Meantime, although Gunnar had secured the wife he coveted, he was anything but a happy man, for Brynhild would not allow him to approach her.  Sigurd, to whom he finally confided this unsatisfactory state of affairs, finally volunteered to exert his fabulous strength to reduce to obedience the rebellious bride, whom he turned over to his brother-in-law in a submissive mood, after depriving her of her girdle and ring, which he carried off as trophies and gave to Gudrun.

Brynhild’s resentment, however, still smouldered, and when Gudrun, her sister-in-law, attempted to claim precedence when they were bathing in the river, she openly quarrelled with her.  In the course of this dispute, Gudrun exhibited the magic ring, loudly proclaiming her husband had wooed and won Gunnar’s bride!  Two distinct parties now defined themselves at court, where Hoegni, a kinsman of the Niblungs, vehemently espoused Brynhild’s cause.  By some secret means—­for his was a dark and tortuous mind, ever plotting evil—­Hoegni discovered the trick of the magic potion, as well as Brynhild’s previous wooing by Sigurd, and proposed to her to avenge by blood the insult she had received.

According to one version of the tale, Hoegni, who discovers in what spot Sigurd is vulnerable, attacks him while he is asleep in bed and runs his lance through the fatal spot.  The dying Sigurd therefore has only time to bid his wife watch over their children ere he expires.  By order of Gudrun, his corpse is placed on a pyre, where it is to be consumed with his wonderful weapons and horse.  Just as the flames are rising, Brynhild, who does not wish to survive the man she loves, either plunges into the flames and is consumed too, or stabs herself and asks that her corpse be burned beside Sigurd’s, his naked sword lying between them, and the magic ring on her finger.

  “I pray thee a prayer, the last word in the world I speak,
  That ye bear me forth to Sigurd and the hand my hand would seek;
  The bale for the dead is builded, it is wrought full wide on the plain,
  It is raised for Earth’s best Helper, and thereon is room for twain: 
  Ye have hung the shields about it, and the Southland hangings spread,
  There lay me adown by Sigurd and my head beside his head: 
  But ere ye leave us sleeping, draw his Wrath from out the sheath,
  And lay that Light of the Branstock and the blade that frighted Death
  Betwixt my side and Sigurd’s, as it lay that while agone,
  When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone: 
  How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind? 
  How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find? 
  How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ring
  Clash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my king?”