# Gudrun — Character guide

> Key figures in Gudrun by Anonymous.

- [Gudrun](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/gudrun.md): Hettel's daughter, praised as the fairest of women, whose betrothal to Herwic is shattered when Hartmut's wooing turns to abduction and her long captivity begins.
- [Hartmut](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/hartmut.md): Norman prince who sends envoys to claim Gudrun as his bride, then rides to war when she refuses him, setting the poem's central feud in motion.
- [Hettel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/hettel.md): Orphaned king of the Hegelings who wins Hilda of Ireland for his queen, only to find his daughter's beauty brings a war he cannot escape.
- [Hilda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/hilda.md): Irish princess carried off by a griffin in youth, now queen of the Hegelings, whose fierce pride in her daughter Gudrun shapes the poem's first conflicts.
- [Hagen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/hagen.md): Irish king who as a boy was snatched by a griffin and raised among strange maidens, later returning home to rule and give his daughter Hilda to Hettel.
- [Herwic](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/herwic.md): Young king of Sealand who fights his way into Gudrun's favor, wins her troth, and becomes the knight whose name she invokes against every later suitor.
- [Ortwin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/ortwin.md): Ortwin is the heir of Ortland, raised in the Hegeling court alongside his sister Gudrun, and when she is carried off he becomes one of the war-leaders sworn to bring her home. Young enough to be called "the youthful Ortw
- [Ludwig](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/ludwig.md): Ludwig rules Normandy beside his fierce queen Gerlind and their son Hartmut, and it is under his roof that the abducted Gudrun is held. Old, proud, and slow to read the danger at his gates, he mistakes the arriving Hegel
- [Gerlind](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/gerlind.md): Gerlind is Ludwig's wife and the mistress of the Norman court, a woman the poem calls wicked, evil, and wolfish without apology. Where her son wants Gudrun as a bride, Gerlind wants her broken, and she presses the captiv
- [Wâ-te](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/wa_te.md): Wâ-te is Hettel's oldest and wisest vassal, father of the singer Horant, and the man the Hegeling court turns to when grief threatens to outrun strategy. When Gudrun is taken, he counsels peace with Siegfried of Moorland
- [Horant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/horant.md): Horant is a Hegeling vassal of Danish birth, celebrated less for his sword than for his singing, which in an earlier generation helped Hettel woo Hilda of Ireland. That gift places him at the court's emotional center eve
- [Ortrun](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/or_trun.md): Ortrun is Ludwig and Gerlind's daughter and Hartmut's sister, raised in the same castle where Gudrun is held against her will. Against her mother's cruelty and her brother's frustrated desire, she keeps trying to soothe 
- [Sigeband](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/sigeband.md): King of Ireland, father of Hagen, husband of Ute.
- [Ute](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/ute.md): Queen of Ireland, mother of Hagen, wife of Sigeband.
- [Irold](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/irold.md): A knight of the Hegelings, fights in the wars.
- [Morunc](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/morunc.md): A young knight of the Hegelings, participates in battles.
- [Fru-te](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/fru_te.md): A Danish warrior and counselor to the Hegelings.
- [Hildeburg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/hil_deburg.md): A noble maiden, companion to Gudrun in captivity.
- [Siegfried](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters/siegfried.md): A suitor for Gudrun, later makes war on Herwic.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/gudrun_se/characters