Grimhild

Queen and sorceress. Grimhild was the wife of Giuki (Gjuki), king of the southern Rhine, Burgundy (Niflungland). She was the mother of three sons - Gunnar, Hogni and Guttorm - and of one daughter, Gudrun.

In the Icelandic legends, Grimhild was the main adviser of her husband and her sons when they ruled the kingdom. She was partly responsible for the tragedy that would later befall her family. She was a very ambitious queen who used her children, particularly her daughter, to further the house of Niflungs, without giving thought to the consequences of her actions.

It was she who gave a draught of forgetfulness to Sigurd, so that the hero would forget the Valkyrie Brynhild and marry her own daughter, Gudrun. It was Grimhild who advised her husband that Sigurd should marry her daughter. With such a powerful son-in-law, her sons could not lose any wars they fought against their neighbours. Not only would her family gain power, but they would also increase in wealth from Sigurd's dragon treasure.

It was also Grimhild who proposed that Sigurd would help Gunnar to win Brynhild. Since Gunnar could not ride through the ring of flame surrounding the sleeping Brynhild, they used her magic so that Sigurd and Gunnar could change shapes, so they would each look like the other person. Sigurd rode through the flame, disguised as Gunnar. It was only after Gunnar married Brynhild that he remembered that he had been betrothed to Brynhild before he had ever met Gudrun.

When Gunnar and Hogni plotted to murder Sigurd, because Brynhild demanded it from her husband, it was Grimhild who mixed a drink of snake and wolf flesh that would imbue her younger son Guttorm with berserker rage to murder Sigurd. Both Guttorm and Sigurd ended up killing one another.

With Sigurd's death, her sons gained the treasure of Fafnir. Further tragedy would follow, because of Grimhild's machinations. She used her draught of forgetfulness again, but this time she gave it to her daughter, so that Gudrun would forget her grief over Sigurd's death and forgive her brothers.

She then later coerced Gudrun to marry Atli, brother of Brynhild. Gudrun pleaded with her mother that she had no wish to marry this treacherous king, whom she knew would be bring about the death of her brothers and many Niflung warriors, but Grimhild was adamant.

After the marriage, Grimhild didn't appear in the saga again. See Volsunga Saga.

Her role in both Sturluson's Prose Edda and the poems in the Poetic Edda was the same as that of Grimhild in the Volsunga Saga - that of a queen and a witch who meddled with Sigurd and her family, bringing downfall to them all.

In the Thidrekssaga, she was known as Oda, or in the German Nibelungenlied, as Uote (Ute), and she was not a sorceress. However, in the Thidrekssaga, Oda (Grimhild) did become the mother of Hogni, whose father was an elf. Apart from this part concerning Hogni and her other children, she only played small parts, particularly her attempt at reconciliation between her daughter and her sons, and persuading her daughter to marry Attila (Etzel). For that, she used no magical drink for her daughter to make Grimhild/Kriemhild forget Sigurd/Siegfried, which was vital in the Icelandic versions.