The Northern saga

THE NORTHERN SAGA

By the same Author

THE WHIRLIGIG OF TASTE
THE STORY OF MYTHS
A BOOK OF CAMBRIDGE VERSE
SUGGESTIONS (Literary Essays)

RECONSIDERATIONS (A Second Series
of Literary Essays)

THE RELIGION OF OUR
NORTHERN ANCESTORS

n

THE NORTHERN SAGA

BY

E. E. KELLETT

No part have these wan legends in the sun
Whose glory lightens Greece and gleams on Rome;
Their elders live — but these, their day is done;
Their records, written of the wind in foam,
Fly down the wind, and darkness takes them home.

SWINBURNE.

&

~> f*L

Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the

Hogarth Press, 52 Tavistock Square, London, W.G.

1929

Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CI.ARK, LIMITED, Edinlurgh*

PREFACE

FEW story-tellers are to be compared, for direct-
ness and simplicity, with the old Icelandic saga-
men. In their unforced art and freedom from
sophistication they remind us of Herodotus and
of the Hebrew historians; while in the width and
sweep of their themes they are not unworthy to
be set beside Homer himself. There is a peculiar
sense of relief when one turns to them after a
course of modern realistic and psychological
novels. In them we have no probing after
motives, no complicated spiritual conflicts. The
passions of the heroes are violent, but they are
natural. The social life they describe is free,
vital, and almost Homeric, and allows full play
for those passions to express themselves in act.
Disguise and hypocrisy are rare: the men ap-
pear as what they are. We read these stories,
and see humanity as it is when stripped of the
trammelling garments of convention.

VI THE NORTHERN SAGA

No translation can give an adequate idea of
the brief, staccato, but vigorous style of these
tales. Those who desire to enjoy them to the full
should undertake the pleasant task of learning
the language. But in the present little work I
have tried to suggest something of the effect this
literature has had upon myself, and I trust that
my failure has not been too conspicuous. I have
chosen a few specimens from widely different
ages and styles; and to aid in their comprehen-
sion I have prefixed a short account of the con-
ditions which gave birth to this astonishing

literature.

E. E. K.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION . . . . 9

I. THE STORY OF ROLF KRAKI . . 72

II. THE STORY OF KORMAK . . . 77

III. THE TALE OF GEIRMUND HELL-SKIN . 96

IV. THE SAGA OF HORD, OR THE STORY OF THE

HOLM-MEN . . . . .100

V. THE TALE OF GRETTI AND GLAM . .120

VI. THE TALE OF THIDRANDI . . .126

VII. THE TALE OF HALLBJORN HALI . .132

VIII. THE TALE OF BJARNI . . .135

IX. THE TALE OF LODIN . . .138

X. BRAND THE GENEROUS . . -143

XI. THE BURNING AT FLUGUMYRI . -147

XII. THE STORY OF VIGLUND . . -155

XIII. MASTER PIERS . . . .181

XIV. THE THREE COMPANIONS . . . 193

APPENDIX ... .201

vii

INTRODUCTION

LIKE other great forms of literature, the Northern
saga arose from a peculiar and short-lived socialv
condition. The Elizabethan drama sprang from
circumstances which are not likely to be re-
peated, and the attempt to reproduce it to-day
simply results in an arid and artificial mimicry
of what was, with all its faults, a living and
spontaneous growth. The Homeric epic (like
the Teutonic epic, of which Beowulf is almost
the only surviving specimen) was the natural
product of a certain stage of society which has
utterly passed away; and Virgil's imitation of
Homer only brought forth something totally un-
Homeric. The case is similar with the Northern
saga — except, perhaps, that the conditions
which gave it birth were even more remarkable
than those which bred a Homer or a Shakspere.
Towards the end of the ninth century there
arose in Norway a state of affairs not unlike that
which prevailed in Palestine about the end of

10 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the period of the Judges. Hitherto the heads of
families had been able to live, not exactly every
man under his vine and under his fig-tree, but
under his own fells and on his own land. Every-
one did that which was right in his own eyes,
restrained only by the sword of his neighbour or
by his own caution. It was a patriarchal system,
adapted to an early age, but unfitted to meet
the needs of an advancing civilisation. The Saul
who put an end to it was the great King Harald
Fairhair, who, during a reign of seventy years,
devoted himself to the task of destroying the
power of the nobles and consolidating that of
the king. It was a necessary task, but a stern
one, and it demanded as much ruthless un-
scrupulousness as was needed by the early
Stuarts against the Douglases or by Richelieu
against the Montmorencys. Harald is said to
have sworn an oath never to cut his hair till the
task was accomplished; and accomplished it at
last was. Sturdy was the opposition: at the great
sea-fight of Hafrsfirth1 there were the most
astonishing feats of valour on both sides. Harald
planted his 'Berserks' in the thick of the fight,
and these enchanted heroes acted up to their
repute; but on the other side Onund Treefoot,

