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Gripisspo

  Sigurth spake:
46. "What may for the bride  requital be,
The wife we won  with subtle wiles?
From me she has  the oaths I made,
And kept not long;  they gladdened her little."

  Gripir spake:
47.[1] "To Gunnar soon  his bride will say
That ill didst thou  thine oath fulfill,
When the goodly king,  the son of Gjuki,
With all his heart  the hero trusted."

  Sigurth spake:
48. "What sayst thou, Gripir?  give me the truth!
Am I guilty so  as now is said,


    famous quarrel between herself and Guthrun at the bath (another reminiscence of the German story), when she taunts Guthrun with Sigurth's inferiority to Gunnar, and Guthrun retorts with the statement that it was Sigurth, and not Gunnar, who rode through the flames.

  1. Brynhild tells Gunnar that Sigurth really possessed her during the three nights when he slept by her in Gunnar's form, thus violating his oath. Here again there is a confusion of two traditions. If Sigurth did not meet Brynhild until after his oath to Gunnar (cf. note on stanza 13), Brynhild's charge is entirely false, as she herself admits in Helreith Brynhildar. On the other hand, according to the version in which Sigurth finds Brynhild before he meets Gjuki's sons, their union was not only completed, but she had by him a daughter, Aslaug, whome she leaves in Heimir's charge before going to become Gunnar's wife. This is the Volsungasaga version, and thus the statement Brynhild makes to Gunnar, as a result of which Sigurth is slain, is quite true.

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