and to break that oath by deed was a thing unheard of. Still they
broke it in spirit; by charms and prayers they set on Guttorm their
half-brother, and so at dead of night, while Gudrun held the bravest
man alive fast locked in her white arms, the murderer stole to the
bedside and drove a sword through the hero. Then Sigurd turned and
writhed, and as Guttorm fled he hurled Gram after him, and the keen
blade took him asunder at the waist, and his head fell out of the
room and his heels in, and that was the end of Guttorm. But with
revenge Brynhildr's love returned, and when Sigurd was laid upon the
pile her heart broke; she burst forth into a prophetic song of the
woes that were still to come, made them lay her by his side with Gram
between them, and so went to Valhalla with her old lover. Thus
Andvari's curse was fulfilled.

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 Niflung 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
Hunland. Now comes horror on horror. Revenge for her brothers now
belongs to Gudrun; she slays with her own hand her two sons by Atli,