Great Lacuna

The Great Lacuna is a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse poetry in the Codex Regius. The gap would have contained the last part of Sigrdrífumál and most of Sigurðarkviða. What remains of the last poem consists of 22 stanzas called Brot af Sigurðarkviðu, but according to Henry Adams Bellows, the original size of Sigurðarkviða should have been more than 250 stanzas.

The missing original narrative is preserved in the Vǫlsunga saga in prose form with four stanzas of poetry. The first two stanzas that are preserved through the saga deal with how Sigurðr returns to Brynhildr leaping through the flames on Grani after Gunnarr had failed:

Sigurðr had, however, been given a potion of forgetfulness and so he had forgotten all about Brynhildr before returning to her. Moreover, he arrived to her disguised as Gunnarr, and so Brynhildr was married to Gunnarr instead. After the wedding, Brynhildr argues with her sister-in-law Guðrún, who is Sigurðr's spouse, and Guðrún reveals to Brynhildr that it was Sigurðr who saved her from her prison. Brynhildr who grasps the extent of the treachery of her in-laws (the Gjúkungar) against her and Sigurðr, speaks out her heart about Gunnarr, in the third preserved stanza:

Brynhildr is furious and so Gunnarr and Sigurðr talk to her trying to calm her down. Sigurðr and Brynhildr have a conversation about the treachery of their mutual in-laws, and understanding how deceived he has been, Sigurðr leaves Brynhildr with a heavy heart:

Brynhildr's fury would soon lead to the death of both her and Sigurðr and to the end of the Gjúkungar.

J. R. R. Tolkien produced the poems Sigurðarkvida en nyja and Guðrunarkviða en nyja, now published as The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, based on the content found in the saga.