But my reprieve was only temporary. Gunnar did not sleep at all after having left my chambers, for he was, how shall I say?—fit to be tied. My peeved husband burst into Sigurd’s room and shook his brother-in-law awake. Sigurd had spent a miserable night tossing and turning with the agony of having witnessed my marriage, and he had finally fallen asleep with his head buried under the pillows. The son of Sigmund felt no desire to get out of bed the next morning.
Upon awakening at the hint of dawn, Sigurd remembered the events of the day before—most sadly, the royal wedding where I was given away to Gunnar—and he groaned, immediately burying his face in his pillows once again. But this second awakening an hour later was much ruder, with Gunnar shaking his brother-in-law and imploring him to get up at once. At first Sigurd thought he was dreaming that Gunnar was shaking him, and he hoped he could change the venue of his dream. But after a few moments, the half-conscious knight realized Gunnar was indeed at his bedside, and Sigurd opened his eyes to the drab, gray duskiness of the early morning. “Good gods, Gunnar!” Sigurd exclaimed as he sat up in bed rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Is there a fire?”
“No,” Gunnar replied with the serious undertones of an actor who was about to lower the boom. “Would it were only a fire! What I experienced last night was far more disastrous than that.” Sigurd sat up in bed naked from the waist up. My knightly savior scratched his underarm, yawned, and gazed at his brother-in-law in total perplexity. Sigurd squinted his eyes as he tried to get a grasp on the situation. The last time he had seen Gunnar was at the games table the night before, where the fraternal little group had celebrated the nuptials late into the night, rolling dice and drinking beer. There were to be no major festivities until the wedding party returned to the land of the Nibelungs, where a feast for the whole kingdom would be held. So the tiny celebration of the evening before had included only Sigurd and Gunnar’s brothers. When the party broke up at midnight, Gunnar was slightly inebriated but in good spirits. The King of the Nibelungs retired to his chambers, with his retinue accompanying him and Budli’s liegemen marching at his side. The royal chamberlains lit the way through the dark halls of the palace with blazing torches held high, as Gunnar was escorted to his bed. Gunnar dismissed all of them, including Sigurd, at his door. Sigurd had an inkling the groom was planning to visit his bride before he turned in for the night. What had gone wrong?
“Did Brynhild refuse to receive you last night?” Sigurd inquired politely.
“She would not cooperate,” Gunnar replied. “She wanted nothing to do with it.”
“Nothing to do with it?” Sigurd repeated.
“You know what I mean.” Gunnar was seething with anger. “My bride absolutely refused to consummate the marriage. She would not grant me any privileges. She expected me to sleep on my side of the bed and leave her in peace for the rest of the night.”
“Ah, I see,” Sigurd nodded understandingly. “So this is the cause of your discomposure. You did nothing in Brynhild’s bed last night except sleep.” Sigurd paused for a moment, before he attempted to console his obviously agitated brother-in-law. “See here, my man, is there any need for such haste? The festivities are being postponed until we get home, so why not postpone the consummation of the marriage as well? Give Brynhild some time to get accustomed to her new role. Dazzle her with your kingdom, your palace, and the love you inspire in your loyal subjects. After all, she is a bit over thirty now, so the daughter of Budli is not exactly a youthful maid anymore, and she is, moreover, still a virgin. The transition from the virgin maiden who can fight like a man to a wife who has to concern herself with her husband’s reproductive urges is going to require a certain amount of adjustment. Just be patient and understanding. Your bride will come around.”
Gunnar was listening to Sigurd’s words with his back turned to the bed. The King of the Nibelungs was staring resolutely out the window with his arms crossed tightly against his chest. Sigurd noted Gunnar did not look happy, even with his back turned. “The circumstances are much more dire than that,” Gunnar commented brusquely. “I’ve been deeply insulted. My dignity as a king has been compromised, not to mention my dignity as a man.”
“In the name of the gods, what did Brynhild do, kick you in your manhood?” Sigurd laughed, now gleaning the humor of the situation.
“You laugh,” Gunnar said slowly and deliberately. “But in another kingdom, she could be jailed for such defiance.”
Now Sigurd was concerned for my safety and for my future, so he implored Gunnar to tell him exactly what had happened on the previous evening. Gunnar was mortified to have to repeat the story of his humiliation, but he trusted Sigurd as if he were a brother, and the Nibelung king knew Sigurd would never betray his confidence. When Gunnar finished relating the events of the evening before, Sigurd whistled softly under his breath and fell back on his pillows.
“The gods in heaven be damned! Your bride left you hanging on a hook. How devastating! The woman has the strength of ten men. The peasants say an oracle called her the ‘virgin goddess.’ Maybe Brynhild believes her own mythology. To be so unwilling to engage in one’s wifely duty, she must be truly adverse to such activity. Maybe Brynhild fears she shall lose all her strength if she loses her virginity.”
“I do not know if Brynhild was truly adverse to my overtures or not,” Gunnar replied sadly. “I almost thought perhaps she wanted to be taken forcefully and brutally, and such was the game I was supposed to play with her. I did not take her lame excuses too seriously.”
“Why not?” Sigurd asked with mild curiosity.
“Alas, as Odin is my witness, Brynhild had claimed she was not that enthusiastic at the idea of marrying me, or at least, such was the impression I received on the evening I met her by chance in the hallway, when she pushed me aside with such force that I landed on the floor,” Gunnar explained. “To my great surprise, the very next day I found out my proposal had been accepted. So why should I have taken my wife’s other denials too seriously? You know how women are. The refined ones never say yes to intimate activity. Only a trollop comes right out and says yes. A maiden of high birth never says yes—maybe means yes, and no means maybe.”
Sigurd reflected upon Gunnar’s words before he voiced his thoughts.
“In general, when you are dealing with Brynhild, perhaps you should assume that only saying yes means yes, maybe means there is only a slim probability, and no means you had better desist, for otherwise you shall suffer the consequences.”
“See here, the Princess of Isenstein has me so thoroughly confused that now I don’t know what anything means anymore. I don’t even know why the sun is rising in the sky this morning unless it, too, seeks to mock and humiliate me.” Gunnar was visibly upset, and he pounded the wall with his fist for emphasis. “Something has to be done,” the Nibelung king continued. “I cannot take home a bride who refuses my advances and thinks she can hang me up on a hook any time she is the slightest bit irate with me. I am setting a precedent that does not bode well for the future of my kingdom. How will my subjects retain their respect for me if it ever becomes known this is the treatment I must suffer at the hands of my wife? I will become an object of ridicule. We must take action at once.”
“We?” Sigurd repeated meekly.
“Yes,” replied Gunnar. “I need your help. Where is the Helmet of Dread? Isn’t that the magic piece of equipment Fafnir left you at his death, rumored to be of use if one ever needed to change identities, or did you forget to pack it?”
“Let me think. Yes, I’m sure I packed the Helmet of Dread in one of my bags. What exactly did you have in mind?” Sigurd inquired.
“You, Sigurd, are the strongest man in the civilized world,” Gunnar pronounced with authority. “Only you can match the physical strength of Brynhild. You must don the Helmet of Dread, and you must use its magical powers to make yourself my double. As my double, you will overpower Brynhild and consummate the marriage for me. Thereafter, I suspect my wife will be docile and respectful. The legendary strength of the renowned daughter of Budli may be derived partly from her deep-seated belief that no man can equal her. When she is disabused of such a notion, she will lose all her confidence, and this nonsense will be brought quickly to an end.”
Sigurd paled at Gunnar’s suggestion. He did not know what to say. To lie with me, his darling Brynhild, as if we were man and wife, would be the realization of his most heartfelt wishes. But to do so disguised as another man and never be able to acknowledge the deed—Sigurd was struck by all the possible ramifications. “We are surely playing with fire here, Gunnar,” Sigurd said sotto voce. “This is a risky proposition. I fear much could go wrong with such a plan.”
“The risk does not concern me!” Gunnar fairly yelled in his anger. “She is playing with the dignity of a king. We must take action. I cannot accept this state of affairs.”
Sigurd did not dare resist Gunnar with respect to this matter. There was always the danger of inadvertently betraying his feelings for me if he protested too much. Brother-in-law to Gunnar or not, Sigurd was determined to protect the secret of his covert love for me. Gunnar wanted Sigurd to take action the same night in order to consummate the marriage by the time we set sail for Nibelungenland, which would be in a day or two. Sigurd agreed to the details of the plot, but he was nervous and agitated for the rest of the day. I, on the other hand, was very composed and unruffled back in my chambers, completely unaware of what mischief Gunnar was up to behind my back. For once, my psychic vision did not clue me in to the truth of the matter; the subsequent events were such a shocking development that Odin had protected me from any foreknowledge of the plan.
In any case, there was nothing to be done to avoid my predicament, and it was preferable I remain temporarily in the dark. Sigurd soberly awaited the appointed hour, as he lay somewhat rigidly in bed staring vacuously at the ceiling, with the Helmet of Dread, now unpacked, at his side. Part of his booty from the day he slew Fafnir, the helmet had been known to Sigurd since early childhood, owing to Regin, who had taken care more than once to describe the helmet to the young Sigurd and to instruct the boy in its proper use. Sigurd knew that after putting the helmet on, he had to utter a few ancient words of incantation, concentrate on the visage he wished to duplicate, and say repeatedly, “Appear! Appear! Appear!”
When the appointed hour came, Gunnar arrived in Sigurd’s chambers. Sigurd tried to remain impassive, but he was in the throes of the most agonizing and wretched evening of his life. He had never been so torn and conflicted in his loyalties, and he wondered how the events of the preceding year had led him into such a quandary, where he was rapidly sinking like a ship caught in a tempest. Sigurd wanted nothing more than to lie in bed with me and sleep in my arms, but under such circumstances of deception and betrayal, the scheme was almost more than he could endure.
But his knightly homage to Gunnar, his brother-in-law and his king, had to prevail, and my mountaintop liberator knew he had to carry out his duty, odious as it was to him. Standing face to face with Gunnar, Sigurd lifted the Helmet of Dread and placed it on his own head. He murmured magical words in an ancient and dead language taught to him by Regin, and as he stared into Gunnar’s eyes, he concentrated with all his mental power and commanded, “Appear! Appear! Appear!”
Slowly the Helmet of Dread faded away into an aura of glittering light and molecules, and Sigurd’s countenance began to take on all the attributes of Gunnar’s physiognomy. As they stood there, staring each other directly in the eye, Gunnar gasped. “In the name of Odin!” Gunnar exclaimed. “You genuinely do look exactly like me!”
“Perfect,” returned Sigurd, “for such was the purpose of the exercise.”
Sigurd promptly exchanged his knightly suit for Gunnar’s royal crown and majestic robes. After briefly glancing at himself in the mirror with confidence and conviction, Gunnar’s look-alike exited the room and strode down the corridor to my chambers. I was preparing for bed, and I felt tranquil and at peace. The saga of the night before had not particularly disconcerted me in any way, and unlike Gunnar, I had chosen not to dwell on the matter. I only hoped my husband had learned a lesson from the incident and would not try to force himself upon me again. When there was a light knock on my door, I was bewildered, for I could not imagine Gunnar had come back to spar with me again. I rather hoped it was Sigurd at my door. We had not spoken since the day of the wedding ceremony. I longed for Sigurd, and I desperately needed to talk to him.
But when I opened my door, there was Gunnar, standing there looking expectant and perhaps somewhat on edge. I was momentarily not as repelled by my husband’s physical presence, and I briefly felt a sense of deep spiritual alliance with him. Naturally, I had no way of knowing it was, indeed, my beloved Sigurd who stood before me, which of course was the true cause of my instinctive inclination to be united with him. “What is this, Gunnar? What could you possibly want from me tonight?” I asked somewhat bemused. My adversary did not answer. Instead, he swept past me into my bedroom, firmly slamming the door behind him. There stood the false Gunnar, who was ogling me in defiance. “Now, really,” I exclaimed, “you’re not going to insist on replaying the scene of last night, are you?” The man I presumed to be Gunnar glared at me.
“What faith you have in yourself, Brynhild,” said the pretender in a voice not displeasing to me, “that you could master a king with the snap of your fingers and physically humiliate him, while openly shirking your wifely duty. Are you so proud of your shameful powers?”
The regal tone of this utterance caught me off guard. I was not expecting Gunnar to probe me for ethical considerations behind my behavior. Gunnar was for the most part a brute, who did not have a scholarly bone in his body. Where was this new tactic and approach coming from?
“Oh, Sire, please forgive me,” I entreated him earnestly. “I never intended to humiliate my husband and my king. I merely wanted to show you I was not to be defied so easily, and that you had to respect my wishes regarding this matter, as I am a free-thinking human being with my own desires and predilections. I merely tried to make a point. Yes, I have become your wife very recently, and I entered into wedlock of my own free will, for indeed, even my own father would not force me to do anything against my bidding and my natural inclination. But I did not willfully state I would enter into the sexual union implied by the legal bond between a man and a woman who choose to marry.
