Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/143

Rh of betrayal and the determination to punish it, and the feeling which CHAP, animates them is reflected again in the hate of Helen for Paris after he has shut her up in Ilion. Thus Brynhild urges Gunnar to avenge her on Sigurd, like the summer twilight allying itself with the powers of winter to blot out the glory of the sun from the heavens. But Gunnar and his brothers cannot accomplish her will themselves : they have made a compact of friendship with Sigurd, and they must not break their oath. But Guttorm their half-brother is under no such covenant, and so this being, who represents the cold of winter, plunges a sword into the breast of Sigurd, who is sleeping in the arms of Gudrun. This weapon is the thorn which is fatal to the Persian Rustem and the gentle Surya Bai of modern Hindu folk-lore. But Sigurd is mighty even in death, and the blade Gram, hurled by his dying hand, cleaves Guttorm asunder, so that the upper part of his body fell out of the chamber, while the lower limbs remained in the room. The change which his death causes in the mind of Brynhild answers precisely to the pity which Oinone feels when her refusal to heal Paris has brought about his death. Like Helen, who hates herself, or is hated, for bringing ruin on ships, men, and cities, she bewails the doom which brought her into the world for everlasting damage and grief of soul to many men. Like Deianeira, and Oinone, and Kleopatra, she feels that without the man whom she loves life is not worth living for, and thus she lies down to die on the funeral pile of Sigurd.

The sequel reproduces the same incidents under other names. The Story and with different colours. As Sigurd, like Theseus and Herakles, °^ Gudrun. first woos the Dawn, and then has to dwell with the maiden who represents the broad and open day, so Gudrun, the loving companion of the Sun in his middle journey, has to mourn his early death, and in her widowhood to become the bride, first of the gloaming, then of the darkness. Between these there is a necessary enmity, but their hatred only serves the more thoroughly to avenge the death of Sigurd. Atli, the second husband of Gudrun, claims all the gold which Sigurd had won from the dragon, but which the chieftains of Niilheim had seized when he died. In fair fight he could never hope to match them ; so Atli invites Hogni (Haugn or Hagen) and Gunnar to a feast, in which he overpowers them. Hogni's heart is then cut out, an incident which answers to the roasting of the heart of Fafnir ; and as the latter is associated with the recovery of the golden treasure, so the former is connected with the subsequent loss which answers to the coming on of the night when the sun has reached the end of his glorious course. When Sigurd died, Gunnar