Guthrunarkvitha I — The First Lay of Guthrun

From the Poetic Edda, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

The Guðrúnarkviða I (Old Norse: "The First Lay of Guthrun") is the twenty-seventh poem of the Poetic Edda in the Codex Regius ordering — a lament of extraordinary emotional power. Sigurth is dead. Guthrun sits beside the body, unable to weep. The warriors and women of the court come to comfort her, each speaking of their own sorrows: Gjaflaug, Gjuki's sister, has lost five husbands and eight brothers; Herborg, queen of the Huns, has lost seven sons and a husband in battle, then been taken captive and enslaved. None can break through. It is only when Gollrond, Gjuki's daughter, lifts the shroud from Sigurth's body and places his head on Guthrun's knees — only when she looks at the clotted blood, the blinded eyes, the breast that the blade had pierced — that the tears come at last.

The poem is among the finest in the entire collection, with an emotional intensity that few other Eddic poems match. Though probably composed around the year 1000 or somewhat later — making it one of the latest poems in the Codex Regius — it likely represents one of the earliest parts of the Sigurth cycle to take on verse form. The lament of the hero's wife was among the oldest Germanic lyric traditions, traceable in form to at least the seventh century. Twenty-five stanzas and two prose passages survive, apparently complete and with few interpolations. Brynhild appears only as Guthrun's enemy; the three women who attempt comfort seem to be the poet's own creations rather than figures from the inherited tradition.

This is Henry Adams Bellows' translation from The Poetic Edda (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923). The translation was verified against the sacred-texts.com digitised edition, transcribed from the original 1923 printed text. One digitization error corrected ("older than he first" → "older than the first").

Introductory Note

The First Lay of Guthrun, entitled in the Codex Regius simply Guthrunarkvitha, immediately follows the remaining fragment of the "long" Sigurth lay in that manuscript. Unlike the poems dealing with the earlier part of the Sigurth cycle, the so-called Reginsmol, Fafnismol, and Sigrdrifumol, it is a clear and distinct unit, apparently complete and with few and minor interpolations. It is also one of the finest poems in the entire collection, with an extraordinary emotional intensity and dramatic force. None of its stanzas are quoted elsewhere, and it is altogether probable that the compilers of the Volsungasaga were unfamiliar with it, for they do not mention the sister and daughter of Gjuki who appear in this poem, or Herborg, "queen of the Huns" (stanza 6).

The lament of Guthrun (Kriemhild) is almost certainly among the oldest parts of the story. The lament was one of the earliest forms of poetry to develop among the Germanic peoples, and I suspect, though the matter is not susceptible of proof, that the lament of Sigurth's wife had assumed lyric form as early as the seventh century, and reached the North in that shape rather than in prose tradition (cf. Guthrunarkvitha II, introductory note). We find traces of it in the seventeenth Aventiure of the Nibelungenlied, and in the poems of the Edda it dominates every appearance of Guthrun. The two first Guthrun lays (I and II) are both laments, one for Sigurth's death and the other including both that and the lament over the slaying of her brothers; the lament theme is apparent in the third Guthrun lay and in the Guthrunarhvot.

In their present forms the second Guthrun lay is undoubtedly older than the first; in the prose following the Brot the annotator refers to the "old" Guthrun lay in terms which can apply only to the second one in the collection. The shorter and "first" lay, therefore, can scarcely have been composed much before the year 1000, and may be somewhat later. The poet appears to have known and made use of the older lament; stanza 17, for example, is a close parallel to stanza 2 of the earlier poem; but whatever material he used he fitted into a definite poetic scheme of his own. And while this particular poem is, as critics have generally agreed, one of the latest of the collection, it probably represents one of the earliest parts of the entire Sigurth cycle to take on verse form.

Guthrunarkvitha I, so far as the narrative underlying it is concerned, shows very little northern addition to the basic German tradition. Brynhild appears only as Guthrun's enemy and the cause of Sigurth's death; the three women who attempt to comfort Guthrun, though unknown to the southern stories, seem to have been rather distinct creations of the poet's than traditional additions to the legend. Regarding the relations of the various elements in the Sigurth cycle, cf. introductory note to Gripisspo.

The First Lay of Guthrun

Guthrun sat by the dead Sigurth; she did not weep as other women, but her heart was near to bursting with grief. The men and women came to her to console her, but that was not easy to do. It is told of men that Guthrun had eaten of Fafnir's heart, and that she understood the speech of birds. This is a poem about Guthrun.

Then did Guthrun | think to die,
When she by Sigurth | sorrowing sat;
Tears she had not, | nor wrung her hands,
Nor ever wailed, | as other women.

