SOURCE: Jochens, Jenny. “The Whetter: Brynhildr.” In Old Norse Images of Women, pp. 162-73. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

In the following excerpt, Jochens explores the role of whetters—women whose social reputation was based on their ability to incite men to deeds of violent revenge—focusing on the quarrel between Brynhildr and Gudrun in the Volsunga Saga and earlier Nordic texts.

Guddrún and Brynhildr, the two heroines in the Nibelung drama, each desired revenge for injustices committed against them. Guðrún used physical acts in her youth but resorted to verbal inciting in later years, whereas Brynhildr was from the beginning the whetter par excellence, a choice that perhaps reflects poets' awareness of women's bodily weakness as well as their mental strength. Unlike the avenger, whose incarnation was limited to Guðrún, the changing persona of the inciter expanded beyond the Continental setting of...