Editing Valkyrie (section)

====''Sigrdrífumál''====
[[File:Ring48.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Brünnhilde]] wakes and greets the day and [[Siegfried]], illustration of the scene of [[Wagner's Ring]] inspired by the [[Sigrdrífumál]], by [[Arthur Rackham]] (1911).]]
In the prose introduction to the poem ''[[Sigrdrífumál]]'', the hero [[Sigurd]] rides up to Hindarfell and heads south towards "the land of the [[Franks]]". On the mountain Sigurd sees a great light, "as if fire were burning, which blazed up to the sky". Sigurd approaches it, and there he sees a ''skjaldborg'' with a banner flying overhead. Sigurd enters the ''skjaldborg'', and sees a warrior lying there—asleep and fully armed. Sigurd removes the helmet of the warrior, and sees the face of a woman. The woman's [[corslet]] is so tight that it seems to have grown into the woman's body. Sigurd uses his sword [[Gram (mythology)|Gram]] to cut the corslet, starting from the neck of the corslet downwards, he continues cutting down her sleeves, and takes the corslet off of her.<ref name="THORPE180">Thorpe (1907:180).</ref>

The woman wakes, sits up, looks at Sigurd, and the two converse in two stanzas of verse. In the second stanza, the woman explains that Odin placed a sleeping spell on her she could not break, and due to that spell she has been asleep a long time. Sigurd asks for her name, and the woman gives Sigurd a [[drinking horn|horn]] of [[mead]] to help him retain her words in his memory. The woman recites a heathen [[prayer]] in two stanzas. A prose narrative explains that the woman is named [[Sigrdrífa]] and that she is a valkyrie.<ref name="LARRINGTON166-167">Larrington (1999:166–167).</ref>

A narrative relates that Sigrdrífa explains to Sigurd that there were two kings fighting one another. Odin had promised one of these—Hjalmgunnar—victory in battle, yet she had "brought down" Hjalmgunnar in battle. Odin pricked her with a sleeping-thorn in consequence, told her she would never again "fight victoriously in battle", and condemned her to marriage. In response, Sigrdrífa told Odin she had sworn a great oath that she would never wed a man who knew fear. Sigurd asks Sigrdrífa to share with him her wisdom of all worlds. The poem continues in verse, where Sigrdrífa provides Sigurd with knowledge in inscribing [[runic alphabet|runes]], mystic wisdom, and prophecy.<ref name="LARRINGTON167">Larrington (1999:167).</ref>