Read Six Sagas of Adventure Online
Authors: Ben Waggoner (trans)
He went away from there and went back to his tent, and rested a little.
CHAPTER VIII
Now the king’s sisters were sent for. Svanhvit examined Hromund’s wounds and sewed his belly together and tried to find relief for him. She had him brought to an old man for healing; his name was Hagal. His wife was clever. They accepted him and nursed him back to health. Hromund found that this couple was skilled in many things.
[18]
The old man customarily went fishing, and on one occasion when he was fishing, he hauled in a pike. When he came home and gutted it, he found Hromund’s sword Mistletoe in its stomach, and he brought it to him. Hromund was happy and kissed the sword’s hilt, and rewarded the old man well.
[19]
There was one man in King Hadding’s host who was named Blind the Evil. He told the king that Hromund was alive and well, in hiding with the old man Hagal and his wife. The king said that it was unbelievable that they would dare to conceal him. The king ordered a search for him. Blind went with some men to the house of Hagal and his wife, and asked if Hromund was being kept there. The old woman said that he wouldn’t be found there. Blind searched carefully and didn’t find him, because the old woman had hidden Hromund under her stew-kettle.
Blind and his fellows went away, and when they had gone on their way, Blind said, “Our trip has accomplished nothing, and we should go back.”
They did so, and came to the house and found the old woman. Blind said that she was crafty and she had kept Hromund under her kettle. “Search and take him then,” she said. She said that because as soon as she saw them turn back, she put Hromund in women’s clothing and had him grind grain and turn the grindstone. They searched the buildings, and as soon as they came to where the woman was turning the grindstone, they went peering all around. She likewise stared at the king’s men, scowling. They turned and left and didn’t find her.
When they had gone on their way, Blind said that the old woman must have deceived their sight, and said that he suspected that Hromund must have been the one who was turning the grindstone in women’s clothes. “I see that we have been outdone. It did us no good to contend with the old woman, because she’s cleverer than we are.” They wished her ill and went back home to the king, leaving matters as they stood.
[20]
CHAPTER IX
The winter afterwards, many things appeared to Blind in his sleep, and he told the king one of his dreams. He said, “A lone wolf appeared to me, running from the east. He bit you, king, and gave you a wound.”
The king said that he interpreted the dream in this way: “A king from some place will come here. The meeting will be hostile at first, but end in a settlement.”
Again Blind said that he had dreamed that many hawks were sitting in one house—“and I noticed your falcon there, lord. It was completely featherless and skinned.”
The king said, “Wind shall come from the clouds and shake our fortress.”
Blind told a third dream in this way: “I saw many swine running from the south to the king’s hall. They rooted up the earth with their snouts.”
The king said, “That means swells on the sea, wet weather, and the growth of plants that grow on moisture from the lake, when the sun shines on the heath.”
Blind told a fourth dream. “A horrible giant appeared to me, coming from the east. He bit you and made a great wound.”
The king said, “Messengers from some kings will come into my hall. They will stab upwards with all their weapons, and that will make me angry.”
“I had a fifth dream,” said Blind, “that a savage serpent appeared to be lying around Sweden.”
“A splendid dragon-ship will land here,” said the king, “laden with treasures.”
“I dreamed a sixth time,” said Blind, “that dark clouds with talons and wings appeared to be coming from the land, and they flew away with you, king. Then I had another dream that a lone serpent was with the old man Hagal. He bit men fiercely, and devoured both you and me and all the king’s men. What can this mean?”
The king said, “I have heard that a certain bear lies in his den a short way from Hagal’s home. I will go and defeat the bear, and then he will bristle a great deal.”
“Next I dreamed that a dragon’s skin was dragged around the king’s hall, and it hung there next to Hromund’s belt.”
The king said, “Don’t you know that Hromund lost his sword and shield in the lake? Or are you scared of Hromund now?”
Blind dreamed more dreams, every one of which he told the king, but the king interpreted all of them in his favor, but none as a sign of any importance.
[21]
Now Blind told one more of his dreams that concerned himself, and he said, “It seemed to me that an iron ring was set on my neck.”
The king said, “The interpretation of that dream is that you will be hanged, and besides, that both of us are doomed to die.”
CHAPTER X
After that, King Olaf summoned his forces and set his course for Sweden at once. Hromund went with him. They came to King Hadding’s hall by surprise. He was lying in an outbuilding. He didn’t become aware of anything until the building’s doors were broken down. Hadding shouted to his men and asked who was attacking in the night. Hromund said that it was he.
The king said, “You must want to avenge your brothers.”
Hromund said that he shouldn’t say anything about the fall of his brothers. “Now you’ll pay for that, and lose your life here.”
A champion of King Hadding’s rushed up, as huge as a giant. Hromund killed him. King Hadding defended himself in his bed and suffered no wounds, because every time Hromund struck at him, the flat of the sword struck the king. Then Hromund took a club and bashed King Hadding down to Hel.
[22]
Hromund said, “Here I have felled King Hadding, and I have never seen a more renowned man.”
