“Hush. I give you the ring under my left arm. Tomorrow when I’m dead, go to the king and ask him to give you what’s below the left shoulder of the beast. He will. Belike the queen will guess what you’ve been about and offer you bearflesh to eat. You must not—”
“I could not!”
“You are with child, you know. You will have three boys; and that food would harm them sorely, for the queen is the foulest of witches.
“No, go home to your father and mother, and there birth our children. You will come to love one of them the most, though hard will they all be to cope with. When you can do that no longer, then take them back to this cave. Here you will find a chest with three locks. The runes on it will tell you what each of them should have. There will be three weapons as well, driven into the mountain, and each lad shall get the one which I, foresighted, have willed to him.”
He tried to kiss away her tears. “Bestow good names on our sons—Frodhi the first, Thori the second, Bjarki the third—for long will they be remembered.” She clung to him and thought she heard a fading faintness: “Yet the sign of the beast will be upon each of them. Even he who seems unmarked will at the end—” He broke off and comforted her as best he might.
At sunrise the bear shape came over him. He went outside and she followed, into dim daylight. Peering to
ward a noise which lifted, she saw a hundred men headed up the mountainside. Before them bayed and leaped whole packs of hounds.
The bear licked her hand, once, and charged.
Hounds and hunters went at him. That was a long and hard fight. He slew nigh every dog—ripped it open, broke its back, snapped it in bloody twain—and hurt no few men. Yet spears and arrows sank into him until he was no longer gray but red. The warriors ringed him in. He rushed about. Everywhere were shields and whetted metal. He began to stumble on the shafts and guts that hung from his belly. No way was left to slip free. He turned toward the king, struck that man who stood next by and ripped him asunder.
But then the bear was so worn and empty that he cast himself on the earth. His breath rattled with blood. Spears plunged, axes rose and fell, the men swarmed over him and slew him.
While they stood back, cheering and boasting, Bera came to King Hring. Her mouth was firm and her gait was steady. He knew her and said, “Why, Bera, my dear, where ever have you been—?”
“That’s no matter, lord,” she answered. “For old times’ sake, will you let me have what’s under the shoulder of your prey?”
He looked at her a while before he nodded his whitening head and spoke loud enough to be sure men heard: “Of course. You must be starved, after wandering lost this long. There can’t be anything here, save such as I might as well let you have.”
Like a carven figure, Bera watched them flay and butcher the carcass, until she could go to the formless thing and reach underneath. None saw her draw forth a golden ring and tuck it between her breasts.
Whooping, the band fared back to the king’s garth. It would have seemed strange if a girl newly returned from wilderness did not come along, and did not go into the hall for merrymaking like everyone else.
Queen Hvit went about, very blithe, bidding them wel
come and ordering the bear’s flesh cooked for a feast. When she saw Bera, hunched unhappily in a corner, she halted. Her fingers crooked. She wheeled and left in a whirl of skirts. Well before anybody might have awaited it—men had just begun their real drinking—she carried in a trencher of spit-roasted meat.
Straight to Bera she went and said for none to mistake: “How good to know you’re alive! Poor darling, you mustn’t go hungry one wink longer. Here, eat.”
The girl shrank back on the bench. “No,” she begged.
Hvit drew herself straight. Frightening did she look, in a ghost-white gown which glimmered amidst shadows like her eyes and her teeth. “Why, this is unheard of,” she said, “that you spurn food which the queen herself does you the honor to bring. Take it at once, or you’ll get what is worse!”
She drew her knife, stabbed a chunk of meat, and thrust it at Bera’s lips. Worn out, numbed by grief, terrified for her unborn children, the girl knew not what to do. Men were beginning to stare. If they knew the truth, what might
they
do? She clenched shut her eyes and hands. The gobbet pushed hot at her mouth. Its smell of scorched blood roared in her head. She swallowed it whole.
The queen laughed, “Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it, little Bera?”—and pushed another bite at her.
It got onto her tongue. Bera won back a wavelet’s worth of strength. She spat it out, leaped to her feet, and shrieked, “No, no more, not though you torture or kill me!”
Again Hvit laughed. “Could be that that morsel does something anyway.” She lifted a third.
Bera sprang past her and fled out of the hall. The queen herself could ill afford to start folk wondering. “Well, well, how thin-skinned for a yeoman’s wench,” she said. “I was only trying to brighten her mood.”