“Perhaps I will be persuaded to enter into a fuller union with you at some undisclosed time in the future. I certainly have never ruled out the possibility, and your charms may eventually win me over and seduce me. Anything is possible, and I certainly give you free license to keep trying. Indeed, I rather expect you to keep trying to romance and seduce me, even though one does not habitually expect to have to woo one’s own wife. I suspect I have created a problematic situation for you that is both challenging and frustrating, not to mention anomalous, but accept it as an opportunity to prove yourself to me and truly win my heart and mind, without crudely seeking merely to subdue my body.”
“Am I to understand from this evasive declaration you are going to submit to my demands at some later date?” Sigurd-as-Gunnar asked me pointedly. Sigurd was hoping he could avoid the whole dilemma and report to Gunnar the deception was not necessary, after all, and that mere patience and understanding would have to be the order of the day.
“I am merely saying it is not necessarily so that I will continue to deny your demands for an indefinite period of time. After all, who am I to announce I will never accept you in my bed as a true husband with all the privileges thereof? I cannot predict the future, and I suspect even Odin would not try to predict the future if he were put upon to do so. I am simply saying my denial of your marital rights for the foreseeable future is neither necessary nor certain. There will quite possibly be contingent events to sway me or convince me to change my mind, yet nothing in the physical world of contingent events happens with absolute predictability or of necessity. Therefore, I implore you, let us wait and see.”
“Exactly how long do you expect me to wait?” Gunnar’s impersonator inquired.
“My dear Gunnar,” I assured him, “I haven’t a clue. It could be a matter of weeks or even months, and for all I know, it may take years. My natural propensity is to remain chaste. I will have to consider and reconsider my predicament for some time to come.”
These words disheartened Sigurd, as he could not very well return to Gunnar with the proposition that my husband wait for me to come around on my own, even though I had declared it could take years. Gunnar, insisting upon his rights as both husband and king, would be livid. Sigurd understood implicitly there was no way out of his distasteful agreement with his brother-in-law. The deed had to be done, and it would have to be done that night. The Helmet of Dread was not to be toyed with for frivolous reasons. Sigurd had donned the helmet, and he had invoked its magical powers. He hoped never to have to use it again.
“Brynhild, please, reconsider your refusal now as I stand before you. It is unspeakably mortifying for a king to be unable to consummate his own marriage. I cannot accept this,” said Sigurd, parroting Gunnar’s real words. “You will ease my mind greatly if you will simply agree to consummate the marriage, as is both logical and just from my point of view. I cannot rely on contingencies to predict the future of my marriage. Right now, your behavior appears to be erratic and eccentric, which is to say, there is nothing at all predictable about the way you are behaving toward me.
“Certainly, the events occurring last night were not only unpredictable, they were outlandish and bizarre. Please allow me to remind you I am a king, and my own desires and wishes have to be respected. In this particular case, they have to be granted. And using your considerable strength to subdue a king, not to mention your husband, is a shameful application of your prowess. Now, I ask you one last time, can you give me a time and date when you will consent to consummate our marriage?”
“I cannot,” I replied simply.
“Very well, then, it is decreed. You will consummate the marriage tonight without further ado,” my husband’s double brazenly announced with an air filled with supremacy and certainty.
“I will not!” I fairly screamed, backing away as the impostor took several steps toward me.
“Please, Brynhild, I beg of you, do not make this more difficult than it already is for me,” implored Sigurd-as-Gunnar. “You are breaking my heart. I have a reputation to live up to. I am a king, for Odin’s sake. Can you not respect that? A king cannot be physically overpowered by a woman. You must consent. Now, please, let us go to bed and get on with this. You do not have complete and absolute free will, at least not in this situation. There are certain situations where a human being is limited, bound by legal, emotional, and causal necessities, not to mention physical needs. You are bound to these conditions of matrimony. Now, please, do not make me take you by force.”
“My dear Gunnar, you could not take me by force even if you tried,” I advised my deceiver as I drew myself up with dignity. “So please do not oblige me to return to the little drama we played out last night. I disdained having to dishonor you even more than you did, but if necessary, I will do it again,” I warned him. I then strove to lift the man I mistook for my husband high in the air with his arms pinned behind his back. The night before I had done so with relative ease, but this time something went dreadfully wrong. I almost could not budge him. I lifted my opponent a few inches into the air, and he readily escaped my grasp. In a flash, the charlatan king was standing behind me, holding my right arm pinned behind my back and my left arm immobilized at my side.
“Please, Brynhild,” the man-who-would-be-Gunnar begged me once again with his mouth close to my ear, “do not force me to go through with this. Give me your word you will consummate the marriage shortly after returning to my kingdom, and we will do this the right way, with incense and good wine. I will woo you and make it worth your while, I promise you. Just give me your word.”
“I cannot!” I screamed as I loosened my arms from the muscular grasp. My escape was short-lived because I was only free for a few seconds before I was pinioned again. I did not understand where his barbarous strength was coming from. The real Gunnar had been no match for me the night before. I assumed my husband had been caught off guard in our previous struggle, but now I was the one who was caught off guard. I hardly knew where to turn or what to do. I was beginning to panic. “You cannot force me to do this against my will. You must let me go,” I hissed at my disputant venomously.
“I wish I could let you go, Brynhild, but my reputation and my honor as a king are at stake,” explained Sigurd again in his false guise. “You have put me in an untenable, if not preposterous, position. Now please relent so we can both get this over with. You are my wife, and a king has the right to consummate his own marriage.”
“But no one has the right to defeat the will of another person,” I asserted boldly. “I have free will and the right to choose whether or not I will grant you the privileges you are demanding. The laws and the rights of the institution of marriage are meaningless compared to the sacredness of my free will as an individual. If you do not wish to grant me this freedom, then you are free to divorce me.”
“Impossible!” said the disguised Sigurd. “The truth will leak out to the populace, as all truths eventually find their way, and the scandal of the divorce will make me the laughingstock of my kingdom. It was decreed you were to become my wife. All the signs and omens swore to it. The oracle of Faeroe confirmed it. Our marriage was nothing less than Odin’s will.”
“The oracle confirmed the fact of the legal marriage. My acquiescence in bed was never assured. I have no feelings for you, Gunnar, other than respect and perhaps something that could be described as a mild sympathy. I have no passion for you. Therefore, I do not have to do anything I do not want to do, and you have to respect this condition, for I am entirely free,” I hissed at him again.
“Alas, you are not, my renegade wife. Not one of us has absolute freedom in this world. We are all subject to external causal conditions,” replied the unknowable Sigurd, who in his disguise as Gunnar once again surprised me with his intellectual acuity. The crisis was bringing out the best in Sigurd, and the characteristic bumbling dearness, which might have given him away, was not in evidence.
“We all have absolute freedom in this world and in every world,” I insisted, still struggling to free myself from the grip of Sigurd-in-disguise. “We simply do not know it. We believe we are not free, so we proceed to set up all the restrictions and the limiting structures, which subsequently serve to confirm our false beliefs. This is not how Odin meant for it to be. Odin gave us the power to create any life we choose. This ability to create is an act of pure freedom. Should we misuse our power to create a life of constraint, even Odin cannot undo our will. We are so free that we are free to create a reality based on false boundaries and artificial obstructions. We are free to imprison ourselves. This is how awful our freedom is. And this is how stupid we are as human beings, when we choose to misinterpret our divine freedom in such a fashion.”
Sigurd was moved by my discourse. The real Sigurd would have wanted to draw out this philosophical argument for hours. But the Sigurd who came to my chambers disguised as Gunnar had no time for such luxuries. He was obsessed with one goal, and he could not fail. For in truth, Sigurd did not know how many times he would be permitted to invoke the magical powers of the Helmet of Dread. And he did not dare to report back to Gunnar he had failed in his mission. Sigurd had to perform the dishonorable act, and this was his only chance to do so.
“So be it, for our wills clash here in this room tonight in a tragic dilemma no one could have predicted,” said Sigurd-as-Gunnar. “Absolute freedom is thwarted in that no one can predict how one person’s will shall impede the will of another. The very act of prediction can change the logical sequence of events, since a capricious rebel may radically react to a logical prediction by choosing to defy all logic. I know only one thing tonight, and that is this—as King of the Nibelungs, I must impose my will upon yours. The marriage will be consummated, and that is final.”
And with those words, the masked Sigurd forced himself upon me. I was so shocked I fainted. I had no recollection afterwards of the actual event. And in this unspeakably ignominious way, my marriage was consummated. After I passed out, Sigurd removed the gold ring, Andvaranaut, which he himself had given me, as proof of his conquest. Without further delay, he jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to get Gunnar. Quickly briefing the king on the events that had just taken place, Sigurd and Gunnar exchanged clothing once again, and Gunnar raced back to my room to assume Sigurd’s place in my bed at my side.
When I awoke the next morning, the real Gunnar lay beside me, and he begged me to re-enact the events of the evening before, this time without such violent opposition. I had just enough time to swallow a sleeping potion at my bedside, which the royal physician had given me for occasional bouts of nerves. The medication served to drug me so that once again, I had no recollection of what took place afterwards. The state of wedlock was consummated for the second time, this time with the real Gunnar.
Having finally established to his satisfaction his wife had been overcome and had performed her marital duty, Gunnar was thereafter too ashamed of himself ever to force himself upon me again. Seldom would the King of the Nibelungs ask to sleep in my bed, and even then he would show his good faith by laying down his sword between us.
Sigurd was now in possession of Andvaranaut, the gold ring he had stolen from my hand to prove I had been taken. When Gunnar was presented with the ring, he was too stricken with remorse at the thought of how it had been procured. Gunnar told Sigurd to keep the ring, for he took no joy in its possession, though Sigurd had no use for it either. In a typically callous, male way, my thoughtless knight decided later to give it to his own wife, Gudrun. This lapse of sensitivity would later be the cause of much grief for me. When I noticed the ring was missing at the time of my nuptials, I assumed it had disappeared during this traumatic period when I had suffered something very close to amnesia. I searched for the bauble everywhere before I gave it up for lost.
In the meantime, back in his chambers after the events of that evening, Sigurd revoked the spell by muttering further conjurations. The helmet, which had dissolved previously into a cloud of atoms, rematerialized out of nothingness, once more clearly visible on Sigurd’s head. Sigurd instantly reverted to his former physical self. The enchanted headgear took form once again only to fall lifelessly to the ground, where it assumed shape as a rusted, grimy piece of old metal, of no value whatsoever.
As Sigurd had suspected, the magic of the legendary device was good only for one application, and the headpiece was forevermore useless. The truth was that the Helmet of Dread, a gift from Odin to the dwarf Andvari, was meant to be of eternal benefit to the owner, provided the apparatus was used only for the pursuit of the higher good. Having used the helmet for a vindictive purpose based on deception, Sigurd had robbed the gift of its divine power, and he had ensured no one would ever be able to use it again. The wondrous energy of the helmet had been consumed.
And so I became the Queen of the Nibelungs, wife to King Gunnar, and presumably nothing more to Sigurd than a member of the royal family who was related to him by marriage.
Gudrun, Sigurd’s nuisance of a wife, was now my sister-in-law.
The shock of my wedding night behind me, my ladies-in-waiting helped me to prepare for the journey back to Nibelungenland. We packed my trunk with my clothes, scrolls, and my favorite objects, which I had acquired during the brief time I had dwelt in the palace of my earthly father. I parted with King Budli tearfully, and thereafter I mounted Gunnar’s white horse to ride behind my husband, as we galloped away from my home to the waiting ships at the coast. The journey back took only a couple of days with the good winds and fair weather sent to us by Odin. Gunnar, still consumed with guilt at how he had violated me, waited on me hand and foot for the duration of the entire voyage.
I began to pity him, the arrogant king, now filled with a tender compassion for me, and ashamed of the extremes to which he had gone to force me to submit to his will. Odin had been hard put to silently stand back and watch the brutal way Gunnar and Sigurd had forced themselves upon me on the night after my wedding. One was obliged to feel a certain amount of pity for Gunnar, so beleaguered as the Nibelung king was with dense human emotions, a petty ego, and misplaced pride, especially in reference to women. What Gunnar ordered Sigurd to do on the disastrous evening when I lost my virginity was the result of rash and impulsive behavior.
Gunnar was childish and crude, given over to bouts of aggression and excess. There was a profound selfishness within the Nibelung king, which was part of his nature, and unfortunately, the emphasis on masculinity and aggression had caused a lack of emotional maturity, so common for men who are otherwise intelligent and accomplished, whether they be kings, performers, or even the royal physician. Had Gunnar waited patiently for me, the outcome might have been different, but now there was no hope for reconciliation, the king’s unreasonable behavior having gone unchecked. As a result, Gunnar would have to live with his mistake for the rest of his life. Hard put to be tempered or reprimanded, the King of the Nibelungs would nonetheless accept his formal relationship with me and seek comfort elsewhere. He would spend much of his free time entertaining the ladies at court, flirting to no purpose, and having frivolous affairs.
