Brunhild in "The Nibelungenlied"

The Nibelungenlied's Brunhild seems, on the surface, to be a proto-feminist type. She is a mighty sovereign in her own right and vies with men at throwing javelins. She participates in masculine warrior culture and is a formidable opponent to even the bravest warrior. And, yet, for all her strength and shrewdness, she takes part in the masculine warrior culture without challenging or subverting cultural norms that relegate women to mere prizes for marriage. Her unusual strength, even, makes her more of a spectacle than a symbol for female empowerment.

All of the women in The Nibelungenlied are given in marriage by their male protectors usually in exchange for a certain favor or desirable outcome. Gunther, for instance, promises Kriemhild to Siegfried in exchange for Siegfried's help in overcoming Brunhild: "I will do it," Siegried tells Gunther, "if you will give me your sister fair Kriemhild, the noble princess...I wish no other reward for my trouble" (54). They're not subtle about it - Kriemhild is, in effect, a prize for a certain type of requested behavior. It's what we expect and I doubt many of us are surprised by it; what I found surprising, however, is that Brunhild offers herself as a literal prize to suitors. Gunther and Siegfried talk of "winning" the Icelandic queen suggesting that, just as Kriemhild is part of an exchange that reduces her to a "reward" or prize, so too is Brunhild.

One could probably point to Brunhild's astonishing strength and superhuman abilities as evidence that she is challenging conventional notions of femininity and, yet, her strength reinforces the concept of woman as object or spectacle. While she claims on pg. 60 of our text that neither her nor her ladies are to stand at the windows "as a spectacle for strangers" she, only six pgs later, renders herself a literal spectacle by hurling heavy boulders and throwing javelins and combating with Gunther-Siegfried. She may be a formidable opponent but she's also taking part in a discourse that monopolizes on the belief that women are objects by, in effect, becoming an object to watch.

The part that is most disturbing to me is, as mentioned above, she enters into this discourse of her own accord. She makes herself a spectacle and she makes herself a prize. But, I guess, you could argue that just by taking matters into her own hands she is making a powerful statement about female agency and initiative...or, on the flipside, she's just reinforcing masculine warrior culture at her own expense.