Hjordis (Sisibe)
In the Icelandic legend, Hjördís (Hjordis) was the wife of Sigmund and the mother of the hero Sigurd.
Hjördís is known by various names. In the Icelandic works she was Hjördís or Hiordis the daughter of King Eylimi (though in the song of Hyndla, her father was called Hraundung), in the family called Odlings. Hiordis as well as her father were descendants of Lofdi, hence they were the Lofdungs.
She was the sister of Svava, a Valkyrie, though this link between the two women was only due to Eylimi being their father. But in the Norwegian Thiðrekssaga, she was Sisibe the daughter of King Nidung of Spain. In the Nibelungenlied, she was called Sieglind and was known only as the wife of King Siegmund of the Netherlands.
In the Norse myth, she was the last wife of Sigmund. Hjördís was known for her great beauty and was wooed by Lyngvi, the son of King Hunding, but she preferred Sigmund even though the hero was a great deal older than she was.
According to the Volsunga Saga, she was pregnant when Sigmund and her father (Eylimi) fell in battle to the sons of Hunding. Sigmund was mortally wounded. He asked Hjördís to collect the shattered shards of his sword to be reforged for their unborn son. Hjördís fled to Denmark where she remarried Alf, the son of King Hjalprek. Hjalprek raised her son Sigurd as if he were his own son, under the fosterage and tutoring of Regin. When Sigurd was old enough to avenge her former husband's death, Hjördís gave Sigmund's shards to be reforged by Regin. With the sword Gram, Sigurd killed Lyngvi and his brothers in battle, and later killed a dragon named Fafnir who guarded the fabled treasure of the dwarf Andvari.
In the Thiðrekssaga, the tale was quite different.
Sigmund was the king of Tarlungaland (most of France) and he had successfully wooed Sisibe (Hjördís), the daughter of King Nidung of Hispania (Spain).
Unlike the Volsunga Saga, it was not a rival king who had warred with Sigmund because of Sisibe's beauty, but it was Sigmund's own vassals and advisers who had betrayed him during his absence.
They were only at home for seven days when Sigmund received news from his sister that he was called upon by King Drasolf, his brother-in-law, to aid him in a war in the Pulinaland. During her husband's absence, she and Sigmund's kingdom were left in the hands of his two vassals, Count Artvin (Artwin) and Count Hermann (Herman). Sigmund left his kingdom with his army, without any knowledge that his young bride was already pregnant.
Artvin lusted after Sigmund's pregnant wife. When he made known his attraction for her, she warned him to leave her alone or else face her husband's wrath. Fearing that Sisibe would disclose this to her husband, Artvin conspired with his companion Hermann to discredit the Queen.
When Artvin and Hermann met with Sigmund in the forest, they told her that she had committed adultery with her thrall (slave). Artvin claimed that he had killed the stranger and any witness to her treachery. Sigmund, believing Artvin's lies, ordered his counts to remove her as queen before his return to court. Artvin's plan was to lure Sisibe to the forest called Svava-forest (Black Forest?) and cut off her tongue for rejecting him.
The plan went went almost without a hitch. Sisibe thought she would be going into the forest to meet with her husband. When they pulled her off her horse when they reached a brook, Artvin gloated that her husband had given them permission to punish her for committing adultery.
Sisibe was shocked with this news and frightened out of her wits, but managed to momentarily escape them. Hermann, who was reluctant from onset to participate in Artvin's plots against the queen, now felt pity for the innocent but terrified woman. Hermann felt guilty for also lying to their king. For now, Hermann refused to commit an atrocity against a pregnant queen, and stood ready to defend her.
Artvin and Hermann were friends and blood brothers but they now fought one another with hatred. As they fought, Sisibe crawled away to where their belongings were, near the water. There she gave birth to Sigurd.
Frightened by her ordeal and weakened by the delivery, she wrapped her son in a linen cloth. Sisibe also put a neck chain around her son's neck, with a ring that had runic inscriptions on it. She managed to place him in a crystal cask, before she fainted from fatigue and fright.
Hermann proved himself a better warrior as he drove his former friend back. With his sword, Hermann lopped off Artvin's head. As Artvin fell, his foot knocked the crystal vessel into the river. Sisibe, seeing her newborn son floating away downstream, fainted in despair and died. Hermann buried her body.
(According to a different tradition, after killing Artvin, Hermann turned his attention on the queen. Seeing that Sisibe was cold and senseless, he thought the queen had died. So he left the bodies behind.)
Hermann returned to the king with the news of the death of his wife and son. Hermann also told the king that he had killed Artvin. Sigmund banished Hermann for killing Artvin and disobeying his order.
The child in the casket landed on some rocks, where Sigurd was found and was suckled by a hind. The baby lived with the hind for 12 months, but he grew rapidly; he was taller and stronger than any four-year-old boy.
One day Mimir, the great smith, found the boy in the forest with the hind. Mimir saw that the boy could not speak, and he realised that the gentle hind brought him up. Mimir, who was married but had no son, decided to take the boy home and became the child's foster-father. It was Mimir who named the boy Sigurd.
As you can see, this version about the birth of Sigurd is quite different from the Icelandic legend, like the Volsunga Saga and the Eddas, where Sigmund died in battle before his son was born, and Hjördís lived to marry Alf, the son of King Hjalprek of Denmark. In the Thiðrekssaga, Sisibe (Hjördís) died, but not Sigmund.
In the Nibelungenlied, she was known as Sieglind and she was married to Siegmund (Sigmund), the king of the Netherlands. The only role she had in the German epic was that she was concerned about her son Siegfried (Sigurd) seeking to woo Kriemhild (Gudrun), the Burgundian princess, and later on when she welcomed her new daughter-in-law when Siegfried and Kriemhild lived with them in the Netherlands. In this story, both parents outlived their son, Siegfried (Sigurd).
By Jimmy Joe
