Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/100

Gudrun, the weary widow, wandered away. After a while, she accepts atonement from her brothers for her husband's loss, and marries Atli, the Hun king, Brynhildr's brother. He cherished a grudge against Giuki's sons for the guile they had practised against their brother-in-law, which had broken his sister's heart, and besides he claimed, in right of Gudrun, all the gold which Sigurd won from the Dragon, but which the Nifiung Princes had seized when he was slain. It was in vain to attack them in fair fight, so he sent them a friendly message, and invited them to a banquet; they go, and are overpowered. Hogni's heart is cut out of him alive, but he still smiles; Gunnar is cast into a pit full of snakes, but even then charms them to sleep with his harp, all but one, that flies at his heart and stings him to death. With them perished the secret of the Dragon's hoard, which they had thrown into the Rhine as they crossed it on the way to Hun-land. Now comes horror on horror. Revenge for her brothers now belongs to Gudrun; she slays with her own hand her two sons by Atli, makes him eat their flesh, and drink their blood out of their skulls, and, while the king slept sound, slew him in his bed by the help of her brother Hogni's son. Then she set the hall ablaze, and burnt all that were in it. After that she went to the sea-shore, and threw herself in to drown. But the deep will not have her, the billows bear her over to King Jonakr's land. He marries her, and has three sons by her, Saurli, Hamdir, and Erp, black-haired as ravens, like all the Niflungs. Svanhild, her daughter by Sigurd, who had her father's bright and terrible eyes, she has still with her, now grown tip to be the fairest of women. So when Hermanaric the