00:00:00.000Guthrun Narcvitha I. The First Lay of Guthrun
00:00:25.000The first lay of Guthrun, entitled in the Codex Regis, simply Guthrun-Narkvitha, immediately follows the remaining fragment of the long Sigrth lay in that manuscript.
00:00:38.100Unlike the poems dealing with the earlier part of the Sigrth cycle, the so-called Regensmal, Fafnismal, and Sigrfumal, it is a clear and distinct unit, apparently complete and with few and minor interpolations.
00:00:53.900It is also one of the finest poems in the entire collection, with an extraordinary emotional intensity and dramatic focus.
00:01:03.980None of its stanzas are quoted elsewhere, and it is altogether probable that the compilers of the Volsunga Saga were unfamiliar with it,
00:01:12.640for they do not mention the sister and daughter of Gyoki, who appear in this poem, or Herborg, the Queen of the Huns, stanza 6.
00:01:22.200The Lament of Guthrum, Kramhild, is almost certainly among the oldest parts of the story.
00:01:30.580The Lament was one of the earliest forms of poetry to develop among the Germanic peoples,
00:01:35.540and I suspect, though the matter is not susceptible to proof,
00:01:40.520that the Lament of Sigurd's wife had assumed lyric form as early as the 7th century
00:01:46.180and reached the north in that shape rather than in prose tradition.
00:01:51.240We find traces of it in the 17th century Aventure of the Niberlingoloid and in the poems of the Edda.
00:02:04.780It dominates every appearance of Guthrum.
00:02:08.700The two first Guthrum lays, one and two, are both laments, one for Sigurd's death and the other including both that and the lament over the slaying of her brothers.
00:02:20.040The Lament theme is apparent in the third Guthrun-Lay and in the Guthrun-Archivot.
00:02:27.040In their present forms, the second Guthrun-Lay is undoubtedly older than the first.
00:02:33.040In the prose following the Brot, the annotator refers to the old Guthrun-Lay in terms which can apply only to the second one in the collection.
00:02:43.040The shorter and first lay, therefore, can scarcely have been composed much before year 1000, and may be somewhat later.
00:02:54.040The poet appears to have known and made use of the older laments. Stanza 17, for an example, is a close parallel to Stanza 2 of the earlier poem.
00:03:06.040But whatever material he used, he fitted into a definite poetic scheme of his own.
00:03:12.040And while this particular poem is, as critics have generally agreed, one of the latest in the collection, it probably represents one of the earliest parts of the entire Sigurd's cycle to take on verse form.
00:03:26.660Guthrun-Arkwittha I, so far as the narrative underlying it is concerned, shows very little northern tradition to the basic German tradition.
00:03:37.480Brunhild appears only as Guthrun's enemy and the cause of Sigurd's death.
00:03:43.480The three women who attempt to confront Guthrun, though unknown to the southern stories, seem
00:03:49.480to have been rather distinct creations of the poets than traditional additions to the