edda . The Prologue is the first section of four books of the Prose Edda , consisting of a euhemerized Christian account of the origins of Norse mythology : the Nordic gods are described as human Trojan warriors who left Troy after the fall of that city (an origin which parallels Virgil's Aeneid ). Gylfaginning (Old Icelandic 'the tricking of Gylfi ') follows
7458-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,
7571-477: The birds who tell him to go to a palace where the valkyrie Sigrdrífa sleeps surrounded by flames. In Sigrdrífumál , Sigurd rides to the mountain Hindarfjall, where he sees a wall of shields that surround a sleeping woman. The woman is wearing armor that seems to have grown into her skin, and Sigurd uses his sword to cut it open. This awakens the maiden, who explains that she is the valkyrie Sigrdrífa and, in
7684-484: The case. However, Brunhild convinces Gunther to murder Siegfried nonetheless. The deed itself is carried out by the Burgundian vassal Hagen , who justifies his action with the sorrow that Siegfried has caused Brunhild. After this point, Brunhild plays no further role in the story. She is shown to be glad at Kriemhild's suffering, and to continue to hold a grudge against her much later in the text. Her disappearance in
7797-402: The cathedral at Worms, and fight over who has the right to enter first. Brunhild declares that Kriemhild is the wife of a vassal, to which Kriemhild replies that Siegfried has taken Brunhild's virginity, showing her the belt and ring as proof. Brunhild bursts into tears and Kriemhild enters the church before her. Brunhild then goes to Gunther and Gunther forces Siegfried to confirm that this is not
7910-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/
8023-417: The composition of traditional skaldic poetry (approximately 20,000 words). Dating from c. 1300 to 1600, seven manuscripts of the Prose Edda differ from one another in notable ways, which provides researchers with independent textual value for analysis. The Prose Edda appears to have functioned similarly to a contemporary textbook, with the goal of assisting Icelandic poets and readers in understanding
8136-481: The context of the heroic tradition, the first element of her name may be connected to Brunhild's role as a shieldmaiden . In the Eddic poem Helreið Brynhildar , the valkyrie Sigrdrífa from Sigrdrífumál is identified with Brunhild. This name consists of the elements sigr and drífa and can be translated as "driver to victory". It could simply be a synonym for valkyrie . The most popular theory about
8249-442: The court of Gunnar's father Gjuki. Some time later, Brunhild and Gudrun quarrel while washing their hair in the river. Brunhild says that she does not want the water that passes through Gudrun's hair to touch her own, because her husband Gunnar is braver. Gudrun replies with Sigurd's deeds of killing the dragon, but Brunhild says that only Gunnar had dared to ride through the wall of flame. Then Gudrun reveals to Brunhild that Sigurd
8362-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it
8475-581: The drafting of the Edda of Snorri), and so the Poetic Edda is also known as the Elder Edda. Seven manuscripts of the Prose Edda have survived into the present day: Six copies from the medieval period and another dating to the 1600s. No one manuscript is complete, and each has variations. In addition to three fragments, the four main manuscripts are Codex Regius, Codex Wormianus , Codex Trajectinus, and
8588-768: The fact that the word "kredda" (meaning "belief") is certified and comes from the Latin "credo" , meaning 'I believe'. Edda in this case could be translated as "Poetic Art". This is the meaning that the word was then given in the medieval period. The now uncommonly used name Sæmundar Edda was given by the Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson to the collection of poems contained in the Codex Regius , many of which are quoted by Snorri. Brynjólfur, along with many others of his time incorrectly believed that they were collected by Sæmundr fróði (therefore before
8701-412: The figure have been inspired or influenced by Wagner's depiction. Brunhild has been called "the paramount figure of Germanic legend." The Nibelungenlied introduces her by saying: Ez was ein küneginne gesezzen über sê. ir gelîche enheine man wesse ninder mê. diu was unmâzen schoene. vil michel was ir kraft. si schôz mit snellen degenen umbe minne den schaft. There was a queen who resided over
8814-403: The following Sigrdrífumál and Brunhild as two different women. It also seems to identify Sigrdrífa with the valkyrie Sigrún from the preceding poems in the Edda about Helgi Hundingsbane . It is generally taken to be a late poem that was written on the basis of the other poems about Sigurd's life. In Fáfnismál , once Sigurd has tasted the blood of the dragon Fafnir , Sigurd understands
8927-411: The future misfortunes of Gudrun and Gunnar. Finally, she asks to be burned on the same pyre as Sigurd. Although the title indicates the poem is about Sigurd, the majority of the poem is actually concerned with Brunhild, who justifies her actions. The song is generally thought to be a recent composition. At the beginning of Helreið Brynhildar , Brunhild's corpse is burned and she begins her journey to