To her the warriors | wise there came,
Longing her heavy | woe to lighten;
Grieving could not | Guthrun weep,
So sad her heart, | it seemed, would break.

Then the wives | of the warriors came,
Gold-adorned, | and Guthrun sought;
Each one then | of her own grief spoke,
The bitterest pain | she had ever borne.

Then spake Gjaflaug, Gjuki's sister:

"Most joyless of all | on earth am I;
Husbands five | were from me taken,
(Two daughters then, | and sisters three,)
Brothers eight, | yet I have lived."

Grieving could not | Guthrun weep,
Such grief she had | for her husband dead,
And so grim her heart | by the hero's body.

Then Herborg spake, the queen of the Huns:

"I have a greater | grief to tell;
My seven sons | in the southern land,
And my husband, fell | in fight all eight.

"(Father and mother | and brothers four
Amid the waves | the wind once smote,
And the seas crashed through | the sides of the ship.)

"The bodies all | with my own hands then
I decked for the grave, | and the dead I buried;
A half-year brought me | this to bear;
And no one came | to comfort me.

"Then bound I was, | and taken in war,
A sorrow yet | in the same half-year;
They bade me deck | and bind the shoes
Of the wife of the monarch | every morn.

"In jealous rage | her wrath she spake,
And beat me oft | with heavy blows;
Never a better | lord I knew,
And never a woman | worse I found."

Grieving could not | Guthrun weep,
Such grief she had | for her husband dead,
And so grim her heart | by the hero's body.

Then spake Gollrond, Gjuki's daughter:

"Thy wisdom finds not, | my foster-mother,
The way to comfort | the wife so young."
She bade them uncover | the warrior's corpse.

The shroud she lifted | from Sigurth, laying
His well-loved head | on the knees of his wife:
"Look on thy loved one, | and lay thy lips
To his as if yet | the hero lived."

Once alone did | Guthrun look;
His hair all clotted | with blood beheld,
The blinded eyes | that once shone bright,
The hero's breast | that the blade had pierced.

Then Guthrun bent, | on her pillow bowed,
Her hair was loosened, | her cheek was hot,
And the tears like raindrops | downward ran.

Then Guthrun, daughter | of Gjuki, wept,
And through her tresses | flowed the tears;
And from the court | came the cry of geese,
The birds so fair | of the hero's bride.

Then Gollrond spake, the daughter of Gjuki:

"Never a greater | love I knew
Than yours among | all men on earth;
Nowhere wast happy, | at home or abroad,
Sister mine, | with Sigurth away."

Guthrun spake:

"So was my Sigurth | o'er Gjuki's sons
As the spear-leek grown | above the grass,
Or the jewel bright | borne on the band,
The precious stone | that princes wear.

"To the leader of men | I loftier seemed
And higher than all | of Herjan's maids;
As little now | as the leaf I am
On the willow hanging; | my hero is dead.

"In his seat, in his bed, | I see no more
My heart's true friend; | the fault is theirs,
The sons of Gjuki, | for all my grief,
That so their sister | sorely weeps.

"In the court was greater | gladness then
The day my Sigurth | Grani saddled,
And went forth Brynhild's | hand to win,
That woman ill, | in an evil hour."

Then Brynhild spake, the daughter of Buthli:

"May the witch now husband | and children want
Who, Guthrun, loosed | thy tears at last,
And with magic today | hath made thee speak."

Then Gollrond, daughter of Gjuki, spake:

Then Brynhild, daughter of Buthli, spake:

By the pillars she stood, | and gathered her strength,
From the eyes of Brynhild, | Buthli's daughter,
Fire there burned, | and venom she breathed,
When the wounds she saw | on Sigurth then.

Guthrun went thence away to a forest in the waste, and journeyed all the way to Denmark, and was there seven half-years with Thora, daughter of Hokon. Brynhild would not live after Sigurth. She had eight of her thralls slain and five serving-women. Then she killed herself with a sword, as is told in the Short Lay of Sigurth.

Colophon

The Guðrúnarkviða I ("The First Lay of Guthrun") is the twenty-seventh poem of the Poetic Edda in the Codex Regius ordering — a lament of extraordinary emotional power and dramatic force, widely regarded as one of the finest poems in the entire collection. The poet's achievement lies in the structure: grief is approached through the griefs of others, each more terrible than the last, and still Guthrun cannot weep — until the shroud is lifted and she sees Sigurth's body. The tears, when they finally come, bring with them the cry of geese from the courtyard and one of the most devastating speeches in Old Norse poetry: her husband was the spear-leek above the grass, the jewel on the band; now she is the leaf on the willow.

Translated by Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923). Digitised text from sacred-texts.com. One digitization error corrected ("older than he first" → "older than the first", Introductory Note).

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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