Kriemhilt and Gunrun show up in most genealogies of Attila's family that
I've seen, as separate individuals.
I don't quite have all the information yet, but examining the Germanic
versions of her story make it clear that Kriemhilt
(Chrenchildis)(Grimhild)(Kriemhilc) and Gunrun (Gudrun) were the same
person, and she was a Burgundian princess. Her brothers were three kings
of Burgundy or else a king and two princes. In the stories, atleast. In
real life, her brother the king lived at a different time!
Attila apparently had fairly close contact with the Burgundians, as well as
the Franks; he participated fully in their dynastic politics, took hostages
from among them, and that sort of thing. He may ahve conquered the
Burgundian territory.
There are several very different stories concerning her. She is the one who
allegedly killed her two sons and fed them to Attila. In all versions
that I've found, goings on in the Burgundian royal family rivalled the
goings on at the time of the early Merovingian kings. Actually, the story
is based on them. It puts famous and notorious kings from slightly
differnet points in history together and has them knowing and having contact
with each other.
All versions of what transpired with her as Attila's wife have Attila and
whatever sons he had by her caught in the middle of Burgundian royal family
dysfunction. She was variously trying to get revenge on her family, who
she tricked into coming to Attila's court, trying to get this and that at
Attila's expense, from revenge on him for something that went on with her
family, to the recovery of her first husband's treasure. In one case,
Attila is greedy for some kind of family treasure, and she tries to get
revenge on him by killing his two small sons and feeding them to Attila and
his guests. Then she kills Attila, and then she tries to kill herself, and
is rescued by some other king and lives happily ever after!
Atleast one version of Ildico's role in this could also have been part of
this. Apparently it was later in history as myths about both Attila and
Burgundian royalty began to grow that the notion that Ildico killed Attila
for revenge for whatever he had done to her family took shape. In some
places, she actually merged with the Burgundian princess in the popular
mind.
http://28.1911encyclopedia.org/K/KR/KRIEMHILD.htm"According to Jordanes (c. 49), who takes his information from the
contemporary and trustworthy account of Priscus, Attila died o: a violent
hemorrhage at night, as he lay beside a girl namec Ildico (i.e. O. H. Ger.
Hildiko). The story got abroad that he lad perished by the hand'of a woman
in revenge for her relations lain by him; according to some (e.g. Saxo Poeta
and the Qued-inburg chronicle) it was her father whom she revenged; but when
the treacherous overthrow of the Burgundians by Attila lad become a theme
for epic poets, she figured as a Burgundian mncess, and her act as done in
revenge for her brothers. Now he name Hildiko is the diminutive of Hilda or
Hild, which again in accordance with a custom common enoughmay have jeen
used as an abbreviation of Grimhild (cf. Hildr for Bryn-hildr). It has been
suggested. (Symons, Heldensage, p. 55) that when the legend of the overthrow
of the Burgundians, which .ook place in 437, became attached to that of the
death of Attila ^453), Hild, the supposed sister of the Burgundian kings,
was dentified with the daemonic Grimhild, the sister of the mythical
Nibelung brothers, and thus helped the process by which the Nibelung myth
became fused with the historical story of the all of the Burgundian kingdom.
The older story, according to which Grimhild slays her husband Attila in
revenge for her Drothers, is preserved in the Norse tradition, though
Grimhild's Dart is played by Gudrun, a change probably due to the fact,
mentioned above, that the name Grimhild still retained in the north its
sinister significance. The name of Grimhild is trans-'erred to Gudrun's
mother, the " wise wife," a semi-daemonic igure, who brews the potion that
makes Sigurd forget his love

r Brunhild and his plighted troth. In the
Nibelungenlied, lowever, the primitive supremacy of the blood-tie has given
place to the more modern idea of the supremacy of the passion of love, arid
Kriemhild marries Attila (Etzel) in order to compass the death of her
brothers, in revenge for the murder of Siegfried. Theodor Abeling, who is
disposed to reject or minimize the mythical origins, further suggests a
confusion of the story of Attiia's wife Ildico with that of the murder of
Sigimund the Burgundian by the sons of Chrothildis, wife of Clovis."
http://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/norseminor.htmlhttp://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/nibe ... ml#Revengehttp://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/nibelungs.htmlhttp://www.timelessmyths.com/norse/german.html#AttilaThe Germanic stories mention Kreka, a first wife who these stories ahve dead
at the time when Gudrun/ Grimhild married Attila. These are versions that
were written at later dates by Christian people; so they don't really tell
us that Attila was not married to Kriemhild and Kreka at the same time.
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra@austin.rr.com