The old man Blind, whose real name was Bolvis, was tied up and hanged, and so his dream came true.
[23]
They took a great deal of gold and other wealth and then headed for home.
King Olaf betrothed Svanhvit to Hromund. They loved each other well, and had sons and daughters together, and were more excellent than others. Kingly lineages and great champions are descended from them.
Here ends the saga of Hromund Gripsson.
[1]
The text as printed by Guðni Jónsson, ultimately from manuscript AM 587b, has
Görðum í Danmörk
, “Gardar in Denmark.” As a common noun,
garðar
means “towns; fortresses”, and the author of AM 587b may have meant that Olaf ruled over towns in Denmark. But other manuscripts just have
Görðum
, “Gardar” (Andrews, “Studies in the Fornaldarsǫgur Norðrlanda,” p. 529), which usually refers to Russia (often called
Garðaríki
, “realm of towns”). This reading makes more sense, since both
Göngu-Hrólfs saga
and
Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar
berserkjabana
place Olaf’s father in Russia (although they disagree as to who Olaf’s father actually is; see footnote 2). However, Andrews (p. 543 n1) read
Görðum
as a mistake for
Hörðum
, Hordaland in Norway.
[2]
Asmund is one of the heroes of
Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana
. The
Gnóð
was his legendary ship. Note that
Göngu-Hrólfs saga
makes Olaf the son of Hrólf, not Asmund.
[3]
Hrok the Black appears in
Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka.
[4]
The text has
Úlfasker
, “Wolf Skerries,” which don’t seem to exist. Andrews considers this an error for
Elfasker
, the Elfar Skerries, at the mouth of the Göta alv river (“Studies in the Fornaldarsǫgur Norðrlanda,” p. 543).
[5]
Old Norse
Brynþvari
; the word
brynþvari
is used in
Egils saga
ch. 53 for a spear with a swordlike blade. See note 6 to
Bósa saga.
[6]
The reason for the goat’s beard and hat isn’t clear. Brown (“Saga of Hrómund Gripsson,” p. 63) considered it simply comedy, but Hromund may be concealing his identity from Hrongvid, since it was believed that a dying enemy might cast a deadly curse on his foe if he knew his name (e.g.
Fáfnismál
1-2; transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, pp. 160-161). Uncanny villains who can’t be cut by iron weapons are fairly common in legendary sagas (e.g. Sóti in
Göngu-Hrólfs saga
chs. 17-18), and it is more or less standard operating procedure for heroes to dispatch them with clubs—as Hromund does again at the very end of the saga.
[7]
Blámenn
, “black men”, are stock villains in the legendary sagas. The word is occasionally used for Africans, but
blámenn
in the legendary sagas have nothing to do with actual Africans. Hideous and trollish, their main function is to be killed entertainingly by heroes.
[8]
The text reads
Var þat á nóttu
, “That was at night”—but the point of Hromund’s dealings with Thrain seems to be that Thrain is weak by day and strong at night. If it is night when Hromund enters the mound, the point is lost and the timing of the scene is confused. Brown suggests that the saga writer misread
Griplur
, which at this point in the narrative reads
nógt um þókti nadda lesti
,
nær sem væri frykrinn mesti
, “the shield-breaker felt that he was nearly overcome by the greatest stench” (II.60; Finnur Jónsson,
Fernir Forníslenskir Rímnaflokkar
, p. 26). If the manuscript was partly illegible here, the saga writer may have read
nótt
, “night”, for
nógt
, “almost”. (“Saga of Hrómund Gripsson,” p. 76) I’ve taken the liberty of emending my translation to something closer to the sense of
Griplur.
[9]
The implication seems to be that Thrain must consume special food from the cauldron in order to have his full strength—a motif that appears in Saxo’s
History of the Danes
III.76-77 (ed. Ellis-Davidson and Fisher, pp. 74-75).
[10]
The text reads that the cauldron is
fullr í búki
, “full in body” or “full in torso; full in belly,” which is ambiguous. Kershaw interprets
búkr
as the cauldron’s own rounded shape (
Stories and Ballads
, p. 67), while Bachman and Erlingsson read the phrase to mean that the cauldron is right up against Thrain’s belly (
Six Old Icelandic Sagas
, p. 6). I’ve followed Stitt (
Beowulf and the Bear’s Son
, p. 230 n20), who noted that a later manuscript of the saga reads
fullr af búkum
, “full of bodies.”
Griplur
also reads
fullur ketill af búkum
(III.4; Finnur Jónsson,
Fernir Forníslenskir Rímnaflokkar
, p. 27). Several sagas depict trolls and giants as cannibals, and some specifically depict them feeding on human flesh cooked in a cauldron, e.g.
Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra
ch. 4.
[11]
Stitt points out that flesh-tearing nails are more typical of giants and trolls than of the undead (
Beowulf and the Bear’s Son
, p. 142). The comparison with a cat may be more than simple metaphor, since trolls sometimes appear as cats;
Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar
(ch. 8) includes a troll in cat-shape who claws the hero, and in
Vatnsdæla saga
(ch. 28) the sorcerous villain Thorolf Sledge has a herd of twenty huge black cats that are
mjök trylltir
, “very trollish”.