But back in the royal bedroom, when Gunnar was not toying with a young damsel who was easily seduced by the king, he slept alone most of the time, sometimes sighing deeply and regretfully as he stared at the connecting door between his royal bedchamber and mine. The vague rumor that King Gunnar and Queen Brynhild did not have marital relations had permeated the land, but no one dared to speak of it except in the most hushed tones and in the most secluded places.
The human state of existence called marriage was anathema for me. On Earth, humans were positively bewitched by the institution of marriage. Brides were idealized at the wedding ceremony and elevated to the status of princess, their temporary reign as such notwithstanding, and the bards sang of matrimonial bliss as the most blessed culmination of eternal love. Indeed, eternity itself was an elusive ideal enchanting most of the human race. Convinced they were bound to the finite conditions of their physical bodies, the tantalizing idea of eternal life in some mystical and invisible realm lured humans on in a quest for an equally eternal relationship.
Naturally, having been mentored by Odin himself in regard to matrimonial matters, who taught me that no one person could ever be possessed by another, my own marital status was of little consequence to me. Compounding my muddled understanding of the state of wedlock on Earth, I was hard put to note Gunnar was not truly my intended, and that my true soulmate was enjoying a conventional marriage with a jealous and possessive wife, who seemed to be bent on making sure I was never left alone with her husband. In the land of the Nibelungs, where I reigned as queen at Gunnar’s side, Sigurd and I rarely had a private moment to talk, to exchange glances, or to have a glass of wine together. I happened upon him by chance countless times during the day, but in the interest of preserving the domestic peace, the son of Sigmund usually ignored me. Once I confronted him
“I dare not speak to you for long, Brynhild,” Sigurd whispered to me furtively. “All eyes are upon us, and I do not wish to cause a scandal. Know that I love you and dream of you every night.”
“Alas,” was all I could say, my eyes filled with tears, and we quickly parted.
There were rare moments when I could see Sigurd gazing at me, when his hand brushed against mine, or when he stood under my windows late at night looking up at the darkened panes of my bedchamber with a saddened expression of intense longing on his face. One sleepless night I saw Sigurd there, clearly visible in the light of the full moon. I opened the shutters through which I had caught a glimpse of him, leaned out, and waved to him. Afraid to draw any attention by calling out to me, my chevalier stood there for a long moment in silence. As I watched, he bowed deeply, rolling his wrist in graceful acknowledgment, and quickly disappeared.
I was somewhat reclusive as Gunnar’s queen, consoling myself with my books, my long walks, and my dreams. It was mostly there, in my dreams, where I saw Odin and the others at Valhalla, going about their business as usual, and I longed to rejoin them. The primitive state of affairs on Earth was even worse than I could have imagined when perceived from the confinement of the human body. When I slept, it was a blissful escape, for in deep sleep I could return to Valhalla in an instant. My fellow gods and goddesses sensed my presence, but they paid me no heed. My confreres did not want to make matters worse for me, since even being vaguely present at Asgard made me realize how much I longed for home. But there was nothing to be done, for I had been called. Indeed, I had a purpose on this planet, and I knew the rules, or rather the protocol, for Odin would have corrected me and reminded me he had never created rules; he had only created absolute freedom.
Gudrun, Sigurd’s wife, was my nemesis. She irked me no end with her feminine wiles and her willingness to be Sigurd’s inferior, if not his servant. Gudrun was constantly trying to vex me with snide remarks and other innuendos. “Indeed, I would love to have a formal ball at court tonight, but of course, only the Queen can make that decision, and her influence over my dear brother must be tolerated. Because of Brynhild’s preference for solitude, court life is dull, to say the least,” announced Gudrun to her kitchen staff.
I tried to avoid her as much as possible. But whenever I thought I was successfully ignoring her, she would rivet my attention by being openly affectionate with Sigurd in public. This was enough to drive me almost mad with frustration. Every time I turned around, Sigurd and Gudrun had their heads together like two lovebirds on a perch, or Gudrun was sitting there openly caressing Sigurd’s thigh. But one day Gudrun pushed me beyond my limits and provoked me to such an extreme measure she could no longer be ignored or avoided.
It was a glorious summer day as we lingered in small groups on the castle grounds, after a royal picnic held for family and friends. There was nothing unusual about the occasion, until I had to do a double take when I noticed Gudrun’s right hand. Sigurd was absent that day, away on military maneuvers with my husband. The sunlight caught the glint of a ring on Gudrun’s finger, a ring made of the purest gold. Upon closer examination, as I stood near Sigurd’s wife in a small group making banal conversation, I saw the ring was indeed Andvaranaut, the very ring Sigurd had placed on my finger when we exchanged vows at the time the two of us bid farewell, not knowing what obstacles lay in store for us.
I was astounded, and for a moment I assumed my senses must have taken leave of me. The sacred ring, which had been missing since the night I had consummated my marriage with Gunnar, had in this fashion turned up on the hand of Sigurd’s wife. I was stunned and overwhelmed with disbelief. I could not imagine how my treasured and priceless ring could have been transferred to Gudrun’s possession, and the idea defied all rational explanation.
At the first opportunity, I spoke to Gudrun about it when I had a moment with her in private. “Where did you get such a beautiful gold ring?” I asked her with curiosity. “I can see it radiating golden rays from the other side of the court.”
“My husband gave it to me,” said Gudrun softly, while looking up at me with her innocent blue eyes.
“Sigurd? Indeed! And where, pray tell, did he get the ring?” I persisted.
“The ring is called Andvaranaut, part of the treasure Sigurd took from Fafnir, originally belonging to the dwarf, Andvari, who used it to attract gems,” Gudrun related. “Such was the magical power of the ring, until the day Otter was killed, and the ring was taken from the dwarf. Sigurd kept it for himself as payment for his feat of strength when he slew Fafnir. My husband temporarily gave the prize away, at one point, to a woman who proved to be unworthy of it. She apparently turned out to be a trollop. To ask me my forgiveness for having strayed during this brief interval before our marriage, Sigurd gave the ring to me. He said the ring proved I was the most virtuous woman in the land, and it is the symbol of his eternal loyalty and love for me.”
“And who was the trollop?” I asked half with consternation and half with amusement.
“Who knows?” Gudrun remarked with a smile. “Probably some fetching peasant my husband dallied with in a haystack. You know how undiscriminating and boorish men can be.”
I had heard enough.
“It was my ring, Gudrun,” I informed her in serious undertones. “Sigurd gave it to me as a token of friendship and love before he married you. It has been missing for some time. I am the Queen. You must return it.”
“I will not,” Gudrun whispered so the guests would not overhear us quarreling. “I am Sigurd’s wife and the daughter of the late King Giuki. I am the most important woman in the land.”
“No, my dear,” I assured the wife of Sigurd, “I am the Queen of the Nibelungs and the wife of King Gunnar. I am the most important woman in the land.”
“You will not have the ring back!” Gudrun lashed out at me. “You were the trollop! You slept with Sigurd. He told me so!”
I was so shocked and horrified at Gudrun’s words that I thought I was going to become ill. To avoid causing a scene in front of the guests, I withdrew in silence and retired to my chambers. Gudrun’s jealousy of me was out of control, and since it was generally known she could easily become hysterical about me at any time, I did not attach too much import to her words. It could not be true. Sigurd would never have told his wife such a demeaning lie about me. But how did Gudrun come into possession of the ring? If Sigurd had somehow found the ring after I misplaced it, why did he give it to his wife instead of returning it to me?
Gudrun had insulted me. I had to find out the truth from Sigurd.
The opportunity to do so arrived one evening shortly after, when Gudrun took ill with a slight catarrh and chose to absent herself from the dinner table. Gunnar was away on important business, and as the Queen, I was required to take Gunnar’s seat at the head of the table. Since I was the royal personage presiding over dinner, I made all the decisions about protocol and seating arrangements. I had Sigurd seated at the long banquet table, up front and at my right-hand side, where we politely made small talk under the observing eyes of our dinner guests.
But Sigurd knew instinctively I was disconcerted about something, and he, too, wished to break the prolonged silence we had endured since the day I had become Gunnar’s wife. It had been a full year since the nuptials and the journey by ship back to Nibelungenland, and there had been no opportunity for genuine discourse. After dessert, the guests milled about on the grounds, sipping wine from their goblets and chatting with each other as usual. I expressed the need for a bit of solitude to collect my thoughts, and having excused myself, I wandered into the dense forest surrounding the palace.
When I was out of earshot of the dinner party, I found a little clearing, sat down on a tree stump, and waited. Sure enough, within five minutes I could hear the crunching leaves and breaking twigs caused by Sigurd’s heavy boots. He seemed to be a little unsure about which direction to take, but being an expert scout, he tracked me down in the clearing straight away. I sat there morosely as I stared at the son of Sigmund without a word of greeting.
“At last, Brynhild, I am so desperate to speak to you,” Sigurd announced, going down before me on bent knee. My true partner looked deeply into my eyes, and the exquisite expression in his own eyes was filled with genuine affection. But I was not in a compassionate or forgiving mood. I had an ax to grind with the husband of Gudrun.
“And I, too, am very anxious to speak to you, Sigurd,” I assured him with conviction. Now his eyes clouded over, as the veiled meaning of my words could not be mistaken.
“Alas, my dear lady, what is wrong?” Sigurd asked directly. I showed him the hand where Andvaranaut used to sit.
“Do you notice anything unusual about my hand?” I asked.
“No, not particularly, but perhaps something subtle is missing?” Sigurd ventured tentatively.
“Subtle? No, not at all, you scoundrel!” I responded scornfully. “Something is indeed missing, and it happens to be the ring you gave me at Isenstein, where you were granted sanctuary and honored as Budli’s guest. The very same ring I spied just last week on the hand of your maddening wife!”
Sigurd’s face slowly drained itself of all its blood, and he trembled. He had told his wife the ring had been stolen from its rightful owner, whose identity Gudrun suspected, as indeed she suspected Sigurd had slept with me; hence, her vitriolic outburst when I confronted her about the ring. And although Sigurd had allowed Gudrun to keep the ring in order to safeguard it, he had instructed her she was never to wear it in public. Sigurd had been unaware his obstreperous wife had violated his orders one day the previous week, the day he had been away on military maneuvers with Gunnar. “Ach, Brynhild,” Sigurd sobbed, burying his face in his hands, “please forgive me.”
“What exactly is it I have to forgive?” I asked sternly. “Can you please tell me how the ring disappeared from my finger and showed up on your wife’s hand? Gudrun claims you told her I slept with you. I beg you to tell me what she is talking about!”
“No, I cannot,” Sigurd replied, now wringing his hands in a state of nervous agitation. “It is too dishonorable to speak of it.”
“Tell me the truth, Sigurd,” I commanded him, “even if the truth is scandalous. The worst scandal is to hide the truth—all other scandals pale by comparison.”
“This is a scandal that will bring the universe crashing down on my head,” Sigurd murmured mournfully. “The very heavens will rebel, and I will be damned for all eternity.”
Now I was becoming truly uneasy. If I had been at Valhalla, I would have gone running down the corridors to confront Odin and ask him what in the name of all the heavens was the meaning of this. Odin, however, was not terribly accessible to me now that I was confined to a human form. I had to pull the story out of Sigurd, like it or not.
And what a dreadful story my savior of Mount Hindarfiall blurted out to me in between sobs. The story of how he masqueraded as my husband after the wedding, the night the marriage was consummated. Sigurd could relate the most intimate details of the encounter to me, thereby proving it was he and not Gunnar who had been in my bed, as he recounted every fine point, including the words we had with each other.
And so the son of Sigmund told me how he and Gunnar had exchanged places after I passed out, and how Gunnar had profited from the situation by consummating the marriage a second time the following morning. Thus, I was told, two husbands had taken me in the marital bedroom. The humiliation and the rage rising up in my throat had to be stymied, which required tremendous discipline and restraint on my part. For a moment, all my love for Sigurd was struck from my heart.
“Are you quite all right?” Sigurd asked me with some concern, evidently because it appeared to him I was having some difficulty breathing. I could not answer right away, but after taking several deep breaths, I lashed out at him.
“How could you participate in such a vile betrayal of my trust?” I blurted out, my voice filled with severe reproach. I was on the verge of tears.
