Marriage with alien wives, which in the case of the Mastermaid story has been postulated as means of transmission and as the one possible explanation of its nearly universal diffusion, may perhaps with more simplicity be assumed as the common basis in custom for independently arising myths of this type.  The attempts of the bride’s kindred to prevent the marriage, and of the bridegroom’s to undo it, would be natural incidents in such a story, and the magic powers employed by and against the bride would be the mythical representatives of the mutually unfamiliar customs of alien tribes.  This theory at least offers a credible explanation of the hero’s temporary oblivion of or unfaithfulness to his protectress, after their successful escape together.

In the Valkyrie-brides, Brynhild and Sigrun, with their double attributes of fighting and wisdom, there is an evident connexion with the Germanic type of woman preserved in the allusions of Caesar and Tacitus, which reaches its highest development in the heroines of the Edda.  Any mythical or ideal conception of womanhood combines the two primitive instincts, love and fighting, even though the woman may be only the innocent cause of strife, or its passive prize.  The peculiarity of the Germanic representation is that the woman is never passive, but is herself the incarnation of both instincts.  Even if she is not a Valkyrie, nor taking part herself in the fight, she is ready, like the wives of the Cimbri, to drive the men back to the battle from which they have escaped.  Hild and Hervoer are at one extreme:  war is their spiritual life.  Love is in Hild nothing more than instinct; in Hervoer it is not even that:  she would desire nothing from marriage beyond a son to inherit the sword.  At the other extreme is Sigrun, who has the warlike instinct, but is spiritually a lover as completely and essentially as Isolde or Juliet.  The interest in Signy lies in the way in which she sacrifices what are usually considered the strongest feminine instincts, without, however, by any means abandoning them, to her uncompromising revenge and pride of race.  Her pride in her son seems to include something of both trains of feeling; and she dies with the husband she detests, simply because he is her husband.  Brynhild, lastly, is a highly modern type, as independent in love as in war.  It is impossible to imagine Sigrun, or Wagner’s Sieglinde, taking her revenge on a faithless lover; from no lack of spirit, but simply because revenge would have given no comfort to either.  To Brynhild it is not only a distinct relief, but the only endurable end; she can forgive when she is avenged.