SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

The Lay of Attila 5
horrible plainness what she had told them before in terms
they could not understand: the food Atli is chewing and
digesting and sharing with his nobles is the flesh of his
own sons. The words that spring to her lips - 'corpsebleeding',
'new-slain meat' - recall the fact that she
herself had the preparing of the dishes. After this horror
uttered with hate against Atli, she falls into a tone almost
of feeling for him, for the tender pride he took in the boys,
whom he can never again fondle on his lap and watch as
they grow up to be men. In her perception of his feelings
one can discern her own. The Huns cover their heads with
their cloaks" and break into groaning and weeping at her
words, but Gu6nin's eyes are dry. Like her brothers as
they leave their weeping court, she flings herself into
action again, scattering gold, emptying the sacred
treasure-chambers of the temples for the servants to
scramble for - buying them from their masters with
a funeral hounty, for what need have those who are about
to die of gold? Atli is so drunk and trusting in his
drunkenness that he is easy to murder. Even as she kills
him and the blood soaks into the bedding, the poet gives
a glimpse of the gentler life they once led, when they used
to embrace tenderly before their courtiers. She has the
whole place at her mercy and sets it alight - hall, temples
and outbuildings - killing only those who murdered her
brothers, loosing the dogs as if to show her scorn of the
Huns, and rousing the servants who have no part in her
justice. She has mastered the Huns as ruthlessly as her
brother, like him sacrificing her own flesh to the perfection
of revenge.
I would distinguish three stages in the history of
a book which I only obtained after this article was written: Toar Kviour
Fornar (1962), 170) takes nauoug to mean that Guorun is forced by Atli to
serve the Huns, and compares Gisla Saga ch. 37. This interpretation conflicts
with the warm welcome Guorun gives to Atli and his men as they return from
the murder. That she is nauaug is not observed by Atli (see below p. 20).
In support of the sense 'pale with drunkenness' for neffolom Helgason cites
Egill's line, Qlgerir [Qlvi] nu [oluan. (Egils Saga ch. 44).
'I have preferred the interpretation 'clamonr under the rich cloaks' for
gwyr und guovefiom, since a reference to rich wall-hangings (a rare use of
guovefr in any case) would have little point at this moment.