Introduction
Brynhild was a valkyrie or shieldmaiden set to sleep within a ring of enchanted flame, to be won only by a warrior fearless enough to ride through it. Sigurd alone succeeded, and the two pledged themselves to each other.
Family
Betrayal and a Shared Death
Traveling onward to the Gjukung court, Sigurd was given a potion that erased his memory of Brynhild; under its influence he married Gudrun and helped Gunnar win Brynhild for himself by riding through her wall of flame disguised as Gunnar. Brynhild married Gunnar believing him her true conqueror. When the deception eventually came to light — through a careless remark by Gudrun during a quarrel between the two women — Brynhild, feeling profoundly betrayed by the one man she had trusted, incited Gunnar and his brothers to kill Sigurd. Overcome with grief immediately afterward, she took her own life and had herself burned on Sigurd's funeral pyre, choosing to join him in death.
The Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda preserve the Norse-Icelandic form of this legend; the German Nibelungenlied recounts substantially the same events under different names (Sigurd as Siegfried, Brynhild as Brünnhilde, Atli as Etzel/Attila), reflecting a shared Germanic legendary tradition rather than a single fixed text.