Urged by greed, Atli immediately ordered that Högni’s heart should be brought; but his servants, fearing to lay hands on such a grim warrior, slew the cowardly scullion Hialli. This trembling heart called forth contemptuous words from Gunnar, who declared such a timorous organ could never have belonged to his fearless brother. But when, in answer to a second angry command from Atli, the unquivering heart of Högni was really brought, Gunnar recognized it, and turning to the monarch solemnly swore that since the secret now rested with him alone it would never be revealed.
The last of the Niblungs.
Livid with anger, the king bade him be thrown, with bound hands, into a den of venomous snakes, where, his harp having been flung after him in derision, Gunnar calmly sat, playing it with his toes, and lulling all the reptiles to sleep save one only. This snake was said to be Atli’s mother in disguise, and it finally bit him in the side, silencing his triumphant song forever.
To celebrate the death of his foes, Atli ordered a great feast, commanding Gudrun to be present to wait upon him. Then he heartily ate and drank, little suspecting that his wife had slain both his sons, and was serving up their roasted hearts and their blood mixed with wine in cups made of their skulls. When the king and his men were intoxicated, Gudrun, according to one version of the story, set fire to the palace, and when the drunken sleepers awoke, too late to escape, she revealed all she had done, stabbed her husband, and perished in the flames with the Huns. According to another version, however, she murdered Atli with Sigurd’s sword, placed his body on a ship, which she sent adrift, and then cast herself into the sea, where she was drowned.
“She spread out her arms as she spake it, and away from the earth she leapt
And cut off her tide of returning; for the sea-waves over her swept,
And their will is her will henceforward, and who knoweth the deeps of the sea,
And the wealth of the bed of Gudrun, and the days that yet shall be?”
A third and very different version reports that Gudrun was not drowned, but was borne along by the waves to the land where Jonakur was king. There she became his wife, and the mother of three sons, Sörli, Hamdir, and Erp. She also recovered possession of her beloved daughter Swanhild, who, in the mean while, had grown into a beautiful maiden of marriageable age.
Swanhild.