9040-463: The immediate cause for her desire to have Siegfried murdered is a quarrel with the hero's wife, Gudrun or Kriemhild . In the Scandinavian tradition, but not in the continental tradition, Brunhild kills herself after Sigurd's death. Richard Wagner made Brunhild (as Brünnhilde ) an important character in his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen . The majority of modern conceptions of
9153-400: The literature that attests the continental tradition shows far less interest in Brunhild than the surviving Scandinavian material. In the Nibelungenlied , Brunhild is first presented as the ruling queen of Îsland (Iceland) from her castle of Îsenstein (iron-stone). Some manuscripts spell the name of her kingdom Îsenlant (iron-land), and it is possible that this is the original form, with
9266-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If
9379-435: The marriage bed. Sigurd and Gunnar return to their normal shapes and take Brunhild back to Gunnar's hall. One day, Brunhild and Gudrun are bathing at a river; Brunhild declares that she should not have to use the same water as Gudrun, as her husband is the more important man. Gudrun then reveals that Sigurd had crossed the flames and not Gunnar, and shows a ring that Sigurd had taken from Brunhild and given to her. The next day,
9492-490: The marriage on the wedding night, and Sigurd must take Gunther's place (and shape) to take her virginity for Gunnar, which robs her of her strength. Old Norse language Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with
9605-730: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse
9718-438: The names of his parents, and gives him the horse Grani before he leaves. Later, Sigurd, who has gone to the court of the Burgundians (called Niflungs), advises Gunnar (Gunther) to marry Brunhild, and the two go to see her. She is angered that Sigurd has not kept his promise to marry only her—something which was not mentioned in their previous encounter—but Sigurd persuades her to marry Gunnar. She nevertheless refuses to consummate
9831-514: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around
9944-529: The origins of the legendary Brunhild is that she originates from two historical figures of the Merovingian dynasty : Brunhilda of Austrasia , a Visigothic princess who married the Frankish king Sigebert I , and Fredegund , who was married to Sigebert's brother Chilperic I . Frankish historian Gregory of Tours blames Fredegund for Sigebert's murder in 575, after which Fredegund and Brunhild carried on
10057-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having
10170-628: The publication of the Edda Islandorum in 1665. The text is generally considered to have been written or at least compiled by Snorri Sturluson . This identification is largely based on the following paragraph from a portion of Codex Upsaliensis, an early 14th-century manuscript containing the Edda : Bók þessi heitir Edda. Hana hefir saman setta Snorri Sturluson eptir þeim hætti sem hér er skipat. Er fyrst frá Ásum ok Ymi, þar næst Skáldskaparmál ok heiti margra hluta, síðast Háttatal er Snorri hefir ort um Hákon konung ok Skúla hertuga. This book
10283-553: The queens continue their quarrel in the king's hall. Brunhild is so full of pain that she takes to bed. She demands vengeance against Sigurd, despite Gunnar's attempts to pacify her. Sigurd comes and confesses his love for her, offering to leave Gudrun to be with her, but Brunhild refuses. Afterwards, she demands that Gunnar kill Sigurd. Once the deed is done, Brunhild laughs loudly when she hears Gudrun's cry of lament. She reveals that she had slandered Sigurd by claiming that he had slept with her. She then stabs herself, and while dying holds
10396-435: The relationship between Sigurd and Brunhild, which seems to have been of special interest to the compiler. Generally, none of the poems in the collection is thought to be older than 900 AD and some appear to have been written in the thirteenth century. It is also possible that apparently old poems have been written in an archaicizing style and that apparently recent poems are reworkings of older material, so that reliable dating
10509-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because
10622-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains
10735-455: The same time that Brunhild marries Gunther. Brunhild cries seeing this however, believing that the royal princess Kriemhild has been married to a vassal. On her wedding night, when Gunther attempts to sleep with Brunhild, Brunhild quickly overpowers Gunther, tying him up by his hands and feet with her belt and leaving him hanging on a hook until morning. Gunther is forced to rely on Siegfried again, who takes Gunther's shape using his Tarnkappe and
10848-436: The sea, Whose like no one knew of anywhere. She was exceedingly beautiful and great in physical strength. She shot the shaft with bold knights – love was the prize. The name Brunhild in its various forms is derived from the equivalents of Old High German brunia (armor) and hiltia (conflict). The name is first attested in the sixth century, for the historical Brunhilda of Austrasia , as Brunichildis . In
