The smoke of the burning hall of Atli, King of the Huns, had barely cleared from the horizon when Gudrun, daughter of Gjuki, found herself standing alone upon the desolate, salt-sprayed cliffs of the northern coast. She was a woman who had seen the absolute heights of heroic glory and the deepest pits of human depravity. Once the wife of Sigurd the Dragon-slayer, the greatest hero of the North, she had seen him murdered in his bed through the machinations of her own brothers and the jealousy of Brynhild. She had been forced into a second marriage with Atli, a man of greed who had subsequently lured her brothers, Gunnar and Hogni, to their deaths to seize the Rhine-gold. In a final, desperate act of vengeance, Gudrun had slain her own sons by Atli, served them to him at a feast, and then killed the King himself before setting his hall ablaze. Now, with no kin left to turn to and her heart a hollow vessel of grief and rage, she looked upon the churning grey waters of the sea as her only sanctuary.
She did not walk into the water with hesitation. She threw herself into the freezing embrace of the waves, praying for the Norns to finally cut the thread of her life. She expected the cold to numb her limbs and the brine to fill her lungs, ending the long nightmare of her existence. But the gods of the deep or perhaps the relentless force of Fate (Wyrd) had other plans for the last of the Gjukungs. The heavy waves did not pull her down; instead, they buoyed her up. The sea-currents, acting as though they possessed a will of their own, carried her body far away from the blood-stained lands of the Huns. For days and nights, she drifted, suspended between life and death, until the tides eventually cast her ashore on the sandy beaches of Zeeland, the great island that would become the heart of Denmark.
It was here that the scouts and servants of King Jonakr found her. Jonakr was a powerful lord, a king of the northern reaches known for his wisdom and his stout defense of his borders. When he was told of the beautiful, high-born woman washed up by the tide, he went himself to the shore. Even though her garments were ruined by salt and her face was etched with the lines of unimaginable sorrow, the nobility of her bearing was unmistakable. She was a daughter of kings, a queen who had survived the fall of dynasties. Jonakr brought her to his high hall, where she was bathed, clothed in fine linens, and fed. For a long time, Gudrun remained silent, her mind trapped in the memories of the Rhine-gold and the screams of the dying. However, under the patient care of Jonakr, she eventually began to speak, though she never fully shed the mantle of her mourning.
King Jonakr, moved by her story and captivated by her remaining beauty and strength, proposed that they marry. He offered her a new life, a new kingdom, and the protection of his swords. Gudrun, realizing that the sea had refused her death and that her destiny was not yet fulfilled, accepted his hand. This marriage was not one of the fiery passion she had shared with Sigurd, nor the bitter resentment of her time with Atli, but a union of necessity and mutual respect. In the court of Jonakr, Gudrun became a queen once more, and in time, she bore him three sons: Hamdir, Sorli, and Erp. These boys grew up in the halls of Zeeland, surrounded by the legends of their mother’s past, though they were shielded from the full darkness of the curse that followed her.
During these years, Gudrun’s daughter from her marriage to Sigurd, the beautiful Svanhild, also lived in Jonakr’s court. Svanhild was said to possess the eyes of her father—piercing and bright—and she was the joy of Gudrun’s life. For a brief period, it seemed as though the cycle of tragedy had finally been broken. The sons of Jonakr were strong and brave, and Svanhild was the most beautiful maiden in all the North. However, the shadow of the Völsung legacy is long and inescapable. When King Jormunrekk (Eormenric) the Great sought Svanhild’s hand in marriage, the wheels of disaster began to turn once more. Jormunrekk was an aged but powerful king, and the alliance seemed wise to Jonakr. Svanhild was sent to his kingdom, but through the treachery of a counselor named Bikki, who whispered lies of infidelity into the old King’s ear, Jormunrekk was driven to a mad rage. He ordered Svanhild to be trampled to death by horses.
When the news reached Zeeland, Gudrun’s fragile peace was shattered. The old fires of vengeance, which she had tried to drown in the sea years before, flared up with renewed intensity. She stood before her sons by Jonakr—Hamdir and Sorli—and mocked them for their perceived weakness, questioning if they truly had the blood of the Gjukungs in their veins if they would allow their sister’s death to go unavenged. This famous scene, known as the 'Whetting of Gudrun,' saw her push her children toward a certain death in the name of honor and blood-feud. She gave them armor and weapons that no steel could pierce, but she could not protect them from their own tempers. On the journey to Jormunrekk’s hall, Hamdir and Sorli argued with their brother Erp and, in a fit of rage, killed him—not realizing that they would need his third hand to complete their task.