[12]
Possibly the same as the legendary King Sæmingr. Snorri Sturluson calls Sæmingr a legendary king of Norway who was the son of the god Odin (
Edda
, Prologue 11, ed. Faulkes, vol. 1, p. 6;
Ynglinga saga
8, transl. Hollander,
Heimskringla,
pp. 12-13), but also cites a now-lost poem that states that he was the son of the god Yngvi-Freyr, who was especially worshipped in Sweden. (
Hemiskringla
, Prologue, transl. Hollander, p. 3).
[13]
In
Griplur
(IV.4-7; Finnur Jónsson,
Fernir Forníslenskir Rímnaflokkar
, p. 31), Hromund gives a ring to a man named Grundi, in return for Grundi’s gift of an excellent dog named Hrok, and Vali (or Vóli, as his name appears in
Griplur
) kills the dog. The saga-writer may have misread or misremembered the text of
Griplur
, or worked from a defective manuscript (Brown, “Saga of Hrómund Gripsson,” p. 74).
[14]
The saga actually states that the king makes this threat, but according to
Griplur
, it is Hromund who promises to pay Vali back. This makes more dramatic sense, given that the king will soon be accepting Vali’s slander of Hromund. This is probably an error in the sags resulting from the writer misreading a manuscript of
Griplur.
(Brown, “Saga of Hrómund Gripsson,” p. 76) I have emended the saga accordingly.
[15]
Some authors (e.g. Kershaw,
Stories and Ballads
, p. 59) have seen a reflection of the myth of Balder’s death in the characters Bildr and Vali, and in the name of Hromund’s sword Mistletoe (since in Saxo Grammaticus’s version of the myth of Balder, he is killed with a sword named Mistletoe, not a sprig of the plant mistletoe). The relationship, if any, seems very distant.
[16]
In the saga text as printed, the kings are named Halding, and Helgi’s valkyrie lover is named Lara. The names are Hadding and Kára in
Griplur
, as well as in
Helgakviða Hundingsbana II
and other sources, and I’ve emended them here; Lara may be Rafn’s misreading of the name
Cara
in manuscript (Andrews, “Studies in the Fornaldarsǫgur Norðrlanda,” p. 528). The tradition of a pair of kings both named Hadding seems to be a very old one (Turville-Petre,
Myth and Religion of the North
, pp. 216-220).
[17]
Jesch points out that this battle is modeled on a more famous battle on the ice of Lake Vanern—the battle between Aðils and Áli, told in the lost
Skjöldunga saga
(see Miller, “Fragments of Danish History”, p. 18), described by Snorri Sturluson in
Ynglinga saga
(ch. 29; in
Heimskringla
, transl. Hollander, p. 33) and the
Prose Edda
(
Skáldskaparmál
44, ed. Faulkes, pp. 58-59), and even alluded to in
Beowulf
(2392-2396). Hromund and his eleven brothers correspond to Hrólfr kraki’s twelve berserks who fight on Aðils’s side. (“Hrómundr Gripsson Revisited,” p. 93)
[18]
“Skilled in many things” (
margkunnigr
) is a common saga euphemism for knowing magic or having second sight.
[19]
This is a variant of a folklore motif found throughout Europe and Asia (N211.1.4, “Lost sword found in fish”, a version of N211.1, “Lost ring found in fish”; Thompson,
Motif-Index of Folk Literature
, vol. 5, pp. 87-88). But the immediate source for the episode was probably
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
, in which the hero Angantýr Heiðreksson finds the sword Tyrfing inside a pike.
[20]
This episode seems to have been borrowed from
Helgakviða Hundingsbana II
1-4 (transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, pp. 135-136). In these verses, Helgi is sheltered by a man named Hagal, who dresses him as a bondmaid and sets him to grinding grain in order to hide him from the king’s wicked counsellor Blind.
[21]
Episodes in which one character has many foreboding dreams, all of which are foolishly rationalized away, appear in
Völsunga saga
(chs. 36-37) and in
Atlamál
14-26 (transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, pp. 217-219), one of the Völsung cycle of poems in the
Poetic Edda
. They also appear in the legendary
Hálfs saga
(ch. 11).
[22]
Again, we have the widespread motif of bashing an enemy to death with clubs because he cannot be killed with edged weapons thanks to some sorcery or monstrous nature. (e.g.
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
note 14)
[23]
In the printed saga, the old man’s name is Bavis, but this is probably a mistake for
Bölvís
, which is how his name appears in
Griplur
(VI.51; Finnur Jónsson,
Fernir Forníslenskir Rímnaflokkar
, p. 42)
.
Bölvísi
means “malicious” or “baleful”; in
Helgakviða Hundingsbana II
, the king’s counsellor Blind is called
Blindr inn bölvísi.
Saxo Grammaticus also mentions a blind kings’ counsellor named Bolwisus who delights in stirring up enmity (
History of the Danes
VII.232-236, ed. Ellis-Davidson and Fisher, pp. 213-216).