Skulde (Skuld)

Skuld is the half-elven half-sister whose treachery brings down Hrólf Kraki's golden hall. Married to the under-king Hjörvard, she is stung by the tribute her husband must pay to her brother Hrólf, and her resentment — sharpened, the legend says, by her uncanny blood and her skill in sorcery — hardens into a plot to destroy him. Under cover of bringing the tribute, she and Hjörvard come to Hrólf's seat at Lejre with a hidden army and fall on the unsuspecting court, and Skuld's witchcraft raises horrors against the king's champions in the final battle. So the greatest of the legendary Danish halls is betrayed and burned from within, by the king's own kin. Skuld is the saga's image of the enemy at the hearth — the resentful sister whose grievance and sorcery undo a brother no open foe could beat, the worm in the heart of the ideal court.