Hogni- Norse FigureMortal"Son of Gjúki"

The Brotherhood

Högni was a prince of the Gjúkungs, son of King Gjúki and the sorceress Grímhild, brother of Gunnarr and Guðrún. The fourth brother, Guþormr, was younger and had not taken the blood-oath.

When the hero Sigurðr came to the Gjúkung court, the brothers bound themselves to him with the most sacred bond Norse society recognized. Gunnarr, Högni, and Sigurðr knelt together, opened their veins, and let the blood mingle in a furrow cut in the earth. They swore oaths of loyalty: to share all things, to avenge each other's deaths, to be closer than brothers born of the same mother.

The Deception

Högni was complicit in the fraud that won Brynhildr for Gunnarr. When Gunnarr could not ride through the fire-wall surrounding Brynhildr's fortress, Sigurðr assumed Gunnarr's shape through Grímhild's magic and crossed the flames in his place, spending three nights beside Brynhildr with the sword Gram between them. Högni knew. He said nothing.

When Brynhildr discovered the truth and demanded Sigurðr's death, Högni argued against it. Murder of a blood-brother was a crime against both human and divine law. But his counsel was overruled. The brothers incited Guþormr, who had not taken the blood-oath, to stab Sigurðr in his sleep. With Sigurðr dead, Brynhildr threw herself on his funeral pyre.

The Ride East

After Sigurðr's death and Brynhildr's suicide, the cursed gold passed to the Gjúkungs. When Atli sent his invitation, a trap baited with promises of friendship, Guðrún carved runes on a ring and twisted wolf's hair through it as a warning. Högni's wife Kostbera read the runes and begged him not to go. She had dreamed terrible things: the hall-timbers burning around them, a river of blood flowing through the house, bears crashing through the doors.

Högni heard her. He rode anyway. Before they left, the brothers sank the Nibelung gold in the Rhine, so deep that no one would ever reclaim it. Then they rode east toward Hunland with their weapons and a small retinue.

The Heart

When Atli's warriors attacked, Högni and Gunnarr fought until the hall floor ran with blood. Guðrún herself took up weapons alongside her brothers against her own husband's forces. The brothers stood back to back, cutting down Huns in waves, but sheer numbers brought them down.

After the brothers' capture, Atli demanded Gunnarr reveal the hiding place of the gold. Gunnarr set a condition: he wanted to see Högni's heart first, to be certain his brother could never betray the secret under torture. Atli's men brought the heart of a thrall named Hjalli, cut from his chest and laid on a plate. Gunnarr saw it and knew it was not his brother's. The heart trembled on the platter, as it had trembled in the coward's breast.

When they cut Högni's true heart from his living body, it lay still and steady on the plate. In the Atlakviða, Högni laughed as the knife went in. Gunnarr, seeing it, laughed in triumph. Now he alone knew the gold's hiding place, and the Rhine would keep it rather than the Huns.

Högni's son Hniflung survived. In the prose tradition, he helped Guðrún plunge a blade into Atli as the Hunnish king lay drunk in his bed. The death was answered.