• S5E17 Volsung Poems: The Children of Giuki and Budli (Part 5)

  • Mar 31 2025
  • Length: 34 mins
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S5E17 Volsung Poems: The Children of Giuki and Budli (Part 5)

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  • S5E17 Volsung Poems: The Children of Giuki and Budli (Part 5)

    David continues his series of not so short solo episodes, deep diving into the Poems of the Poetic Edda which inspired the Saga of the Volsungs.
    In this episode:
    The Second Poem of Gudrun.
    The Death of the Niflungs.
    Oddrun's Lament.
    These relatively late poems bridge The First Poem of Gudrun to the poems about Atli and the early poem Lay of Hamdir (coming soon).

    The children of Giuki are Gunnar, Hogni, and Gudrun. And as we saw previously, Gudrun has sworn vengance against her brothers for killing her beloved Sigurd.
    The children of Budli are Brynhild, Atli, and Oddrun. These late poems explain that Budli wanted Brynhild to be a single shield maiden. Running her own kingdom and free from a husband. Oddrun was to be married to Gunnar to establish a peace between the clans.
    But Budli is dead, and Atli had other plans (perhaps the wealth of Sigurd threw off the initial plans). He married off Brynhild (likely so his sister would not have a neighboring kingdom to rival his own) and forbid the lovebirds, Gunnar and Oddrun, from marrying.

    We see in this episode how Gudrun wanted to grieve in peace, but the patriarchy, the brothers and parents, want her to reestablish the alliance formed by the marriage of Gunnar and Brynhild.
    My conclusion is that these particular poems are fan fiction. As the Poetic Edda scholar Carolyn Larrington says, these late contructions: "give more justification than seems necessary" for why the families go to war and why Atli kills Gunnar and Hogni. There are some very amusing verbal dueling between Oddrun and another lady of the court, the unwed and pregnant Borgny. A poetic battle conducted while Oddrun begrudgingly serves as her midwife. It finally answers Shawn's question from Season 1 on Havamal. Why should one not trust women serving drinks?




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