but thinking that Gunnar had fairly won her, accepted her fate until
Gudrun in spite and jealousy revealed the trick that had been played
on her. Of the treachery of the Giukings Brynhild takes little heed;
but death alone can pay for Sigurd's unconscious betrayal. She tells
Gunnar that Sigurd has broken faith with him, and the Giukings with
some reluctance murder their sister's husband. Brynhild springs on to
the funeral pyre, and dies with Sigurd. _Völsunga_ makes the murder
take place in Sigurd's chamber, and one poem, the _Short Sigurd Lay_,
agrees. The fragment which follows _Sigrdrifumal_, on the other hand,
places the scene in the open air:

"Sigurd was slain south of the Rhine; a raven on a tree called aloud:
'On you will Atli redden the sword; your broken oaths shall destroy
you.' Gudrun Giuki's daughter stood without, and these were the first
words she spoke: 'Where is now Sigurd, the lord of men, that my kinsmen
ride first?' Högni alone made answer: 'We have hewn Sigurd asunder
with the sword; the grey horse still stoops over his dead lord.'"

This agrees with the _Old Gudrun Lay_ and with the Continental German
version, as a prose epilogue points out.

Of the Giuking brothers, Gunnar appears only in a contemptible light:
he gains his bride by treachery, and keeps his oath to Sigurd by a
quibble. Högni, who has little but his name in common with Hagen von
Tronje of the _Nibelungen Lied_, advises Gunnar against breaking his
oath, but it is he who taunts Gudrun afterwards. The later poems of
the cycle try to make heroes out of both; the same discrepancy exists
between the first and second halves of the _Nibelungen Lied_. Their
half-brother, Gutthorm, plays no part in the story except as the
actual murderer of Sigurd.