Bera went home to her father and mother; and heavy was the burden she bore. To them alone did she tell what had happened.
III
Hvit did not seek to do the girl further harm. Either she dared not, or she felt she had enough to gloat over. For at her lying in, Bera brought forth first a horribly misshapen child. Above he was human, but from the navel down he was an elk. When Gunnar the yeoman would have taken the being out to squall on a hillside till it died or a wolf found it, she said through her sweat and pain, “No. That’s Björn’s son. He wanted him named … Frodhi.”
Now she birthed another boy whose feet were the feet of a dog, though in all else he was goodly to see; him she called Thori.
Yet a third boy had she. In him was no flaw. This was Bjarki, whom she came to love the most.
Of the years which followed is little to say. At first folk must have shunned that house of bad luck. However, Gunnar was wealthy and well-liked; he had built a halidom to Thor, where he often made offerings; his crops and kine throve. He and his could not be under the wrath of the gods or the land-wights. And after all, freaks were not unknown, though usually they were set out. Erelong life was going on as before, save that there was no more close friendship between Gunnar and King Hring. The queen’s ever more evil temper had caused most men to steer as clear of that hall as might be.
Gunnar and his wife thought it wise to keep still about who the father was of their grandchildren. Bera told the world they were the by-blow of a wanderer she had met while lost in the high country. That sort of thing was common enough. Being comely and sturdy and sure to bring a big dowry, she had suitors, but took none.
The boys grew like grass. Elk-Frodhi on his long hairy legs, hoofs click-clicking, swayed back and forth and must needs go slow when he walked. Leaned over to run, he outpaced everyone save his loping, padding brother Thori Hound’s-Foot. As he got his growth, nobody could
withstand him when he wrestled or smote with wooden practice weapons.
Huge and ugly he was, uncouth and surly. He got along well only with his brothers. These were the best-looking of lads, hardly to be told apart aside from their feet. The older of them was oftener snarly than the younger. Bjarki was of a sunny heart.
Nonetheless, since he always fared in company with the other two, their ways worked on him. The bigger they grew, the louder and more unruly they became. When playing with neighborhood boys they were heartless and willful; many a one had a hard time at their hands.
Worst was Elk-Frodhi. At the age of twelve, he was broad and heavy as any full-grown man, and would have been as tall did his legs not make him slouch. He began to seek the king’s garth and challenge the royal guardsmen to bouts. Several he threw around so badly that they were crippled. When the rage came upon him, he would slash out a sharp hoof or bring down a fist like a hammer. Some men died.
This cost Gunnar stiff weregilds and led to hard words between grandfather and grandson.
At last Frodhi hulked and clicked his way to Bera and said he wanted to leave. “I wish naught to do with folk hereabouts,” he growled. “They’re weaklings, who get hurt if you come near them.”
She sighed, and knew in guilt that it was from a kind of happiness. “That would be best,” she said. “First come and get what your father left you.”
They went together, up onto the mountain. She had not been there since Björn was flayed. Nodding sunlit grasses, blowing flowers, soughing trees, a hawk aloft amid clouds which seemed to have broken off the snows yonder, a thrush which trilled and hare which bolted, none of these remembered him. When she and her son entered the cave, they found a triple-locked chest of bronze, lovely to see though its moldings told no human story. She had spent time learning how to read runes. Now those upon the box spoke to her. When she touched
the locks, they sprang open. Inside lay bright suits of mail, fine clothes, gold rings and jewelry. The runes said Elk-Frodhi should have little of this.
“I’ll take my own, then,” he sneered, and tried to snatch out a helmet. His fingers slipped off. He could grasp nothing which was not his. “Well, I’ll win my own, and Hel take
you!”
he bellowed. Did a few tears start forth?
Squinting toward shadows at the back of the cave, he saw steel glimmer and went for a close look. Driven into the granite which made a rear wall for the softer stone around, were three weapons: a longsword, mighty and fair; a great war ax; and a curve-bladed shortsword. “Ha!” he cried, and grabbed the hilt of the first. Though he heaved till the sweat ran out, he could not rock it, nor afterward the ax.
Said Elk-Frodhi: “Maybe he who put these here wanted they should be dealt out the same as the other goods.” He took the shortsword by the haft, and at once it slid free.
