Brynhildr

Brynhildr (also spelled Brunhild, Brünnhilde, Brynhild) is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Germanic mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. She may be inspired by the Visigothic princess Brunhilda of Austrasia. The history of Brynhildr includes fratricide, a long battle between brothers, and dealings with the Huns. She is also known as Sigrdrífa, as written in the poem Sigrdrífumál.

Norse mythology

Völsunga saga

Brynhild (novel)

Brynhild, or The Show of Things is a 1937 novel by H. G. Wells.

Plot summary

Rowland Palace is a novelist married to a distant cousin, Brynhild, a "Quiet Lovely" who is twelve years younger than he. Inordinately sensitive to criticism, Palace has been withdrawing from a wife who is becoming critical of him, and when he decides he needs to engage a publicist to cultivate his neglected public image, he hides his plan. The publicist he chooses, Immanuel Cloote, proves to be an agent with imagination and "manifest gusto."

Meanwhile, Brynhild meets and becomes the unique confidant of Alfred Bunter, a rising young novelist of whose popular success Palace is jealous. Bunter confides to Brynhild that he is really David Lewis, from Cardiff, who left his wife and assumed a new identity as an author. Scarcely has he confided in Brynhild, however, than his true identity is exposed by someone who turns out to be Mr. Cloote, intent on sabotaging Rowland Palace's literary competitors. The plight of Bunter/Lewis elicits Brynhild's sympathies. The novel closes with the news that Brynhild, who had been feeling that she was "too aloof for life," has gained a new sense of confidence and self-assurance from her brief affair, is with child.