Author's note: Signý's dream is based on a performance at the 2017 Salzburg Easter Festival: https (colon) (double slash) w w w .youtube .com (slash) watch?v=T4usU6cMsO0 .


'And I have done so much to achieve vengeance that to go on living is out of the question. I shall now gladly die with King Siggeir, reluctant though I was to marry him.' Kissing her brother Sigmund and son Sinfjǫtli, Signý adds, 'Go hence. I would not have you witness me die.'

When Sigmund's and Sinfjǫtli's footsteps have fallen out of earshot, Signý walks into the conflagration. She needs neither sight nor hearing to know that tears stream down Sigmund's and Sinfjǫtli's face.

The baying of hounds and whinnying of a horse catch asphyxiating Signý's ear, followed by urgent footfalls. A thrall managed to escape? Then a sturdy arm yanks her back from the blaze.

'Let me perish,' Signý baulks. Glimpsing her rescuer, her last word before losing consciousness is: 'You!?'


Signý awakes to tongues licking the back of her hands. Drawing a hand to wipe her face, she is surprised that her face and arms are clean of soot—and saliva.

'Fritz, Freddy, sit,' her rescuer commands. Helping Signý sit up on the forest floor, he hands her a waterskin and dried pork. After she has drunk and eaten her fill, he enquires contemplatively, 'You know me?'

After hesitation, Signý replies, 'I saw you in a dream. I dreamt that I was a woman named Sieglinde, who resembled me when I was younger.' Her interlocuter's suddenly raised eyes apprise Signý that the dream may have been more real than she supposed. 'You were her husband Hunding.' He nods, confirming her description.

Gazing at the inferno consuming Siggeir's estate, Signý mentions, 'My brother Sigmund was not killed by a wolf twenty-odd years ago, nor was my son Sinfjǫtli lost a couple of years ago.'

'You are Signý Vǫlsungsdóttir! Wow.' Hunding appreciates that Signý is doing him a great honour by letting him know her name and simultaneously disclosing a long-held secret, albeit it will be known the world over before long.

'A stranger came to your house, to whom Sieglinde tended.' Signý returns the conversation to the dream. 'He resembled a younger Sigmund.'

Hunding's jaw drops. 'Her twin brother, from whom she was separated as an adolescent! That explains much.'

'You didn't mean to be so harsh to them initially, but they drove you mad: Wehwalt suggesting that you would chide your wife for offering a guest hospitality when it was customary, to the point where you felt the need to endorse her action; they making eyes at each other before you; that Sieglinde had offered him honeyed mead using the wedding silverware that she normally never took out for you; Sieglinde pressing her interest in Wolfe and Wölfing when you warned her about them, because it crossed your mind that an enemy of the Neidings might be the outlaw upon whom your kinsmen wanted vengeance; she calling you craven when you noted that Urð had shown Wehwalt little love and you would be drawn into his vexatious fate, but had actually accepted the fact—if anything, you pitied him, comprehending that he was fundamentally no different from the unfortunate in your clan; Sieglinde looking at Wehwalt when you nuzzled her, apologetic for maltreating her: that was the last straw,' Signý recollects. 'In Sieglinde's shoes, I would be glad to have you as husband.'

'After I groped and embarrassed her in full view of Wehwalt? You say so only because you had the downright misfortune of being married to Siggeir,' Hunding demurs.

'Can you guess why my eldest two sons were found dead, and what betided my youngest two, still in their tender years?' Signý answers the question herself: 'I bade Sigmund to kill them. He would not kill my youngest two, although they had given him away. Sinfjǫtli, who inherited more of his mother's mercilessness than his father's mercy, did the deed. You are a paragon in comparison.'

'Those four were also your children, even if they were Siggeir's offspring. You loved them too, but you could not run the risk of them giving away Sigmund. You would not have been able to live with yourself otherwise,' Hunding analyses.

'How is it that you of such noble character can sympathise with pitiless me?' Signý asks pensively.

Hunding smiles ironically. 'I already told you that I appear acceptable only when contrasted with Siggeir.'

Signý shakes her head. 'My father would not have been able to find me a husband like you even had he searched far and wide. Your namesake, the Saxon king, has not half your worthiness. In the dream, I had Sieglinde's memories. You had struck a deal with her: she would not embarrass you in the presence of kindred and guests, and in private you were lenient with her, because you understood that she resented having been kidnapped by your kin and forced into this marriage. That's why you drained the night-draught without complaint despite its abnormal taste: you considered Sieglinde in the right to play a trick on you for manhandling her. Oh, you were not that noble as to completely forgo a husband's privileges.

'Permit me to hazard a guess?' continues Signý. 'When you reconvened with your kinsfolk after the hunt where Sieglinde was captured and they invited the unmarried men to take their pick of the maidens abducted, you admired Sieglinde's grit and character. You knew that she would suffer were she to be chosen by anyone else, so you selected her although it went against your principles. Am I correct?'

Hunding's eyes are glittering the way they did when he first encountered Sieglinde. 'How did you know?' he answers with a question.

Signý smiles wryly. 'I've experienced more than she had.'

'I should have freed her,' Hunding mulls.

'It wouldn't have helped unless you had brought her far away—' Signý notes.

'—and then lied that she had died,' finishes Hunding.

'You would be the hero of at least a þáttr had you done so,' teases Signý.

When their laughter finally subsides, Hunding enquires, 'At which point did the dream end?'

Signý inhales sharply. 'When the old man dressed in grey, his hat hung so low that one of his eyes was hidden, disarmed Wehwalt, so that you successfully plunged your spear into his breast.'

'So you understand why I left my clan and roamed here,' Hunding comments quietly.

'And even took ship across the East Sea,' Signý remarks softly. 'That which occurred made no sense to you.'

'Wehwalt was so happy to see the old man, and the old man in turn grieved over Wehwalt's death!' Hunding elucidates.

'What do you intend in future?' Signý asks.

'I want to live out life peacefully, and not continue to be summoned to revenge kinsmen who are themselves at fault,' Hunding answers. 'I'm sorry for preventing you from fulfilling your desire. Actually, I take that back. I'm not in the least sorry to have had the opportunity to talk with you.' He gazes candidly at Signý, wondering whether she still deems it out of the question to go on living.

Signý replies to the silent question with a query of her own: 'Are you interested in another wife?'

Hunding laughs heartily. Patting Fritz and Freddy, who have witnessed his 'wooing' (or lack of?), he responds, 'I hope you like to train hounds.' Then he embraces the woman meant for him by the waist.


Bonus I:

'At last, a daughter!' exclaims Signý. 'I suppose the odds of having six sons and only sons are too low.'

'The sex of our child is independent of that of your previous children,' Hunding corrects. 'It was a half chance.' He cradles the newborn in his arms. 'Our Adalheidis…'


Bonus II:

'Well met, son-in-law,' the valkyrie greets Hunding on his deathbed.

'You're Signý's mother Hljóð Hrímnisdóttir?' Hunding enquires.

A nod. 'I told Vǫlsung that you are far better than Siggeir was. He should have searched far and wide until finding you to be our son-in-law,' Hljóð grumbles. 'Oh, but you were not yet of age then. Thankfully Allfather is discerning when it comes to heroes: he wants you as one of the einherjar.'