Let me draw a tale from the deeper well of the sagas, a story of the valkyrie Brynhild and the mortal hero Sigurd, whose fates burned like a flame and ended in ashes.

Draw in close, warriors of the north, for this is no tale of gods, but of men and women whose deeds echoed through the ages. Sigurd, son of Sigmund, bore a sword reforged from the shards of his father’s blade. With it he slew the dragon Fáfnir, bathing in its blood, and his skin grew hard as iron. He took from the hoard a helm, a ring, and the wisdom of runes.

He bathed in blood, the wyrm lay slain,

A golden hoard, the hero’s gain.

The iron skin, the gleaming blade,

A fate by fire and oath was made.

On his wandering he came upon Brynhild, the shield-maiden, cursed to sleep within a ring of flame. Only the bravest could ride through fire to wake her. Sigurd did so, and when her eyes opened, they swore oaths of love. Yet fate is cruel, and men twist words worse than any wyrm.

She woke in flame, her heart did bind,

To hero’s oath, to love entwined.

But whispered lies and woven schemes,

Would shatter hearts and darken dreams.

Through guile and treachery, Sigurd was tricked into wedding Gudrun instead. His memory clouded, he forgot Brynhild, though their oaths had bound them. When truth was revealed, Brynhild’s wrath was greater than the sea-storm. She plotted Sigurd’s death, though love still tore her heart in two.

The hero fell, the spear was thrust,

The bond was broken, oaths to dust.

She joined him soon upon the pyre,

Their love consumed in funeral fire.

Thus ends the tale of Sigurd and Brynhild, where love, betrayal, and doom are bound tighter than any chain. A saga not of gods but of mortals, whose glory and grief shine as fiercely as any flame in the long night.