Brunhilda

Brunhilda, (1) in the Nibelungenlied, the young and stalwart queen of Iceland, wife of Gunther, the Burgundian king. She hated passionately Kriemhild and her husband, Siegfried, who had once been her own lover; and she caused his murder by the hands of Hagen. Originally she was identical with the Norse Walkyrie Brynhildr, who for a fault was stripped of her divinity by Odin and sunk into a charmed sleep from which she was awakened by Sigurd (Siegfried).—(2) The daughter of the Visigothic king, Athanagild, married King Sigbert of Austrasia in 567, and afterwards as regent for her two grandsons, Theodebert II., king of Austrasia, and Theodoric II., king of Burgundy, divided the government of the whole Frankish world with her rival Fredegond, who governed Neustria for the youthful Clotaire II. On the death of Fredegond in 598 she seized on Neustria, and for a while united under her rule the whole Merovingian dominions, but was overthrown in 613 by a combination in their own interests of the Austrasian nobles under the nominal leadership of Clotaire II., and put to death by being dragged at the heels of a wild horse.