It happened one day that Brynhild, Gunnar's wife, now a Queen, was with Sigurd's wife, bathing in a river. Not often they were together. Brynhild was the haughtiest of women, and often she treated Gudrun with disdain. Now as they were bathing together, Gudrun, shaking out her hair, cast some drops upon Brynhild. Brynhild went from Gudrun. And Sigurd's wife, not knowing that Brynhild had anger against her, went after her up the stream.  
"Why dost thou go so far up the river, Brynhild?" Gudrun asked.
 
"So that thou mayst not shake thy hair over me," answered Brynhild.
 
Gudrun stood still while Brynhild went up the river[Pg 261] like a creature who was made to be alone. "Why dost thou speak so to me, sister?" Gudrun cried.
 
She remembered that from the first Brynhild had been haughty with her, often speaking to her with harshness and bitterness. She did not know what cause Brynhild had for this.
 
It was because Brynhild had seen in Sigurd the one who had ridden through the fire for the first time, he who had awakened her by breaking the binding of her breastplate and so drawing out of her flesh the thorn of the Tree of Sleep. She had given him her love when she awakened on the world. But he, as she thought, had forgotten her easily, giving his love to this other maiden. Brynhild, with her Valkyrie's pride, was left with a mighty anger in her heart.
 
"Why dost thou speak so to me, Brynhild?" Gudrun asked.
 
"It would be ill indeed if drops from thy hair fell on one who is so much above thee, one who is King Gunnar's wife," Brynhild answered.
 
"Thou art married to a King, but not to one more valorous than my lord," Gudrun said.
 
"Gunnar is more valorous; why dost thou compare Sigurd with him?" Brynhild said.
 
"He slew the Dragon Fafnir, and won for himself Fafnir's hoard," said Gudrun.
 
"Gunnar rode through the ring of fire. Mayhap thou wilt tell us that Sigurd did the like," said Brynhild.
 
"Yea," said Gudrun, now made angry. "It was Sigurd[Pg 262] and not Gunnar who rode through the ring of fire. He rode through it in Gunnar's shape, and he took the ring off thy finger—look, it is now on mine."
 
And Gudrun held out her hand on which was Andvari's ring. Then Brynhild knew, all at once, that what Gudrun said was true. It was Sigurd that rode through the ring of fire the second as well as the first time. It was he who had struggled with her, taking the ring off her hand and claiming her for a bride, not for himself but for another, and out of disdain.
 
Falsely had she been won. And she, one of Odin's Valkyries, had been wed to one who was not the bravest hero in the world, and she to whom untruth might not come had been deceived. She was silent now, and all the pride that was in her turned to hatred of Sigurd.
 
She went to Gunnar, her husband, and she told him that she was so deeply shamed that she could never be glad in his Hall again; that never would he see her drinking wine, nor embroidering with golden threads, and never would he hear her speaking words of kindness. And when she said this to him she rent the web she was weaving, and she wept aloud so that all in the hall heard her, and all marveled to hear the proud Quee............