Introduction
Gjuki was king of the Burgundians and patriarch of the Gjukung dynasty (called the Nibelungs in the German tradition). He married Grimhild, a powerful sorceress, and their children — Gunnar, Hogni, and Gudrun — form the saga's second major generation of protagonists.
Family
Patriarch of the Gjukungs
Gjuki's own recorded deeds are limited; his significance is as head of the household into which Sigurd rides after leaving Brynhild, and whose queen Grimhild's scheming (rather than Gjuki's own agency) drives the plot from that point forward, ultimately binding the Volsung and Gjukung lines together in marriage, betrayal, and 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.