10961-583: The sea, and Bragi , a skaldic god, in which both Norse mythology and discourse on the nature of poetry are intertwined. The origin of a number of kennings are given and Bragi then delivers a systematic list of kennings for various people, places, and things. Bragi then goes on to discuss poetic language in some detail, in particular heiti , the concept of poetical words which are non-periphrastic, for example "steed" for "horse", and again systematises these. This section contains numerous quotes from skaldic poetry. Háttatal (Old Icelandic "list of verse-forms" )
11074-413: The second half of the epic may reflect the sources of the Nibelungenlied , but it also suggests a lack of interest in the character when she is no longer directly relevant to the story. The Nibelungenklage (c. 1200) is a sort of sequel to the Nibelungenlied that describes how the survivors of the end of the last poem deal with the catastrophe. After the dead are buried, Dietrich von Bern arranges for
11187-409: The story of Sigrdrífa's awakening with Sigurd's wooing for Gunnar as a single event. Odin himself is portrayed as requiring that only a man who knows no fear could awaken her. The song portrays Brunhild as a victim and she achieves a sort of apotheosis at the end. The Völsunga saga tells the fullest version of Brunhild's life in the Scandinavian tradition, explaining many unclear references found in
11300-418: The subtleties of alliterative verse , and to grasp the meaning behind the many kennings used in skaldic poetry. Originally known to scholars simply as Edda , the Prose Edda gained its contemporary name in order to differentiate it from the Poetic Edda . Early scholars of the Prose Edda suspected that there once existed a collection of entire poems, a theory confirmed with the rediscovery of manuscripts of
11413-452: The surviving part of the poem tells the story of Sigurd's murder. Brunhild has evidently accused Sigurd of having slept with her, and this has caused Gunnar and Högni to have their half-brother Guthorm kill Sigurd. Once Sigurd has been murdered, Brunhild rejoices before admitting to Gunnar that Sigurd never slept with her. In Guðrúnarkviða I , Brunhild briefly appears while Gudrun mourns the death of Sigurd. Brunhild defends herself against
11526-404: The thirteenth century. The saga is connected to a second saga, Ragnars saga Loðbrókar , which follows it in the manuscript, by having Ragnar Lodbrok marry Aslaug , daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. According to the saga, Brunhild is the daughter of Budli and the sister of Atli. She is raised at a place called Hlymdalir by her King Heimir, who is married to her sister Bekkhild. At Hlymdalir she
11639-607: The two do not sleep together. Brunhild desires Sigurd, however, and decides to have him killed since she cannot have him. She threatens to leave Gunnar if he does not kill Sigurd, and he agrees. Once Sigurd is dead, Gudrun breaks into a lament, and Brunhild laughs loudly. Gunnar chastises her for this, whereupon Brunhild explains that she never wanted to marry Gunnar and had been forced to by her brother Atli. She had then secretly betrothed herself to Sigurd. Brunhild then gives away all her possessions and kills herself, despite Gunnar's attempts to convince her not to. As she dies, she prophesies
11752-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/
11865-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though
11978-636: The wooing. When Siegfried and Gunther arrive at Isenstein, Brunhild initially assumes that Siegfried is the suitor, but immediately loses interest in him once he claims that he is Gunther's vassal. With Siegfried's help, Gunther is able to accomplish all the feats of strength; although Brunhild initially looks like she might renege on the agreement, Siegfried quickly gathers his men from his kingdom in Nibelungenland and brings them to Isenstein. Gunther and Brunhild then agree to marry. The heroes return to Worms with Brunhild, and Siegfried marries Kriemhild at
12091-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to
12204-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in
12317-583: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of
12430-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut
12543-766: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into
12656-628: Was the one who rode through the wall, producing Brunhild's ring as proof. Brunhild then encourages Gunnar to kill Sigurd, which eventually he does. Once Sigurd is dead, Brunhild kills herself, and is burned on the same pyre as Sigurd. It is possible that Snorri's account of the quarrel between Brunhild and Gudrun derives from a lost Eddic poem. The Poetic Edda , a collection of heroic and mythological Nordic poems, appears to have been compiled around 1270 in Iceland, and assembles mythological and heroic songs of various ages. A large number of poems deal with
12769-492: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Prose Edda The Prose Edda , also known as the Younger Edda , Snorri's Edda ( Icelandic : Snorra Edda ) or, historically, simply as Edda ,
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