“Please, Brynhild,” Sigurd began, “I know you are overwrought, but you will have to believe me when I say it was not a personal betrayal. I was forced to honor Gunnar’s command. If I had protested to anything more than just a modest degree, it would have looked very suspicious, very suspicious, indeed. How could I have told Gunnar the task he designated was both objectionable and impossible for me? At some point in my resistance, my king would have duly noted my loyalty to you was greater than my loyalty to him. This might have put you in danger, having incurred the wrath of your husband. At the very least, Gunnar would have banished me from court and from my nearness to you forever. Such an outcome was even more unacceptable than participating in what was, without a doubt, an abject violation of your will.”
Sigurd’s soft voice pleading with me in earnest calmed my nerves. I began to see the complicated intricacies of the situation from his perspective. When Odin had revealed himself to me at Isenstein, the All-Father had hinted at some kind of dilemma which, harsh as it would seem from a purely human point of view, would in the long run be just a lot of smoke and fluff.
My wedding night meant almost nothing to me. I had no recollection of the offensive crime committed against me by both Gunnar and Sigurd. Instead, other memories flitted across my mind, such as the day Sigurd rescued me from Mount Hindarfiall, and the day we swore an inviolable oath of enduring love to each other. Sigurd had so lovingly placed the sacred gold ring on my finger, the very ring which had this day brought to light the appalling confession I now had to assimilate. “But now all is lost,” I whispered more to myself than to Sigurd. “I suppose if I were a different kind of woman, I would not even want to live.”
“No, no. Please do not utter such words!” Sigurd beseeched me, almost beside himself with anxiety. “You must live. Have me killed instead. I was the one who carried out Gunnar’s evil plan, and I should have confronted my lord and king, even on pain of death. Have me murdered in my sleep for the crime I committed against you. I do not deserve to live. Let Gunnar lay all the blame for it on my shoulders, for I will gladly pay the price for this unspeakable humiliation.”
“I could never have you or anyone else killed, Sigurd,” I explained to him patiently but sadly. “I am not an evil queen who misuses my power in such a manner. You have an important calling, a destiny decreed by Odin, as does every single person on this planet. I would never tamper with fate. I do not have the right to take another person’s life. The decision to be recalled to Asgard is a momentous one. Odin does not even presume to make such a decision by himself. He consults a whole council of angels and entities. In the end, most souls make the decision for themselves.”
Sigurd looked at me quietly before speaking again.
“Then let me turn Gudrun aside. I will divorce her and marry you,” Sigurd pleaded with me on his knees. “In doing so, I will set right the shameful wrong you have suffered. Your pride will be restored, and Gudrun will be the one who must suffer the humiliation. As your husband, I will protect you from all gossip and derision. In marrying me, you will save face before word of the insult against you ever reaches the populace.”
I snorted disdainfully at this scheme.
“And what about Gunnar’s pride?” I asked. “Like most primitive kings, my husband would start a war to save face. No, your intentions are admirable but not feasible.”
“What else do you suggest?” Sigurd asked me sincerely. I held my clenched fist to my forehead as I stared at the ground, immersed in a jumbled confusion of thoughts and emotions.
“Let us just forget about it,” I concluded, still anguished but now clearly comprehending the resolution. “It is not important. My disappointment in you is now the cause of much grief. But if I take any action to avenge myself, then for sure the whole population will know the entire chronicle by morning. If I ignore the insult, years will pass before the story becomes a legend known to all, and the shame of it will have been somewhat mitigated by the passage of time.
“Two husbands had me on that inglorious night, but I have no recollection of either. I once had some sympathy for Gunnar and some love for you, and now my heart is hardened, turned to stone, for I do not have any feelings for anyone. But such a development in the realm of my emotions is no great tragedy. I am not your victim, nor will I seek to make you mine. Go back to your wife. Pretend this discussion never happened. We will never speak of it again.”
Nodding his head in agreement, Sigurd arose in silence and walked away sadly, leaving me in the clearing by myself. I sat there for hours, watching the evening twilight gradually fade into the darkness of night. I heard the crickets chattering away in the brush, while an occasional nocturnal animal turned a bright pair of glowing eyes upon me. I had much to contemplate.
When the stars appeared in the sky, I looked up longingly, wishing I could be recalled to Asgard forthwith, so I would no longer have to deal with such earthly dilemmas. But that was the allure and the seduction of being a human on Earth. The dilemmas did not really exist; only the illusion of the dilemmas existed. The human faith in the fiction Odin had created for them was what made it all so fascinating and dramatic. Thus, the pain, the joy, the grief, and the grand gestures, all of which made Odin exult, for he was the planet’s greatest admirer. The All-Father reveled in every human emotion, sentimental old fool that he was. Nevertheless, despite my divine perspective regarding the question of human dramas, the incident regarding the ring caused me much personal heartache.
Legend would have it that the humiliation turned me into a monster.
Some say I ordered Gunnar to have Sigurd killed, and upon my command, Sigurd was murdered by knife in his own bed while Gudrun slept at his side. And it was said I was pleased the horrific deed had been done, at least at first, but soon after I nearly drowned in my own grief over Sigurd’s death. Furthermore, it would be told, in horror of what I had done by my own command and in horror of Gunnar for having obeyed me, I demanded to be burned on Sigurd’s funeral pyre. In this manner, according to the myth, I would die at Sigurd’s side, finally pronounced man and wife. Such fantastic fabrications were very much in keeping with the morbid ideas of the peasantry of that period, as if Odin would have permitted such an abysmal ending. The All-Father would sooner have frozen the planet in space and time than let me end my life in such dreadful form.
No, I kept my peace about the whole scandal. The sorrow and the bewilderment of seeing the gold ring, Andvaranaut, on Gudrun’s hand, and finding out how it got there was painful for me and caused me much woe at first. Certainly, I momentarily considered murder and war to avenge the demands of a delicate and sensitive human ego. But the truth was, I did not dwell on the crisis for very long. I knew whatever insult my human frame had sustained had in truth nothing to do with the existence of my eternal spirit. I would shed the corporeal form in due time, and my incarnated flesh would pass into the nothingness of the molecular world of physical reality. I, who had advised Odin to abolish anger, was put to the test when it came time to deal with my own outrage in the earthly realm.
But I triumphed. I remained unmoved.
Nevertheless, a much more menacing and dramatic form of evil was rising on the horizon of the civilized world of Sigurd’s day and age. The iniquitous leader who was reputed to be my half brother, Atli of Hunaland, later to be known as Attila the Hun, was afflicting the cultivated and emerging regions of Europe, and causing much havoc and despair. To think of Atli as the son of dear, wise King Budli was almost insufferable. Although Atli was not completely bereft of all humanity, as he was somewhat capable of governing wisely and being an efficient administrator, an avaricious greed and monstrous ambition had begun to consume the chief of the Huns. Now Atli had arisen at the head of a murderous army with nothing less than the intention to conquer the world and plunge the fledgling civilization of the planet into a wretched and woebegone era.
To be sure, my brother, Atli of Hunaland, was a madman.
The brutality of humans after having descended to the lowest depths of their animal souls far surpassed anything Odin could have foretold. The coarse and indecent aspect of human nature was a flaw in the works, an oversight, a divine miscalculation. It was true that wild animals roared, pounced, and tore living creatures apart limb by limb in order to feast on raw meat and drip with fresh blood without remorse, without reflection, and without contrition. Odin, who created the animal soul and embedded aspects of it in the human body alongside the divine soul, wanted the complex creatures called humans to know the exultation of the triumphant beast. The All-Father freely gave mortals such animal instincts and a taste for the thrill of vanquishing one’s foes, but he did not balance the formula as well as he thought he had. All too often, the instinctive animal side of the human being prevailed, and the otherwise divine creatures became no better than the lions, cougars, and panthers of the jungle who fought to the death while ripping all adversaries to bloody pieces. Nonetheless, Odin did not make mistakes; he merely could not have predicted the bloody gore resulting from what he delicately termed a minor misstep.
Atli of Hunaland was a supreme example of Odin’s impetuousness—this small indiscretion—which had occurred in the All-Father’s haste and enthusiasm to complete the work at hand, when he gave humans every gift he could possibly endow. Atli’s heart was almost completely dead. The legend holding the wise and sagacious King Budli to be Atli’s father was difficult for my Icelandic kinsmen to accept. Paradoxically enough, when Atli was not leading savage invasions all over the continent, when he was at home, secure and in power in his own land, especially later in his life, he ruled in the fashion of my father, with discipline and order. But when the war beat started throbbing in his blood, Atli was uncontainable. The merciless chief organized barbaric onslaughts; he plundered entire cities, allowing his soldiers to run wild in the midst of the chaos and the destruction they had created. As king of the Huns, he was feared throughout the civilized world for his butchery and his ravenous greed for more power and more land. Atli was, for the most part, characterized by his pitiless cruelty, which bordered on insanity. Even the wisdom and talents my half brother might have inherited from the benign genetic material of King Budli could not do much to temper such primitive instincts.
Atli was sometimes provoked into warring rages by a petty insult or some bizarre form of envy, but most frequently the war drums were sounded to fill the coffers of the Hunnic Empire, either with stolen loot or heavy taxation. Regarding the Nordic lands, the chief of the Huns had heard embellished rumors about the man who was allegedly his father having recovered a lost daughter back in Iceland, who had been taken in by the good King Budli and treated to all the privileges of a highborn princess. It was not lost upon Atli that he had been denied such titles and favors as putative son. Budli had never even met the Hun he was to have fathered. At the time, when Atli was curious about my existence and my relationship as his half sister, the Hunnic chieftain entertained a desire to journey to Iceland to meet me. But he had more pressing issues to deal with during this interval. Never modest in his ambitions, Atli was bent on trying to invade the Roman Empire.
It would be the legend of Fafnir’s treasure that would prove to be the necessary provocation for the Hunnic leader to focus his attention, not on Isenstein, which remained protected by the sea from the mounted Huns, but on Nibelungenland.
How can I begin to explain the terror and devastation inflicted by Atli? The Hunnic army would eventually devastate some of the greatest cities of Europe—Rheims, Mainz, Strasbourg, Cologne, Worms, Trier, not to mention the major cities of Northern Italy, including Milan, Verona, and Padua, which were among the most scandalous atrocities. Paris and Rome were miraculously spared being put to siege by the Huns. Under Atli’s command, the Huns murdered, pillaged, raped, and burned to the ground everything they left behind.
Where did the Huns come from? The ancient cavalry emerged from the murky mists and vapors of never-chronicled history, it seemed, as an uncivilized tribe of nomadic warriors whose greatest talent consisted of being mounted archers. The restless tribesmen originally bred their war horses on the open steppes of Central Asia, where the clan existed as wandering herdsmen without roots and without purpose. The origins of the Huns are vague, but somewhere around the late fourth century, they came galloping out of Asia, perhaps after having been defeated in an attempt to conquer the Chinese Empire or perhaps searching for fresh grasslands for their horses. Whatever the motivation might have been, the Huns abandoned their Asian homeland, and they appeared for the first time in Western history mounted on their horses and racing toward Europe.
The Huns were short, stout, and ugly, as well as bowlegged from constantly being mounted on the horses they had mastered both as a form of transport and a weapon of war. Their faces were deliberately scarred at birth with the sole intent of enhancing their murderous and frightful demeanor.
Some called them the Scourge of God; others called them the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Compared to the citizens of the Roman Empire, the Huns were backward, savage, and uncivilized; they were wilder than the wildest barbarians. Having no culinary skill, these uncultivated nomads dined upon uncooked roots without spice or relish, and it was common for them to swallow their meat half raw. It was difficult to subdue the mounted warriors in battle. They did not play by the rules of traditional warfare, and there was rarely any order or organization in their form of attack. Hunnic warriors were swift, unpredictable, and filled with a feverish madness, evident when they attacked screaming at the top of their lungs. Fearless in the face of death, a Hunnic soldier wielded his sword in battle like a crazed beast, using methods considered to be unethical and unprecedented. In battle, upon approaching a mounted swordsman who was highly skilled, a Hunnic horseman often threw a net over his opponent, unfairly disabling a foe in this manner before plunging a dagger into his chest.
But the Huns became truly infamous after 433 A.D., when Atli was appointed their new king. Atli was young, ferocious, ambitious, and extremely proud. The Hunnic chief was certainly nothing to look at. He was in fact an ugly duckling, thickset, with a large head out of proportion to the rest of his body, and dark, beady eyes that were suspicious of all. Atli had a flat nose, a scraggly beard sporting some gray in it, and square shoulders. The chief of the Huns had a frightening habit of rolling his eyes around in their sockets apparently with the intent to terrorize, and there was an ugly legend purporting he had once eaten two of his sons.
It was presumed Atli had murdered his own brother in order to gain complete control of the Hunnic Empire. All of Europe was menaced by him and trembled at the sound of his name. Atli knew no god, no ethics, and no law, save the laws of greed and terror. Had my earthly father, Budli, conceived this monster by accident on one of the famous exotic journeys of his youth? If so, it was a tragic irony for the wise and gentle King Budli to have fathered the Madman of Late Antiquity.
