One day, when the two wives went bathing in the river, Byrnhilde went far out to show that she was Gundrun's superior, for her husband had ridden through flames when no other man would dare to. Angry, Gundrun told her the truth, that the hero was Sigurd. Knowing that, Byrnhilde preceived that the pledge-ring Gundrun wore was the very one she had given to Sigurd.
The truth struck her pale and silent, and she went home and did not speak all that day and evening. The next morning she told her husband Gunnar that she knew he had won her falsely and that she forsook his liar's hall forever. Sigurd came and spoke words of comfort to her, but she wished him, too, dead. He, knowing all as he did, said it would not be long until that, and offered the dragon's gold as recompense for his unwitting wronging of her.
"It is too late," said Byrnhilde.
And Sigurd grieved for her.
But Byrnhilde, hating him for failing her, fed poison to Gunnar's younger brother, who went mad, and stabbed Sigurd as he lay abed. Even as he lay dying, Sigurd seized his good sword, Gram, and threw it so it cut his murderer in two. Gundrun awoke to two dead men, one the husband she had loved so dearly, and she cried aloud.
Hearing her, Byrnhilde laughed, but Grani, Sigurd's horse, that had carried him to such an adventure, lay down and died of sorrow. Seeing that, Byrnhilde too began to weep, sank down and died of grief. The people took Sigurd's ship, and placed him, Brynhilde, and Grani in it together, and sent it, afire, out onto the sea and so the curse of the gold was fulfilled.
We can guess that this story, with its tragic ending and loss of much that was good and great, was Tolkien's first encounter with the idea of cursed gold corrupting all who handled it. "The Story of Sigurd" is likely to have given birth to the evil Ring and the Lord of the Rings to be the fruit of a child's desire to see such a curse defeated, though it be at a high price. "I will take it, though I do not know the way," says Frodo, agreeing to destroy what cannot be controlled.
Next time, William Morris, who wrote a version of this same story, which I think likely to have greatly influenced Tolkien, but who is represented in Tales Before Tolkien by his own creation, "The Folk of the Mountain Door."
(to be continued)