Völsung
Svanhildr
Daughter of Sigurðr and Guðrún, married to the Gothic king Jörmunrekkr and trampled to death by horses on a false charge; her brothers die avenging her.
Svanhildr is the daughter of Sigurðr and Guðrún Sigurðarkviða hin skamma 62. She is raised at King Jónakr's court after her mother's third marriage, and the poems give her no words of her own. Guðrún calls her the dearest of her children, fair "as the ray of the sun" Guðrúnarhvöt 15.
She was married to the Gothic king Jörmunrekkr, whom Snorri describes as old Skáldskaparmál 41. The prose of Guðrúnarhvöt says that his counsellor Bikki advised the king's son Randvér to take her himself, then told the king. Randvér was hanged and Svanhildr trampled under horses Guðrúnarhvöt, prose 1. Snorri tells it more fully. Randvér was sent to fetch her as his father's bride, and Bikki urged that the young pair suited each other better. Before his hanging Randvér sent his father a plucked hawk, a sign that the old king was now powerless. Jörmunrekkr's men rode Svanhildr down as she sat washing her hair Skáldskaparmál 41.
Her brothers Hamðir and Sörli die avenging her Hamðismál 3. The dying Brynhildr had already foretold the whole thing Sigurðarkviða hin skamma 62-63. With Svanhildr's death, Brynhildr says, "slain is all of Sigurth's race". In fact Snorri knows of another daughter, Áslaug Skáldskaparmál 41.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
So did Svanhild seem in my hall As the ray of the sun is fair to see.
The king had Randver hanged, and Svanhild trodden to death under horses' feet.
Bikki's word her death shall be, For dreadful the wrath of Jormunrek
In modern culture
Not from the medieval sources.
Jordanes (6th century) tells of Sunilda, a woman whom the Gothic king Ermanaric had torn apart by wild horses. She is widely taken to be the historical seed of Svanhildr.