Atli had unfortunately become aware of the mythical realm of Nibelungenland. After the rumors of my existence as Budli’s repatriated daughter had roused his curiosity, new rumors had reached his ears that Sigurd, the greatest warrior of the civilized world, had wrested a legendary treasure from the lair of Fafnir, the dreaded beast of lore. Atli’s greed knew no bounds. A small portion of Atli’s forces, under the leadership of a trusted chieftain chosen from among the Huns, would be diverted to conquer the Nibelungs. As was his custom, Atli intended for his army to massacre, ravish, and plunder, and ultimately, put the kingdom to the torch. As a pretext for invasion, Atli demanded a heavy tax from my husband, King Gunnar, knowing full well the independent Nibelungs had no obligation to him.
“What say you to the orders to pay taxes to Atli?” the Hunnic messenger asked Gunnar.
“You may tell your leader that I am an honorable king, that I owe him nothing, and that I fear him not.”
And so Gunnar, of course, refused to pay.
At Asgard, Odin was whipped into a state of nervous frenzy. The small and secluded kingdom of the Nibelungs with its mythical origins was very close to his heart. It was here that many legendary scenes were being brought to their natural conclusion, the mythology of which would edify the collective consciousness of the human psyche for many millennia to come. The little stage laid out in this tiny realm presented classical human predicaments and the highest form of emotional drama. The greatest bards and scribes of the era were gathered in the Nibelung kingdom to report it to all posterity. With song and literature, renowned poets were using this primordial source as a basis for elaborate insight into the essential nature of human nature. I had somehow heightened this effect, and a continual flow of illustrious people were being drawn to the region, having been attracted by my presence. This was all as it should be. Odin had contrived it thus.
But this new turn of events, the threat from Atli, had caused new and unforeseen complications. Odin could not defy human will, and he could not change the course of events once the will of a powerful human, or a powerful collective of humans, had set a new course into motion. In this respect, human souls, unaware as they were of their own potential, were as invincible as Odin himself. Indeed, Odin had intended for mortals to discover their true divine powers; the All-Father waited patiently and hoped every day to note that the time was at hand. But it would be eons before humans reached a true state of enlightenment regarding their own mastery. Light-years would pass before civilization on Earth restored the planet to its true and natural form, which was the paradise Earth was meant to be, the Garden of Eden of the original intent and design. The present prolonged state of purgatory on Earth tortured Odin, and at times he felt strangled.
“My earthly subjects are trying to kill me!” Odin would eternally shout at the top of his lungs from his chambers, as a half dozen advisers and other entities would come racing in to find out what was wrong. And there they would find Odin, with his face buried in his hands, appalled at what was being portrayed on his divine screening device in his chambers. The All-Father was, as always, almost inconsolable at such times.
But the day Odin saw Atli planning the invasion of Nibelungenland and relishing the resulting atrocities, Odin was beside himself with foreboding. So much was riding on the successful outcome of the story of this tiny kingdom, which Odin had intended would survive in legend and mythology. Odin had constructed every detail with such fastidious care. My human existence as goddess-in-exile was being threatened, and my mission to speed up the process of human enlightenment was also being threatened. Odin had to act. The chief counselor, Sage, consulted with Odin, and forced the All-Father to collect himself. Together, the two agreed to have a meeting of the war council.
The war council was called into the convention hall at Asgard for an official presentation. Sage prepared the long report distributed to the council and the gods and goddesses, all of whom were in attendance. Frigg was seated at Odin’s side, sporting her new figure, still voluptuous but greatly slimmed down. My rival had profited from my absence, and she was no longer eating her heart out or anything else she could get her hands on. Odin had become more patient with his wife, and he was giving Frigg a little more of the attention she craved. Odin was pleased to see the transformation from the illusion of obesity into a full, curvaceous figure. But Frigg’s improved appearance and demeanor changed neither Odin’s feelings for me nor his commitment to me. Odin was the All-Father, the All-Husband, and the All-Lover. He could be everywhere at once and in love with everyone at once. There was no place for human jealousy and possessiveness in the grand scheme of all divine things.
Thor, Odin’s most powerful son, was also present in the convention hall. He was unusually quiet, most likely due to nerves. But in truth, everyone was a bit nervous and tense. The report stated the severity of the situation, and anyone who had eyes could see how distraught Odin was. The Father of the Gods was present at the meeting, seated on the high throne, a chair reserved only for the most formal occasions. Odin did not look well; he was pale and haggard with large circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, and he was clearly exhausted. Frigg sat close at his side on a slightly lower throne. The war council sat in a semicircle behind Odin, slightly elevated above him, a tribute to the importance of this prestigious jury comprised mostly of African kings and queens from throughout the ages. Every member of the panel, however, looked exceedingly glum.
Sage gave a speech touching on all the main points, which had been discussed in great detail in the lengthy report. “We are in grave danger here,” Sage stated firmly. “As Chief Adviser, I must inform you much is at stake. Odin has waited centuries for this important story to be told. Brynhild herself is on Earth right now, helping the epic to reach its natural conclusion. The tale will be known by various names—the Volsunga Saga, the Song of the Nibelungs, the Ballad of Sigurd—regardless of what name posterity shall choose to call it, the mythology will be an important aid, a teaching tool, for generations to come on Earth. Many important symbols and archetypes are now in the process of being developed in the collective consciousness of the human race.
“We, here, the gods and goddesses at Asgard, intend to use those symbols and archetypes as important modes of communication in the future when talking to humans through their dreams, their thoughts, their art, and other tools of divination. However, all will be lost if Atli gets his way and destroys our work before it has a chance to be properly assimilated. It will take millennia for Odin to have another opportunity like this one. And much time will be lost where we remain almost incommunicado to humans, unable to find the proper symbols and vocabulary with which to speak to them, unable to be comprehended. A tragic setback such as this one cannot be sustained here in Asgard. It has been decreed. We will intervene!”
The gripping silence of the hall was instantly broken by this blunt and unexpected announcement. A hubbub of excited voices erupted all at once. Everyone present at the meeting had something to say. There were catcalls and booing. “Impossible!” “Odin’s word is at stake!” “We must allow humans to decide their own fates!” “They have absolute freedom!” were some of the comments numerous voices yelled out from the floor. “You will be going back on your word!” “You will destroy the illusion of reality!” “Do not go forward with this intention!” Arguments were breaking out on the floor. Odin stood up and silently raised his hand while he waited for everyone to quiet down. After a few moments, the assembly had been hushed, and the room was as quiet as a tomb. And then Odin spoke calmly but persuasively.
“I am not tampering with human reality or freedom. But neither will I sit back and hold my peace while I watch my work being destroyed. I cannot change Atli’s plan, and I cannot guarantee the outcome of this ghastly drama. All I am saying is this—we will help them. We will do everything in our power to ensure the triumph of goodness and justice. Some horror stories will have to be told, and such tales will become part of the mythology. But the mythology must be preserved. We will do what we can.”
Thor stood up at once and demanded the floor. “What if Atli wins,” Thor asked, “and civilization loses?”
“If that happens, we will experience a dire setback,” Odin replied. “But it will be only a setback. I have given humans an eternal paradise, which in their ignorance they have temporarily turned into a hell. But paradise is always just around the corner for my flesh-and-blood creatures. They cannot not win. Mortals are always in the process of reaching the highest possible goal; they are always heading in the right direction. I have created the illusion of winning and losing just to give my cherished favorites something to strive for. This competitive element was supposed to be by way of demonstration only. Naturally, I should have known better. Whenever I cater to their baser instincts, humans always take it to an extreme. Now they are always trying to win, even if it is just about the random chance incurred by rolling dice on a game board. You see what I am up against.”
Just at that moment, Njord, a god of the sea and wind, often called upon by mariners, stood up and confronted Odin. “Sire,” Njord said, “give it to us straight. What is the grand plan?”
Sage was the one to answer this important question. He rose to his feet and made his monumental announcement. “We are planning an invasion. An army of angels is being recruited even as I speak. The defending army of the Nibelungs will be well fortified. Each Nibelung soldier will be accompanied by two angels. And the head of the Nibelung army, who will have an entire entourage of angels, will also be kept under constant surveillance by Odin.”
The hush was broken again by a low hum of excited whispers.
Freyja, the fairest of all goddesses, stood up and asked the question burning in everybody’s mind. “Who will be the head of the Nibelung army?” Freyja called out in a loud, clear voice for the entire company to hear. Sage smiled, for everyone suspected what the answer to that question would be.
“The greatest warrior on Earth at this time,” Sage replied. “The army will be headed by Sigurd.”
Now the assembly got rowdy again. Arguments broke out at once. The participants were both thrilled and alarmed. Sigurd was now about forty years old. Surely, this illustrious knight was a mature man, and he could take on the tremendous responsibility. But there were those who had their doubts and feared for the future of the Nibelungs with Sigurd at the head of the Nibelung army. Sigurd was still riddled with self-doubt, and he often lacked intense focus and true conviction.
True, he was the son of King Sigmund, and he had distinguished himself by slaying Fafnir, but that feat had almost cost Sigurd his life. Sigurd had been trembling with fear and sweating profusely on the day he went in to finish Fafnir off. There had been one dreadful moment when the residents of Asgard feared Sigurd was going to give up the struggle and flee in terror of being mauled by the wretched beast. If Fafnir had devoured Sigurd at the critical hour, the whole saga would have been brought to an untimely end. Fortunately, Sigurd had come through, and the outcome was the one everyone had desired and hoped for. But now the stakes were higher, and the mission would require far more courage and skill. Was Sigurd up to it? Odin raised his arm for the second time until a hush fell over the room once again.
“We have no choice,” Odin declared decisively and in commanding tones. “Sigurd is our only hope. He is the only one who has even a slim chance of prevailing. Is Sigurd ready for this? Even I cannot say for sure. But part of my task is to convince Sigurd he is ready. For if Sigurd believes he is ready, then indeed, he shall be. You must all help me with this. You must all believe in Sigurd. Even a moment of doubt from one god could cost us our precious victory. The future of the human race hangs in the balance.” There was a long pause. “Are you all with me on this?” Odin’s voice rang out with a masterful authority.
The entire hall of gods and goddesses responded, as they arose in unison and proclaimed with one voice, “Hail, Sigurd, son of Sigmund!”
“Good, then you must all make haste and gather around the grand entry hall,” Odin ordered. “The army of angels is being briefed for their departure. We will see them off now. The celestial beings need to be infused with the highest love and inspiration, which they will in turn communicate to Sigurd and his men. All of you must concentrate your energies on this task. Every ounce of love you can invest in these heavenly guardians will help to weight the tremulous balance of power.”
Idunn, goddess of eternal youth and married to Bragi, god of poetry, stood up in the back of the room and asked for the floor. Odin granted it to her. “Should we try to curse Atli?” Idunn inquired. Odin shook his head sadly.
“Now, my dear Idunn, I’m surprised at you,” Odin replied calmly. “You know curses, hatred, and any kind of violence will only boomerang back at you. We are all one. If we curse one part of ourselves, we curse one and all. There is no separation. There is no grand divide. Atli is not the devil. He is merely a human being who does not believe in my existence or feel my love. Therefore, the Hunnic chief occasionally slips into bouts of lunacy. Atli thinks he is the god of the universe. The gentle teachings of his true father, King Budli of Isenstein, often guide Atli in the bureaucratic administration of the law, but when Atli is enraged, he fears no consequences, for he believes in no retribution.
“It breaks my heart to see Atli’s rampages. The man was meant for greatness, and he has perverted his true purpose in this loathsome fashion. His own soul finds the savagery to be hateful, and Atli is not even aware of it. Indeed, Atli’s soul was wandering around Valhalla just the other day, while his human frame slept in a drunken stupor in his bed back on Earth. I encountered Atli myself in the corridor. In his delirium, Atli almost thought he was supposed to remain here. Balder, our beautiful golden boy, explained to Atli he had to go back and return to his human body. But not for long. Atli’s personal angels tell me his soul has made a decision. He will be arriving in Valhalla in the very near future.”
A loud murmur swept across the hall at this news.
“So why do we not just wait for him to die?” asked Sif, who was Thor’s wife and whose gleaming, golden locks reflected the glittering lights of Asgard.
“That would simplify everything, would it not?” Odin conceded. “But Atli will not have it. The Hunnic monarch desires the destruction of the Nibelungs to be one of his last sieges on the planet before he departs. So we must act now.”