A while he stared at it before he said, “Unjust has he been who divided these treasures.” In howling ire he chopped the blade two-handed against the mountain. He did not break it; no, it rang as it hewed into the granite.
A while more he stared. At last he said, “What matter if I fare about with this uncanny thing? Surely it can bite.”
He turned, snatched up what else had been left him, and galloped away. He did not bid his mother farewell, nor did she ever see him again.
Word came after months. Elk-Frodhi had gone into the Keel, a wild part through which one road went. There he had built himself a hut and now lived as a robber. It took more than a few men to stand him off. Were the band small, he bore off their goods, and if they fought, he left dead and wounded behind him.
King Hring heard of this, and thought he could see what witchcraft lay beneath. However, he said merely that he did not think it was his work to keep safe a traders’ road to Götaland.
When their brother was gone, Thori Hound’s-Foot and Bjarki grew better behaved. Yet they were restless too, and after three years the former asked leave to go.
His mother took him to the cave and those things which were willed him. His was a bigger share. He too tried to draw the beautiful longsword, and failed. The ax came free in his hand, and a stout weapon it was. He busked himself, said goodbye to his mother and grandparents, and rode off eastward.
All the brothers were keen hunters. When Thori saw traces too faint for most eyes, leading off the Götaland road, he followed them. Atop a rocky bluff, in a murk of firs, he found a sod-roofed log house. He took the lone chair inside and pulled his hat low.
Toward evening was a huge clatter of hoofs, the earthen floor shivered beneath weight, and there stood Elk-Frodhi, seven feet tall and more than broad to match. He glared at the dimly seen newcomer, drew his sax, and chanted:
“Grinning the shortsword
goes from the sheath;
well he remembers
the work of Hild.”
Hild is a Valkyrie and her work is war and manslaving. Frodhi chopped his blade down into a bench, frothed and snorted.
Quoth Thori:
“I can likewise
let my ax
sing for you
the selfsame stave.”
And he hid his face no more. Frodhi was overjoyed in his gruff way to see him, having long lived wholly friendless. He bade him stay, and offered him half the hoard of loot.
Thori said he would not take this. He abode there a few days, then said he would be off again.
Elk-Frodhi sighed: “I’m no woman to keep you here, am I, nor more than part of a man. As you will, brother. Hear my rede, though … for I get some news from those
I waylay but spare the lives of. Go on to Götaland. On the shores of Lake Vener dwell the West Götar, who pay scot to the High King Bjovulf. Their own under-king has died and they’ve called a meeting at midsummer to choose a new one. This is how they do it. They set a chair in the middle of their Thingstead, such as two ordinary men could hardly fill; and he who can sit at ease by himself, leaving no proper room for another, shall be king. I think already you’re that size.”
“An odd custom,” said Thori.
Frodhi laughed. “It makes as much sense to me as whatever else men do. Either they get a giant who leads them to victory, or they get one too fat to start a war.”
“Well, they do say Bjovulf is a good overlord. I thank you for doing this well by me.”
“I wish … I could do more—be off, if you must!” Frodhi turned his coarse head aside.
So Thori fared to the West Götar, where a jarl received him well. Folk admired his height and looks. When the Thing was held, its lawman deemed he fitted the seat best, and the yeomen roared the name of king upon him.
Many are the tales about King Thori Hound’s-Foot. He grew rich in friends, among them the jarl, whose daughter he married, and his overlord. When Bjovulf later fell in strife against a dragon, trouble broke forth among the Götar. Thori stood fast by that Vigleik whom the old king had wanted to follow him, and in most battles had the victory.
Meanwhile Bjarki stayed home. Three more years passed by.
His mother was happy with him. He had grown altogether good-hearted, however bold in the hunt or in breakneck sport. Did he no longer wrestle, race, or otherwise playfully contend with his fellows, it was because none had a chance and everybody knew it. For he towered a head over the highest among them. So broad and thick was he that, from a ways off, he did not seem to be this tall; yet he ran down horses and deer while hardly breathing deep, and was supple as a withe. In face as well
as size, he was from the same mold as his brother Thori: handsome in a heavy-browed, blunt-nosed, freckled way, his hair as red and his eyes as blue as living fire. But he did not lope like a dog, he strode like a man.