BRUNHILD

also spelled Brunhilda, Brunhilde, Brnhild, or Brynhild, a beautiful Amazon-like princess in ancient Germanic heroic literature, known from Old Norse sources (the Edda poems and the Volsunga saga) and from the Nibelungenlied in German. In the Eddic poems in which she appears, she plays the leading role; in the Nibelungenlied, because of a shift of emphasis, her prominence is greatly reduced. Common to both, and no doubt original, is the conception of Brunhild as the central figure of a story in which she vows to marry only a man of the most outstanding qualities and one that can surpass her in strength. One man, Siegfried, is able to fulfill her conditions, but he woos and wins her not for himself but for another. When Brunhild discovers this deception, she exacts vengeance, which results in the death of Siegfried. In some of the Norse sources, Brunhild has supernatural qualities and is described as a Valkyrie; it is still a matter of dispute whether these attributes are an accretion or whether their absence from the German version is an omission. Many critics, who doubt their originality in the Norse, seek the source of the poetic figure in the history of the Merovingian kings of the Franks, in which Queen Brunhild plays an important part; the name is also found in place-names and field names in the region of the Rhine and in northeastern France and Belgium, but this could have resulted from the popularity of the literary figure. born c. 534 died 613, Renve, Burgundy [now in France] also spelled Brunhilda, Brunhilde, or Brunechildis, French Brunehaut queen of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, daughter of the Visigothic king Athanagild, and one of the most forceful figures of the Merovingian Age. In 567 Brunhild married Sigebert I, king of Austrasia, changing her religion from Arianism to Roman Catholicism. In the same year, her sister Galswintha married Sigebert's half brother Chilperic I, king of the western part of the Frankish territory, but in 567 or 568, at the instigation of his concubine Fredegund, Chilperic had Galswintha murdered. Prompted by Brunhild, Sigebert then exacted Galswintha's marriage settlement (Bordeaux, Limoges, Quercy, Barn, and Bigorre) as retribution from Chilperic. When Chilperic tried to recover this territory, war broke out between him and Sigebert (573). At first it ran in Sigebert's favour, but in 575 he was assassinated and Brunhild was imprisoned at Rouen. There, however, Merovech, one of Chilperic's sons, went through a form of marriage with her (576). Chilperic soon had this union dissolved, but Brunhild was allowed to go to Metz in Austrasia, where her young son Childebert II had been proclaimed king. There she was to assert herself against the Austrasian magnates for the next 30 years. After Childebert's death (595 or 596), Brunhild failed to set herself up as guardian over Childebert's elder son, Theodebert II of Austrasia, and thus stirred up against him his brother Theodoric II, who had succeeded to Burgundy. Theodebert was finally overthrown in 612, but Theodoric died soon afterward (613), whereupon Brunhild tried to make the latter's eldest son, the 12-year-old Sigebert II, king of Austrasia. The Austrasian magnates, reluctant to endure her tyrannous regency, appealed to Chlotar II of Neustria against her. Brunhild tried in vain to enlist the help of the tribes east of the Rhine, then fled to Burgundy, but was handed over to Chlotar at Renve (northeast of Dijon). She was tortured for three days, bound on to a camel and exposed to the mockery of the army, and finally dragged to death at a horse's tail (autumn 613).