“Enough discussion, ye gods and goddesses,” Sage announced peremptorily. “Follow me into the main entrance hall. The angels await us. We must see them off.” And so hundreds of gods and goddesses arose at Sage’s behest, and the divinities lined themselves up and down the long entry hall wide enough to allow eight hundred men to walk abreast. The buglers appeared in the center of the floor and sounded out majestic notes to herald all the angels of the heavens. And out of nowhere, they appeared. It was a sight magnificent to behold. Rows and rows of angels in military Roman formation leading back to the far end of the hall. The celestial army seemed to reach out into infinity. The heavenly seraphs did not have the wings humans liked to imagine they had. The angels were golden beings lit up by a mystical light, which surrounded their bodies. The angels looked human as did the gods; the angels imitated mortals in the appearance they chose to manifest. But every one of them, male or female, was a perfectly beautiful, resplendent creature and of every race, color, and creed. Even the gods were touched; Odin had tears in his eyes. This army of light and love was about to depart for the glorious quest Odin had conferred upon them.
“Are you ready?” Odin called out.
“We are, Sire,” the archangel at the head of the legion called back.
“Then you all know what must be done. I will be watching you every step of the way, helping in every perfect way I can think of. Remember, this undertaking is sacred to me. I cannot guarantee the outcome, but I can guarantee I believe in you every moment, and that at every moment, I am convinced you will succeed.”
“Then we shall, Sire,” replied the archangel without hesitation.
There was a long silence. Every god and goddess stood still and focused on sending the angelic army light and love. At length Odin spoke in a loud and commanding voice. “Very well, then. Be brave, and remember me!”
And so Odin extended his right arm, and swooping his hand upward in a regal gesture, he uttered magical incantations. The doors of Asgard melted away instantly, and the outer space of the physical universe became visible in the entryway. There was Bifröst, the rainbow bridge with its brilliant reds, blues, violets, and greens, the bridge leading out of the heavens. And beyond the bridge, a ladder of light sloped earthward from Asgard. Row by row, the angels exited, walking in perfect formation. The guardian spirits crossed the bridge and gracefully descended the rungs of this heavenly ladder, and when the marching angels stepped onto the dry land of Earth, they continued on their way, an army of light headed for Sigurd’s camp. It was there, just outside the borders of the Nibelung kingdom, where Sigurd, having been warned by King Gunnar’s spies of the threat from the east, had led the defending Nibelung army in preparation for a foreign invasion. Having established his camp and his command post, Sigurd was facing the greatest test of his prowess ever to be conceived by any mortal.
He would take on the army of Huns.
Sigurd awoke just before dawn, sensing the morning without seeing any evidence of it, for it was still pitch-dark outside his tent. Opening his eyes a full hour earlier than he needed to, Sigurd stirred and looked around him feeling something was amiss. The threat of a great battle had seemed only nominal, for Gunnar was certain Atli had more important matters of contention than the question of the Nibelungs’ refusal to pay tribute to the Hunnic king. After all, what was the tiny nation of the Nibelungs compared to the holdings of the Roman Empire? Gunnar’s little kingdom, a Nordic tribe which was secluded and unknown to most of the civilized world, had been forgotten amidst the world’s turmoil, and except for petty battles and conflicts, remained separate and aloof.
Still, when Atli was informed by a messenger from Gunnar’s court that the heavy tax the Huns had demanded would not be handed over upon demand, the response from the leader of the Huns was ambiguous. As a cautious measure, for Gunnar’s spies had noted some suspicious activity in Hunnic camps stationed in nearby regions, Sigurd had taken the Nibelung army to the outer borders of the little kingdom. There the regiment had set up camp while guards kept watch throughout the night, carefully scrutinizing the eastern frontier, the direction from which Atli’s troops would be expected to arrive. Sigurd tried not to imagine the implications of a bloody and fearsome battle with Atli’s troops. The son of Sigmund consoled himself with the tactical view held by King Gunnar and the royal advisers, which presumed such a campaign would cost Atli too much effort and would be hardly worth the trouble. Gunnar’s military analysts were satisfied Atli did not have sufficient motivation to trifle with the tiny kingdom.
Nevertheless, upon awakening in the early hours of that inauspicious morning, Sigurd knew instinctively he had deluded himself with such reassurances, for he sensed something was wrong. Casting a glance at the open flap in the entrance to his tent, Sigurd noted blackness still reigned in the moonless sky, yet the interior of his spacious and well-outfitted tent was glowing with a mysterious golden light. The source of the ethereal illumination remained unfathomable. Sigurd blinked his eyes several times to see if the inexplicable phosphorescence was an optical illusion owing to the deep sleep from which he had just awoken. But the remarkable radiance did not go away. Sigurd lifted himself, and propped up on his elbows, he gazed around him and continued to wonder at the unearthly light. At that moment, a breeze stirred the flaps of the canvas, and the leader of the Nibelung army heard a voice somehow both distant and yet clearly audible; indeed, a voice very familiar to him.
Sigurd... the softly whispered sound trailed off longingly.
Sigurd knew the melodious tones all too well, for he recognized the voice he had heard the day he vanquished Fafnir, the very same voice whose rich inflections had consoled him on many occasions when he was a child. Although the sonorous utterance masqueraded itself as his own voice inside his head, Sigurd knew the difference. He had unmistakably identified the voice of Odin. “Are you speaking to me, my Lord?” Sigurd asked aloud, looking around in dismay and feeling self-conscious about addressing an invisible entity.
Sigurd...it is time… was the whispered reply Sigurd heard inside his head.
“Time for what?” Sigurd asked out loud once again.
The time has come...you must fight the most difficult battle...it will be your finest hour...it must be done...it must be you...the time has come.
The voice died away again.
“What? How is such a thing possible?” Sigurd muttered as he bounded out of bed. He stood in the middle of his tent, and like an actor on a stage, the uncertain knight looked upward and made a sweeping gesture with his arms in a dramatic appeal to his unseen commander. “The most difficult battle—do you mean with Atli’s forces? The Huns will not bother even to put in an appearance. There is no profit for them in such a venture, as we are not worth the expense or the trouble.”
Sigurd...rouse your men...Atli’s troops are on their way...the time has come.
“Ach, no, please, do not tell me that,” Sigurd pleaded. “I cannot do it. Such a significant battle is still beyond my capabilities.”
Sigurd... it must be you...it must be done.
The voice faded out, and Sigurd desperately looked around as the impenetrable silence pounded in his ears. The eerie light inside the tent suddenly brightened, and for a moment Sigurd feared he would be blinded by it. Sigurd instinctively shielded his eyes with one hand, squinting hard to discern what was being revealed to him. He gazed about the interior of the tent. As he watched, a wondrous scene became manifest. Sigurd promptly perceived he was surrounded by a host of angels. The celestial beings comprised human forms who radiated astounding pale blue explosions of light, a light both brilliant and enthralling. But Sigurd was enthralled only for the briefest of moments, for the exquisite luminosity extinguished itself, the angels vanished instantly, and Sigurd was alone in the darkness once more. “In the name of the gods,” the dumbfounded warrior whispered, “I must do battle with Atli’s forces. My fate has been spelled out for me.”
And then bellowing like a drunken madman in order to rouse the camp, Sigurd searched for his sword and helmet, while his startled pages jumped to their feet and raced to Sigurd’s side to determine the cause of his panic. Sigurd was shouting commands almost incoherently, until finally, every page and aide-de-camp understood the true nature of the revelation he had experienced, a revelation from Odin himself. “Atli’s army is upon us!” Sigurd screamed in a state of agitation and upset. No one questioned Sigurd’s ability to commune with Odin, and his assistants quickly helped him to suit up in his armor. The drums were struck to awaken the entire camp. The news spread rapidly from tent to tent—the Nibelung army was being mobilized. The threat from Atli’s troops had been revealed to Sigurd, and the informant was none other than Odin himself. The Huns would be upon Sigurd’s army in a matter of hours.
The camp came to life instantly. Every soldier donned his armor and prepared his weapons. The pages saddled the horses, and the servants started up the fires to get a quick breakfast cooked and distributed. Soon the warriors were all in full readiness and mounted on their horses. At Sigurd’s command, the troops headed off in an easterly direction with Sigurd leading the way. Only the son of Sigmund and a few privileged others could perceive the uncanny angelic glow, the empyreal light which accompanied the mounted army of soldiers, with two angels clinging to every horse, and a host of angels accompanying Sigurd.
An hour later, the Nibelungs approached the enemy camp; Sigurd’s men stopped and remained still while mounted on their horses, watching the flickering campfires on the horizon. Odin had informed Sigurd correctly. Atli’s men were almost finished with their preparations, and they were in the process of harnessing their horses and distributing their weapons. The Huns had hoped to take Sigurd’s troops by surprise. They could not discern the Nibelung army watching them from a distance.
Sigurd was trembling. He lifted his visor from his helmet to get some air. He was gasping for breath. The son of Sigmund felt feverish. “My Lord, Odin,” he whispered, “I am scared. Please forgive me for failing you in this way, but I cannot move. I am terrified.”
Once again Odin’s harmonious tones were heard like heavenly music in Sigurd’s head.
Your finest hour...the time has come...it must be you...it must be done.
Sigurd let his visor fall back into place with a resounding clank. The son of Sigmund was still shaking, but he knew there was no turning back. Sigurd sought valiantly to recover himself as he gasped for breath, and the sweat poured down his face. At that moment, the extraordinary event, which Sigurd prayed for as always, occurred. A wave of strength and resolution surged throughout his entire body. Sigurd threw his head back, and he held his sword high in the air. A bloodcurdling war cry escaped from his throat, the signal his commanding officers were awaiting, for the war cry was the cue that the attack had begun. “Then it will be done!” Sigurd cried out, now fortified by his divinely inspired courage.
And there came the thunderous roar of a thousand stampeding horses.
Sigurd’s memory of the hours to come would prove to be unreliable. He saw enough blood, horror, and death to last a lifetime. The Nibelungs had taken Atli’s army by surprise, but several of the enemy’s ace units and guard troops had already been standing in readiness. The skilled warriors of the enemy camp took Sigurd on in hand-to-hand combat while Sigurd rode around in circles like a crazed animal, screaming at the top of his lungs and slashing at anything in near proximity. The dead bodies were strewn about the field in a scene that became a blood-drenched nightmare. Yet, somehow, as the marauding mob of confusion thinned itself out, it was mostly Atli’s men who lay sprawled in the field, their features frozen in a grotesque caricature of painful death. As the battle drew to a close, Sigurd surveyed the scene in his exhaustion, almost certain of his victory. At that very moment, when Sigurd was about to exult in triumph, one of Atli’s soldiers, wounded and crazed, made a desperate lunge at the fatigued knight who had led the Nibelung forces into battle. One of Sigurd’s guards attempted to abort the headlong charge of the dying Hun just in time to pull Sigurd inches out of the way. Nevertheless, the oncoming sword was plunged into Sigurd’s side, missing his heart but still inflicting a serious wound. The attacker was quickly slain by Sigurd’s guards.
Sigurd’s faithful and divine horse, Grani, understood instinctively his master had been injured and was in danger. The horse fled from the field with its wounded rider lying on the animal’s back face down, Sigurd’s feet still attached to the stirrups. When Grani was clear of the battlefield, the horse found a secluded alcove of trees and bushes with a little stream. Grani lowered himself while Sigurd rolled off the horse’s back and onto the ground, where the Nibelung leader quickly became unconscious. Sometime after nightfall, a Nibelung search party with fiery torches found Sigurd lying there alongside the stream, as Grani stood guard over his master. The rescuers washed the wound, bandaged it, and carefully laid Sigurd out on a stretcher. Slowly the medical team made their way back to the camp from which Sigurd had departed early that morning with such determination and faith.
Sigurd’s army had won the day. Atli’s forces had been repelled.
There should have been joy and celebration back at the camp when it was clear the Nibelungs were victorious. Instead, the entire camp was moribund. To win the battle but lose Sigurd was a trade-off almost unbearable for the Nibelungs. The price was too high to pay. Sigurd was laid out in his bed, unconscious, breathing with difficulty, and feverish. Several battlefield doctors and nurses were attending to the Nibelung leader impassively but with grim expressions on their faces conveying the severity of the situation. A courier stood poised at the entrance of the imperial tent housing the commander of the army, ready to run with the news of any change in Sigurd’s condition. All the wounded had been returned to the camp. Those soldiers who could be safely moved were being taken back to their homes or to the palace for further treatment by the royal doctors, limited as their craft was in that day and age. The rest of the camp remained behind, unwilling to leave until they knew Sigurd’s fate. It did not look promising. The wound was deep, and Sigurd had lost a lot of blood. He could not be moved.
Everyone waited.
On the second day, Sigurd’s condition worsened. Gunnar, impatient for news every hour, sent his own bodyguard, André, to the camp to get a personal report. A brave and trustworthy soul, André raced to the camp on a white Arabian horse bearing the royal standard. The watch outside the camp informed the doctors a royal courier was arriving, most likely seeking news of Sigurd’s condition. The oldest doctor on the team, Vrinjing, who was silver-haired and bearded, stepped outside Sigurd’s tent, and he waited for Gunnar’s man to arrive. “How fares Sigurd?” yelled André from his horse, not even wanting to take the time to dismount, so anxious was he for news.
