Helgi Hundingsbane II., besides giving additional details of the hero’s early life, completes the story.  In the battle with Hoedbrodd, Helgi killed all Sigrun’s kinsmen except one brother, Dag, who slew him later in vengeance.  But Helgi returned from the grave, awakened by Sigrun’s weeping, and she went into the howe with him.  The collector again adds a note:  “Helgi and Sigrun are said to have been born again:  he was then called Helgi Haddingjaskati, and she Kara Halfdan’s daughter, as it is told in the Kara-ljod, and she was a Valkyrie.”

This third Helgi legend does not survive in verse, the Kara-ljod having perished.  It is told in prose in the late saga of Hromund Gripsson, according to which Kara was a Valkyrie and swan-maid:  while she was hovering over Helgi, he killed her accidentally in swinging his sword.

There can be little doubt that these three are merely variants of the same story; the foundation is the same, though incidents and names differ.  The three Helgis are one hero, and the three versions of his legend probably come from different localities.  The collector could not but feel their identity, and the similarity was too fundamental to be overlooked; he therefore accounted for it by the old idea of re-birth, and thus linked the three together.  In each Helgi has an hereditary foe (Hrodmar, Hunding, or Hadding); in each his bride is a Valkyrie, who protects him and gives him victory; each ends in tragedy, though differently.

The two variants in the Poetic Edda have evident marks of contamination with the Volsung cycle, and some points of superficial resemblance.  Helgi Hjoervardsson’s mother is Sigrlinn, Helgi Hundings-bane’s father is Sigmund, as in the Nibelungen Lied Siegfried is the son of Sigemunt and Sigelint.  Helgi Hundingsbane is a Volsung and Wolfing (Ylfing), and brother to Sinfjoetli; his first fight, like Sigurd’s, is against the race of Hunding; his rival, Hoedbrodd, is a Hniflung; he first meets the Valkyrie on Loga-fell (Flame-hill); he is killed by his brother-in-law, who has sworn friendship.  But there is no parallel to the essential features of the Volsung cycle, and such likenesses between the two stories as are not accidental are due to the influence of the more favoured legend; this is especially true of the names.  The prose-piece Sinfjoetli’s Death also makes Helgi half-brother to Sinfjoetli; it is followed in this by Voelsunga Saga, which devotes a chapter to Helgi, paraphrasing Helyi Hundingsbane I.  There is, of course, confusion over the Hunding episode; the saga is obliged to reconcile its conflicting authorities by making Helgi kill Hunding and some of his sons, and Sigurd kill the rest.