Guðrúnarhvöt is one of the heroic poems of the '' Poetic Edda''.

Gudrun Gudrun ( ; ) or Kriemhild ( ; ) is the wife of Sigurd/Siegfried and a major figure in Germanic heroic legend and literature. She is believed to have her origins in Ildico, last wife of Attila the Hun, and two queens of the Merovingian dyn ...

had been married to the hero Sigurd and with him she had the daughter Svanhild. Svanhild had married the Gothic king Ermanaric (''Jörmunrekkr''), but betrayed him with the king's son, Randver. Furious Ermanaric hanged his own son and had Svanhild trampled to death by horses. Gudrun wants to avenge her daughter and she agitates her sons Hamdir and Sörli, her sons with King Jonakr by telling them about her fate. They depart for their fateful vengeance, a story that is told in the ''

Hamðismál The Hamðismál is a poem which ends the Germanic heroic legend, heroic poetry of the ''Poetic Edda'', and thereby the whole collection. Gudrun had been the wife of the hero Sigurd, whom her brothers had killed. With Sigurd she had had the daughte ...

'', the last poem of the ''Poetic Edda''.

Sources and historic basis

The legend of Jörmunrek appears in the '' Poetic Edda'' as ''

'' and ''Guðrúnarhvöt''. It also appears in

Bragi Boddason Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old (Old Norse language, Old Norse: ''Bragi hinn gamli'') was a Norwegian skald active in the first half of the 9th century in poetry, 9th century, the earliest known skald from whom verses have survived. Portio ...

's '' Ragnarsdrápa'', in the '' Völsunga saga'' and in '' Gesta Danorum''.

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

wrote in 551 that the Gothic king Ermanaric was upset with the attack of a subordinate king and had his wife Sunilda (i.e. Svanhild) torn to pieces by horses, and as revenge Ermanaric was pierced with spears by her brothers Ammius (Hamdir) and Sarus (Sörli) and died from the wounds. The '' Annals of Quedlinburg'' (end of the 10th century) relates that the brothers Hemidus (Hamdir), Serila (Sörli) and Adaccar (Erp/ Odoacer) had cut off the hands of Ermanarik.

References

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

* Nordisk familjebok

External links

Guðrúnarhvöt
English translation by Benjamin Thorpe
Guðrúnarhvöt
and th
Poetic Edda
in Old Norse from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gudrunarhvot Eddic poetry Nibelung tradition Völsung cycle