The good doctor did not mince words. There was no way to soften the effect he knew his pronouncement would have. “Fetch his mother,” Vrinjing replied simply. “Sigurd is dying.”
The royal physician then withdrew, disappearing through the flaps of the tent.
André’s horse whinnied and reared with the front legs high in the air, as if comprehending the impact of the woeful tidings. André regained control of the beast, and he hastily turned the horse homeward to begin the journey back to the palace, before anyone had a chance to see the tears welling up in his eyes. Gunnar’s trusted guardsman tore off into the wilderness, filled with the frustration of being unable to help Sigurd in any way except in the communication of this small request.
The next day, Hjordis, the Viking queen and the widow of Sigmund, arrived at the camp, where she took up her post at her son’s bedside. The vigil seemed to have no end in sight, and all hope was lost. The camp was already in mourning. It was almost too painful to wait for Sigurd to die. Many of Sigurd’s comrades sincerely wished they could die in his place.
At Asgard, Sage observed the mournful scene in Sigurd’s camp from the screening room, while thoughtfully rubbing his chin. Odin was still in a conference with the war council, and Sage was patiently waiting to catch Odin in passing and have a word with him. At last the conference room doors swung open, and Odin, rushing about as usual, swept past Sage trying to pretend he did not notice the Chief Adviser standing there. “Sire, I must speak to you. It’s quite urgent,” Sage implored, squarely blocking Odin’s path by standing in front of him and holding his arms out sideways.
“What is it now?” Odin paused and asked with resignation, knowing full well it was impossible to avoid Sage when he had business he considered to be pressing.
“Sire, it’s about Sigurd,” Sage chose his words carefully.
“Yes, yes. What about him?” Odin pursued with some gruffness in his tone of voice.
“Have you been in the screening room recently?” Sage asked.
“Not for a couple of days. I’ve been occupied with other crises. What ails him? He won,” Odin noted.
“Ah, yes, indeed. He won, Sire, but I think you got called away by the Acting Head Valkyrie before the battle actually reached its absolute conclusion. Isn’t that correct?” Sage inquired.
“I believe that is correct,” Odin agreed. “Brynhild’s replacement is taking longer to train than I had originally anticipated. Did something happen after I left?”
“Yes…I suppose you could say that,” Sage countered cautiously.
“So give it to me straight, my man, what ails Sigurd?” Odin’s impatience was obvious.
“Sire, Sigurd has been mortally wounded,” Sage blurted out without further procrastination. A long pause ensued.
“What!” boomed Odin in an explosion capable of shaking the heavens. Every god and goddess in Asgard had to stop for a moment, while they made sure it was not the end of all the universes. Odin was aghast. “Who is responsible for this? This is a mistake. Was it an accident? Don’t tell me my renegade son, Thor, has been misfiring with his lightning bolts again. What went wrong? Is he dead yet?”
Odin was getting increasingly hysterical.
“He lives, Sire, but he is not expected to last much longer,” Sage reported quietly. Odin made a dash for his executive suite, where he went through the great piles of scrolls and manuscripts lying about on the floor.
“Where is it? Where is it?” Odin kept saying to himself, now panic-stricken.
Eventually, the All-Father found what he was searching for, a manuscript entitled “The Life of Sigurd.” Odin turned directly to the back to read the last page. The ending was vague because there were always two endings, the true ending and the mythological ending, which was difficult to interpret even in Asgard. “I thought Sigurd was not supposed to die until old age,” muttered Odin, “or what passes for old age during this period, which is about fifty-eight. It says here he survives the battle, but it does not say for how long. See, now, this is what happens when I stop paying attention even for a moment. I have to be cognizant of everything all the time. As soon as I get distracted, I face certain disaster.”
“Indeed, nothing is cast in stone, as you always say, Sire,” Sage reminded him.
“Yes, true, very true. Nothing is cast in stone,” Odin allowed softly, more to himself than to Sage.
“What are you going to do, Sire?” demanded Sage rather bluntly.
“Let me examine the details of Sigurd’s physical state,” replied Odin after a pensive moment. “I have to see how serious the wound is.”
Sage focused on the screen while extending his right hand to send out invisible energies, until Sigurd’s enfeebled frame appeared from the waist up in full detail on the screen. Odin stared at the unconscious warrior for a long time without saying anything. “Ah, yes, that looks rather grim, does it not?” Odin finally whispered. “A lunatic soldier made a reckless dash for him, eh?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Where is that soldier now?”
“He arrived at Valhalla the other night, Sire. He’s actually a very good soldier,” Sage informed the Father of the Gods.
“Ah, yes, I am sure of it. The idiot very nearly changed the course of history without my permission. You have to be good to do that. I expect that sort of thing from Atli but not from a common soldier,” Odin concurred. “I hope the unruly fellow does not expect a medal for this little escapade.”
“What are you going to do, Sire?” Sage asked once again.
“I’m not sure. This will take a miracle.” Odin began to nervously chew on a thumbnail.
“Can civilization handle a miracle? You don’t want humans to start a new religion, do you?” inquired Sage.
“Please, no. Naturally, I do not. Humans start new religions as a matter of course, even when there is no miracle in sight. Mortals can only handle small, trivial miracles, which they term ‘coincidences.’ The slightest hint of a major miracle, and my sentient souls are killing each other to protect the new faith they have invented, and all in my name, or so they say. I am nearly at the end of my tether. Humans are going to be the death of me.” Odin sounded truly discouraged.
“But humans are your grand masterpiece, Sire,” Sage gently reminded him.
“Yes, yes, I know. I gave mortals free will. I invited these divine souls housed in bodies to make mistakes. I knew humans had to sink to the lowest depths before they could ascend to the greatest heights, so they could understand the difference between the two states. I gave humans contradictions, so they could explore all the possibilities. Contradictions are sacred to me. I, of all entities, have a lot of nerve if I’m going to complain. Nevertheless, my cherished earthbound creatures drive me to distraction with their contradictions.”
“I know I keep asking this, Sire, but what exactly are you going to do?” Sage repeated. Sage knew something had to be done very soon. Odin continued to stare at the screen as he resumed chewing on a thumbnail.
“Get Rota in here,” Odin ordered Sage, having made a swift decision. “She is going in for a special mission.” Rota was the Acting Chief Valkyrie, who was substituting for me. Sage went running down the hall to fetch her at once.
“Do I have enough experience to resuscitate a dying warrior?” asked Rota in a bit of a panic, when Sage burst into her boudoir and quickly briefed her on the predicament Odin was facing. “I mean, I’ve been making mistakes of a rather serious nature. The other day, I was at a major battle. I delivered a healthy captain’s soul to Valhalla, and I left the soul of the deceased captain wandering around the battlefield in utter bewilderment.”
“Good heavens! That was a big mistake,” Sage agreed. “Were you able to correct it?”
“Yes, but Odin had to help me,” Rota noted dejectedly. “Odin struck the healthy captain, who was destined to live, with the thorn of sleep so the mystified soul would not remember anything he had seen. Next, we put him back in his old body, planting the explanation he had gone into shock and had mysteriously become unconscious. Lastly, I retrieved the correct soul of the deceased captain, who, as disoriented as he was about just having died and having been left behind, was even more disoriented by the time he arrived in Valhalla.”
“I can imagine. You’re lucky you returned to the battlefield in time to put the captain destined to live back in his own body. An inexplicable death followed by a resurrection? Humans would have turned the poor bloke into a messiah,” Sage commented as he whistled softly at the thought of it. “You have to be more careful, Rota. Your position entails great responsibility. You have to invest your full attention at all times.”
“I know. I know. Please, Odin has been lecturing me day and night about this. Brynhild made it look so effortless. No one in actuality appreciated how good she was at her job.” Rota exhaled deeply. “I will need a century to get up to speed.”
“In human terms, a century is too long. You are going to have to approach perfection levels in about two hours,” remarked Sage.
“Impossible! Odin is a slave driver! He expects all of us to have the same energy levels he has,” Rota complained. “And now Odin expects me to perform a miracle with Sigurd? I cannot; I’m too inexperienced.”
“Nevertheless, you must come with me to Odin’s chambers right now. We will have a meeting,” Sage informed her. Upon being commanded thus, Rota steeled herself with a deep breath, and she followed Sage down the long corridor to Odin’s screening room. There she was greeted with the pathetic sight of the dying Sigurd blown up on the screen in the middle of the amphitheater. Sigurd looked even worse than Rota had anticipated.
“Good heavens, how abhorrent! I think this goes far beyond my present level of expertise,” Rota whispered, clearly discouraged by what she was observing.
“Not at all,” commented Odin, his magisterial voice unexpectedly being projected from an obscure corner of the room, where the All-Father was slouching in the shadows. “I think you can do it, Rota. I’m counting on you.”
Rota whipped around, having been caught unawares. She would not have been so negative in her appraisal of her own abilities had she known Odin was sitting right there. A lack of confidence was not looked upon kindly in Asgard. The gods had to be the masters of their moods.
Rota groaned almost inaudibly, regretting Odin had overheard her remark.
“Forgive me, Sire,” Rota explained while giving a quick curtsy, “but it is evident that Sigurd is in a deplorable state.”
“True,” said Odin, “but he’s still alive. Anything short of a resurrection is still rather simple in my book. And we have no time to lose, my dear.” Odin called Rota “dear” quite a bit, but unlike his complicated relationship with me, he had never tried to seduce my replacement. “You are going in on my behalf. Just do what I have taught you to do. Breathe life into Sigurd until he starts coming back. Don’t go too far. If Sigurds suddenly gets up, fully healed, and ready to turn cartwheels, we will have a difficult problem on our hands. Just keep breathing into him until he is out of danger. As it is, Sigurd’s retinue is going to get suspicious and start claiming miracle status. We have to keep a low profile about this, if at all possible. Leave room for a three- or four-month convalescence. Clear?” Odin asked Rota as she stared at him in a mild state of apprehension.
“Yes, Sire.” Rota curtsied again, feigning a composure she did not feel. I rarely curtsied to Odin. Having slept with him, I was not as impressed with his authority.
“Are you ready?” Odin inquired as Rota held her breath in suspense.
“Right now?” Rota asked with trepidation.
“I presume it is now, or never,” Odin responded softly.
“Then I’m ready,” Rota confirmed.
Odin raised his right arm, and Rota did the same. The palms of their hands touched, and Odin began murmuring the sacred incantations. Lightning cracked throughout the room, and there was the deafening roar of a hurricane wind. Rota registered the shock by emitting the inevitable scream after which she plummeted to Earth, landing right outside Sigurd’s tent.
“Good aim, Sire,” Sage congratulated the All-Father with some satisfaction, while watching the screen as Rota materialized on Earth.
“Ach,” Odin said with concern, “she better become invisible right away before someone spots her.”
“Yes, of course, but it is, after all, the middle of the night,” Sage noted. “No one is up and about.”
“You never know,” Odin returned. “The infernal insomniacs always get up and start wandering around just when you think you are perfectly safe. It’s been the cause of many an unscheduled revelation.”
“Yes, Sire,” chuckled Sage. “And some of those awkward moments put you in a rather tight spot. Many a legend can be traced back to you being caught by surprise on Earth.”
“There is no time to reminisce about the good old days,” rejoined Odin rather tensely. “I’m worried about Rota who, by the way, is still fully visible...ah, thank the heavens, she just realized she was walking around in full sight of everyone. Do I not teach everyone the basic rules for descent to Earth? Becoming invisible upon materialization is the absolute first rule. You cannot toy with the physical laws of human reality. If the illusion of reality is destroyed, humans begin to doubt their own sanity.” Naturally, Odin’s rules did not apply to himself.
Rota had approached Sigurd’s bedside and was leaning over him, lightly running her fingers over the length of his body until she found the source of the deadly wound, which she warmed with healing light from her hand. But Sigurd’s whole body had been greatly compromised by the ordeal. His soul was now attached to his body by a fine thread of light. Sigurd was ready to depart from the earthly dimension, and he was quite resigned to the idea. The Nibelung commander was actually looking forward to returning to Valhalla and being relieved of all human responsibilities on the physical plane. Rota placed her hand on the crown of Sigurd’s head, the entry and exit portal for the human soul, thus giving the dying knight enough strength to speak.
“Sigurd,” Rota spoke gently, “Odin wants you to remain in your human form for a while longer. You still have an office to fulfill.”
“Ach, no, please,” Sigurd appealed to Rota in a voice sounding weak and pained. “I’ve had enough. I’m badly damaged. I want peace.”
“I know,” Rota commiserated. “But I can facilitate the healing of the wound to a certain extent. It will never completely heal because I cannot go that far with it, and you will deal with the pain for the rest of your life. But I can at least make it bearable. It is important you live. You will be a source of inspiration and hope for a new generation. If you die now, the grief will be too overwhelming for your kinsmen. Civilization will never completely recover from the tragedy of your premature death. The populace will go mad; they will start killing each other.”
