“A king’s daughter bright in mail sleeps on the fell; thou shalt hew with thy sharp sword, and cut the mail with Fafni’s slayer....  She will teach thee every mystery that men would know, and to speak in every man’s tongue....  Thou shalt visit Heimi’s dwelling and be the great king’s joyous guest....  There is a maid fair to see at Heimi’s; men call her Brynhild, Budli’s daughter, but the great king Heimi fosters the proud maid....  Heimi’s fair foster-daughter will rob thee of all joy; thou shalt sleep no sleep, and judge no cause, and care for no man unless thou see the maiden. ...  Ye shall swear all binding oaths but keep few when thou hast been one night Giuki’s guest, thou shalt not remember Heimi’s brave foster-daughter....  Thou shalt suffer treachery from another and pay the price of Grimhild’s plots.  The bright-haired lady will offer thee her daughter.”

Voelsunga gives additional details:  Brynhild knows her deliverer to be Sigurd Sigmundsson and the slayer of Fafni, and they swear oaths to each other.  The description of their second meeting, when he finds her among her maidens, and she prophesies that he will marry Giuki’s daughter, and also the meeting between her and Gudrun before the latter’s marriage, represent a later development of the story, inconsistent with the older conception of the Shield-maiden.  Sigurd gives Brynhild the ring Andvaranaut, which belonged to the hoard, as a pledge, and takes it from her again later when he woos her in Gunnar’s form.  It is the sight of the ring afterwards on Gudrun’s hand which reveals to her the deception; but the episode has also a deeper significance, since it brings her into connection with the central action by passing the curse on to her.  According to Snorri’s paraphrase, Sigurd gives the ring to Brynhild when he goes to her in Gunnar’s form.

For the rest of the story we must depend chiefly on Gripisspa and Voelsunga.  The latter tells that Grimhild, the mother of the Giukings, gave Sigurd a magic drink by which he forgot Brynhild and fell in love with Giuki’s daughter.  Gudrun’s brothers swore oaths of friendship with him, and he agreed to ride through the waverlowe, or ring of fire, disguised and win Brynhild for the eldest brother Gunnar.  After the two bridals, he remembered his first passing through the flame, and his love for Brynhild returned.  The Shield-maiden too remembered, 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. Voelsunga 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: