Jörmunrekkr

Jörmunrekk is the mighty Gothic king of the legend's end — the literary memory of the historical Ermanaric, ruler of a vast fourth-century empire. Into his story the Volsung tragedy spends its last blood. He marries the beautiful Svanhild, last of Gudrun and Sigurd's line; but poisoned by slander that she has lain with his son, the old king has her trampled to death under horses. For that killing Gudrun sends her last sons against him, and they fall on Jörmunrekk in his hall, hewing off his hands and feet — but, a companion lost on the way, they cannot finish him, and the maimed king orders them stoned to death, the only way the iron-proof brothers can be killed. Jörmunrekk is the instrument of the legend's exhaustion: the proud, jealous king whose rash cruelty draws down the last avengers, and in whose blood-soaked hall the whole long curse of the Volsungs finally burns itself out.