Human Becomes Valkyrie

13 Then the sorrow-weary woman sat down,
to recount the evil, from her great grief:

14 ‘I was brought up in the princes’ hall
—most people rejoiced at that—according to men’s counsel.
I enjoyed life and my father’s prosperity
for just five winters while my father lived.

15 ‘Then he spoke these very last words,
the weary king, before he died:
he said I should be endowed with red gold,
and given to Grimhild’s son in the south;

16 and he commanded Brynhild to take the helmet,
he said she’d be Odin’s beloved girl.*
He said no nobler girl would be reared
in the world, unless fate spoilt it—

17 ‘In the women’s chamber Brynhild worked embroidery,
she had men and lands under her—
the earth resounded and the heaven above,
when the slayer of Fafnir saw the stronghold.

18 ‘Then war was fought with foreign swords
and the stronghold seized which Brynhild owned—
it was not long thereafter, rather it was pitifully soon,
that she knew all those stratagems.

19 ‘She made harsh vengeance come about for this,
we’ve all had experience enough of that:
that news will travel to men in every land,
that she killed herself over Sigurd!

20 ‘And I came to love Gunnar,
the giver of rings, as Brynhild should have.

21 ‘Soon they offered red-gold rings,
and no small compensation to my brother;
he offered for me fifteen farms,
the burden of Grani, if he wanted it.


- Poetic Edda, Oddrunargratr


("Odin’s beloved girl: the dying Budli arranges a marriage to Gunnar for Oddrun and the life of a valkyrie for Brynhild, but their fates go awry." - from the Explanatory Notes section included with the translation)