“Don’t they do that anyway?” Sigurd pressed with a sense of hopelessness.
“Yes, but we would rather not do anything to make it worse than it already is. There is plenty of time for you back at Valhalla. You will have an eternity to find true peace once you are back in your true home. But another ten or twenty human years here on Earth will do many fine souls a world of good. And it is important you die a natural death, so your countrymen will be more resigned to the inevitability of it when the time comes. Please, bear with us. Odin is begging you.”
“Do I have a choice?” Sigurd entreated.
“Odin does not impose his will upon anyone. You know that. He is merely asking you to reconsider,” Rota admitted frankly. “I will breathe life back into you, but you have to help me. You have to will yourself to live. Things have gone a little too far with your condition. This is going to require a joint effort.”
Sigurd slowly came to terms with Odin’s wishes, and he finally agreed to stay in his human body. There was no time to lose, though, for he was losing life and vitality at an alarming rate. Rota bent over Sigurd, placing her mouth on his, and she began to force healing atoms and particles into his throat. She filled Sigurd’s lungs with air. The flow of the current Rota breathed into Sigurd’s lungs was filled with bright points of light, which Rota had received directly from Odin’s assuaging hands. Rota continued providing succor for several minutes in this manner. After pausing for a moment, she ran her hands over Sigurd’s body a second time to gauge his progress.
Odin and Sage were watching everything intently from their observation post.
“I hope she knows when to stop,” declared Odin, his brows knitted together in a worried expression. “Otherwise, Sigurd will be restored to such a salubrious state, he will leap out of bed and prance right out of that tent.”
Rota closed her eyes, and she concentrated with a fervent intensity. If she went too far, it would be a bona fide miracle. If she did not go far enough, Sigurd would die. Rota’s mental analysis of the wound indicated she had Sigurd at just the right place, and she therefore halted her ministrations.
Odin and Sage exhaled with relief as they watched.
“Goodbye, Sigurd,” Rota whispered in his ear. Looking as pale as a dead man but now breathing more evenly, Sigurd smiled in his sleep. Rota stepped outside the tent and looked up at the heavens. She gave the signal to indicate she was ready to re-ascend.
Sage flew into action. Quick visits to the physical plane were difficult. For this reason alone, Odin did not want gods and goddesses making unnecessary visits to Earth just for pure amusement. Odin himself had caused Sage many a panic-stricken moment when the All-Father donned his favorite costume for an unannounced appearance on Earth. Descent was manageable enough, but it was never as easy to bring a deity back to Asgard. Odin often helped Sage with these re-entry procedures, but when Odin himself had to be brought back, Sage had to work alone in the screening room, where the Chief Adviser could usually be found cursing under his breath with beads of sweat pouring down his face. Odin, however, paid no mind to such uneasiness concerning his adventures on Earth. Odin feared nothing, and impossible obstacles were always overcome by pure force of will.
Sage was compelled to act quickly to facilitate Rota’s safe return to the heavens. Rota was ready, and both he and Odin had to focus their full attention on the task. The only one who re-ascended with relative ease was myself because I did it so often, and I took a whole army of Valkyries with me. I was even better at re-ascent than Odin was, much to his annoyance. But, of course, such was the nature of my work, and I had practiced this feat to perfection.
Rota raised both hands high in the air and turned her face toward the heavens with her eyes shut tight, as she willed herself to be lifted out of the physical universe and back into the winding passages of Asgard. Sage once again extended his right hand while fixing his attention on the screen and radiating the highly charged energies needed for re-ascent. And Odin intensified Sage’s efforts by muttering incantations and passing his hands in front of his face. Slowly, Rota began to dematerialize into a cloud of molecules. At last, she shot up in a cone of light reaching out into infinity. It was all over in a fraction of a second. Rota vanished from the screen, and a moment later she was standing in front of Odin, shaking and weak, but safely home again. Odin embraced her. “Good show, my dear!”
“How did I do?” Rota asked tentatively.
“You were excellent,” Odin reassured her. “Sigurd will recover from the worst of his wound in a month or so, but he will sustain enough of a disability to remind everyone he is human and that the recovery was not quite as miraculous as his kinsmen are going to make it out to be. You went just far enough with your healing powers. It was perfect.”
“Thank the heavens,” Rota murmured softly.
“Perhaps you want to thank me,” Odin corrected her and smiled.
“Thank you,” Rota complied. And Odin embraced her again.
In Sigurd’s tent the new scenario was beginning to play itself out. Inge, the night nurse, who had been plunged conveniently into a deep sleep while Rota was working on Sigurd’s afflicted body, woke up with a start. Alarmed, Inge realized she must have been sleeping for about half an hour. She jumped up from her post to check Sigurd’s vital signs. The doctors were not expecting Sigurd to last the night, and Inge was to awaken the chief physician, Vrinjing, in the next tent, as soon as she was sure Sigurd had entered his death throes. As the nurse leaned over her inert patient to examine him, she was impressed with the regularity of his breathing. Inge noticed beads of sweat on his forehead.
Not quite understanding at first, Inge laid a hand on Sigurd’s head, and she realized with a shock the fever had broken. To investigate further, she pulled back the covers and removed the bandages from the frightful, gaping wound in Sigurd’s side. The infection was no longer oozing. Though still formidable, the wound was not quite so hideous to the eye. Inge gasped with pure amazement. She wondered if she had really woken up, or if she was still sound asleep and dreaming it all. After standing paralyzed over Sigurd’s prone shape for a minute or two, the nurse realized it was imperative to get the doctor to verify her observations. Inge went running out of the tent, yelling for Vrinjing. The good doctor was roused from his sleep in a drugged-like stupor, but then remembered sadly he had been expecting this rude awakening in the middle of the night. Surely, Vrinjing knew full well why the nurse was standing over his bed, ranting unintelligibly. Surely, Sigurd had died.
“Very well, then, what is it, woman? Out with it. He’s dead, isn’t he?” asked Vrinjing gruffly in an attempt to hide his sorrow.
“It’s a miracle! It’s a miracle!” Inge was shouting repeatedly. In his drowsiness, the doctor could not quite make out her frenetic utterances, but Vrinjing assumed the nurse was frantic because Sigurd had breathed his last and had succumbed in his sleep. Vrinjing donned his coat to protect himself from the chilly night air, and he splashed some cold water on his face to wake himself up. After drying his face with a towel, he turned to Inge in the hope of calming her down. But the nurse was manically raving about a miracle. Finally, Vrinjing convinced her to quiet down for a moment.
“Is Sigurd dead?” the doctor asked.
“No, he is not,” Inge babbled in her elation. “He lives. It is Odin’s will he should live. The fever is broken. The wound is not festering. Sigurd still lies in a coma, but unless I am beset by visions or completely insane, he lives and will continue to live.”
At this pronouncement, the incredulous doctor fled from his tent and ran to Sigurd’s side. Inge had not deceived the chief physician. Sigurd’s deathly pallor had been somewhat alleviated. The knight’s chest rose and fell with a steady and deep breathing. The wound was no longer infected and now showed small signs of initial healing. The doctor could not believe what his quick and discerning medical eye was telling him. Vrinjing fell to his knees and burst into tears. “Thank you, Odin!” Vrinjing yelled out with his hands clasped in front of him as he lifted his face toward the sky. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Odin, Sage, and Rota stood in a little circle in front of the screen as they listened solemnly to the doctor’s heartfelt gratitude. “You are welcome,” pronounced Odin quietly, having broken the mesmerizing silence gripping the three of them in the screening room. And with only this briefest of acknowledgments, Odin abruptly left, throwing his cape casually over one shoulder and exiting the screening room wordlessly and without further ado. Rota and Sage knew well enough to leave him alone. Odin was very emotional. The All-Father was probably going back to his chambers to weep.
Sigurd’s mother, Hjordis, was awakened and told of the recent turn of events in regard to the health of her son. Hjordis knelt at Sigurd’s bedside, and she shed tears of relief. As the rising sun began to turn the night clouds a pinkish hue in the easterly sky, pages visited each tent to announce the news of Sigurd’s remarkable recovery to every soldier and servant. There was not a dry eye in the entire camp. Everyone clasped each other and embraced. Couriers were sent back to Gunnar’s palace and to every important noble in the land with the jubilant report of Sigurd’s recovery.
Sigurd would live. Sigurd would live, and he would thrive. Victory belonged to the Nibelungs, and they had not had to pay the unbearable price of trading their victory for Sigurd’s life. Victory was theirs; victory was truly theirs. The word “miracle” was on everyone’s lips.
Gunnar was ecstatic when the communiqué was read to him. The Nibelung king quickly slipped into the royal chapel, and he began praying fervently to Odin at his private altar. The king feared the happy tidings were almost too good to be true. But the reports from the encampment arrived on a daily basis, and the dispatches continued to be positive. Sigurd was getting stronger every day. Sigurd was sitting up in bed. Sigurd was eating solid food again. Supplies were delivered by horse and wagon from the palace, and Sigurd’s tent was turned into the plushest abode, the royal tent usually reserved only for Gunnar himself.
After a few weeks, Sigurd rose from his sickbed, and he walked about his tent for a few minutes before being gently supported and led back to his bed by nursing attendants. Within a week or so after that, Sigurd could mount his horse, and he could ride for short distances in spite of the pain. The son of Sigmund was thinner, weaker, and paler. There was a sadness in Sigurd’s eyes, an inchoate longing for he knew not what. He could only vaguely recollect a glimmer of some peaceful eternity, which had somehow eluded him.
But at last, the happy day for decampment had arrived. The tents were dismantled, and the supply wagons were loaded up. Every soldier was decked out in full ceremonial uniform, and even the horses were decked out in full regalia. For the first time since the day of the battle, Sigurd suited up in full armor for the journey back to the kingdom. He would lay in a trolley to be pulled by his faithful horse, Grani, until the company reached the gates of the province. Upon arrival at the gates, disregarding the pain and discomfort of the still healing wound, Sigurd would mount Grani. Although Sigurd winced in anticipation of the almost unendurable spasms of pain, he was secure in the knowledge that the doctors had bandaged him tightly to give him as much support as possible.
Sigurd would ride through the gates of Nibelungenland; the triumphant knight would mount Grani, and he would ignore the pain. The army reassembled, this time for the victory march into the heart of the kingdom, where Gunnar and I would be in attendance, seated on our thrones in front of the palace and waiting to bestow Sigurd with the highest honors.
The royal family gathered at the appointed time, as did the entire populace, and we waited patiently. Soon the watchtower reported the army was approaching the walls of the kingdom. The trumpeters lined the streets, and countless young maidens strewed baskets of rose petals to provide a carpet for Sigurd and his men. And then the trumpeter’s blare dramatically announced the great moment had arrived. The war drums sounded a tribal beat while the captains called out their marching orders. The multitudes, who patiently awaited a glimpse of their returning hero, held their breath collectively as they stood motionless in respect and anticipation. The high wooden gates of the kingdom walls slowly opened as if pushed by the force of an unseen hand. There was Sigurd at the head of his entourage, mounted, holding his ceremonial spear high in the air and with a look of destiny in his eyes, while the hordes, at first stunned into silence, quickly became almost riotous as they cheered him on. Thousands of hands reached out to touch Sigurd’s horse as he passed through the streets, while he smiled with gentle understanding, radiating love, and never once letting the Nibelungs see him flinch with the pain. Truly, the heavens were smiling on their favorite son on this day. Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw Sigurd sitting with such ferocious pride on his glorious white horse, so strong, so beautiful, so dignified by his suffering. Our eyes met as the parade halted before the thrones.
Gunnar, the King of the Nibelungs, raised his arm, and an eerie hush fell over the crowd. Sigurd dismounted, walked up to the thrones, and knelt before us with bent head. Gunnar arose, trying to disguise how moved he was by the sight of Sigurd alive and in health. Gunnar pressed his sword on each of Sigurd’s shoulders. And then my husband, the king, called out his words for all to hear.
“Hail, Sigurd, son of Sigmund, the mightiest of warriors, who pleased Odin so that the Nibelungs would not be thwarted. Hail, Sigurd, who delivered us from the threat of an evil that would have been the dawn of a dark age filled with dread and terror. Hail, Sigurd, for he lives. Odin has decreed it. Sigurd lives; the heavens be thanked. Truly, the Nibelungs are blessed on this day. All are blessed on this day. All are blessed!” Gunnar yelled out to the captivated throng as his voice echoed over the ramparts. Gunnar placed the laurel wreath of victory on Sigurd’s head. Sigurd rose to face the king, and Gunnar embraced Sigurd, at last allowing himself the tears he had hidden so well and for so long.
And thousands of kinsmen wept, laughed, embraced, and cheered with the frenzy and the euphoria of this scene, which had been scripted by Odin himself.