A word of advice: if you don’t want to be put into an everlasting sleep surrounded by a wall of flames, side with Odin - no matter what the argument. That was Brunhild’s mistake, and it didn’t end well.

According to prose and poetic texts from 13th-century Iceland, Brunhild is a valkyrie who’s love can be won only by a man capable of passing through this wall of fire – or, in another version, enchanted shields. That man was Sigurd the Dragonslayer, but things didn’t go so well between them. In fact, their love story becomes seriously tangled in treachery, and by the end of the narrative, Brunhild has Sigurd murdered.

Some historians believe her character was inspired by Queen Brunhilde of Austrasia, a Visigothic princess born around AD 543.