Atlamál

Atlamál in grǿnlenzku (The Greenlandic Lay of Atli) is one of the heroic poems of the Poetic Edda.

[1] Plotting to kill his brothers-in-law, Atli dispatches messengers to Gunnarr and Högni, the sons of Gjúki, with an invitation to his hall.

[2] Guðrún daughter of Gjúki, Atli's wife, learns about the plot[3] and sends a runic message to her brothers but the runes are corrupted by one of the messengers, Vingi.

[7] Eventually Gunnarr admits that their lives may be short but tells Glaumvör that he cannot evade his doom.

The battle rages for hours and Guðrún joins it on the side of her brothers, throwing away her jewelry.

He tries to console her by promising precious gifts and she pretends to relent, asking Atli for a great ale-feast to commemorate her brothers.

[19] Guðrún then kills their two sons and has the unsuspecting Atli use their heads as drinking vessels and eat their roasted hearts.

The relatively mean conditions of the chieftains in the poem—the Niflungar, for example, have only 10 retainers—have also been taken as strengthening the case for an origin in Greenlandic culture.