1 About 872. Celebrated by a poet called Hornklofi.

INTRODUCTION 1 1

having lost a leg, plunged the stump into a
cauldron of boiling tar, staunched the flow of
blood, and fought on. At length the 'bonders'
fled. Even so, all opposition was not entirely
crushed; but finally the chiefs resigned the hope-
less struggle. Those that stayed in Norway were
fain to acknowledge the supremacy of Harald;
those that still clung to the ancient 'liberty' took
refuge in Orkney or Shetland, the Faroes or the
Hebrides, and often sought by piratical raids
to avenge themselves on their conqueror. But
thence also the indomitable determination of
Harald routed them out: he gathered together,
we are told, a mighty armament, and — not once
only, but twice — swept the Northern seas so
thoroughly that ere long scarcely a single
Viking was left to trouble them.

No wonder, at such a time as this, that the
harassed 'bonders' looked eagerly towards a
country which, though partially within the
Arctic Circle, promised to be less inhospitable
than a Norway ruled over by a Harald. Some
years before this a Swedish sailor named Gar-
dar, crossing from Pentland Firth, was driven
by a storm far to the north-west. After many
days he lighted on a certain country, in which
he stayed through the whole winter, and which

12 THE NORTHERN SAGA

he discovered to be an island. Returning east,
he 'praised the land much'. He was followed
soon by a Viking named Naddad, who, being
outlawed in nearly every country of the North,
was glad enough to hear of one where a man
could act as he pleased. Naddad and his men
called the place Snow-land. Shortly afterwards
a third famous Viking, named Floki, wishing to
discover the land of which Gardar had spoken,
hallowed three ravens after the old heathen
fashion, and let them loose in succession from
his ship. The first flew back at once; the second
fluttered for a short while and then returned;
the third flew straight for the land to which
men would go. Floki, following the raven,
reached the island. There he climbed a moun-
tain to get a view of the country, and saw that
the firths were full of sea-ice; wherefore he
called the land Iceland.

From that time the land began rapidly to
fill. Great chiefs came over with their families,
and settled there, following the rude sailing
directions which were all that the most skilled
navigators could give before the mariner's com-
pass was known. 'First, you steer for the Faroes,
and then you leave them to the south at such a
distance that the sea shows half-way up the

INTRODUCTION 13

cliffs; and then you sail on until the whales and
sea-fowl are met with.' When the would-be
settlers drew near the shore, they adopted
equally primitive methods in choosing their
place of landing. Thus Ingolf, one of the earliest
of the immigrants, having made a great sacrifice
before leaving Norway, consulted the oracle as
to his destination. The oracle bade him go to
Iceland. Accordingly, he took with him his
household goods, and the two sacred pillars that
were at the head of his high-seat. As he sighted
the Iceland coast, he threw these pillars over-
board, resolving to settle where they touched
the shore. A year later they were found at Reyk-
javik, and there he built his home. Later came
Onund Treefoot, Geirmund Hell-skin, Thrand
the Sailor, and others of HarakTs enemies.

Not, of course, that adventurers of this kind
were the only settlers. Men came — nay, as Vig-
fusson has clearly shown, they had come already,
even before Harald Fairhair began his reign —
from all the scattered parts of the Norse world:
from Ireland, from Man, from England, from
Scotland, from Wales. Highest of all, in rank
and splendour, was Aud 'Djupaudga', the
Deeply Wealthy, widow of Olaf the White, King
of Dublin. After the death of her husband, and

14 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the slaughter of her son Thorstein in some Irish
rising, she came with a great company of her
retainers to Iceland, and settled in Broadfirth,
perhaps the most fertile part of the new country,
and the seat of the most famous sagas. Her
brother-in-law, Helgi the Lean, occupied large
tracts in the north, and other relatives settled
in south and east. From these great ancestors
sprang the vast majority of the chiefs around
whom the stories cluster. Indeed, many scholars
have seen in the infusion of Irish blood brought
into the Norse stock by Queen Aud and others
one of the main factors which help to explain
the sagas. In any case, from her came the in-
domitable pride which would yield to nothing,
not even to death itself. As the old queen felt
her end coming, on the day of the marriage of
her youngest grandchild, she 'greeted her kins-
folk with great courtesy, and saw to it that the
feast was lordly and magnificent. Then she
walked with a quick step out of the hall, and
men said how stately she still was. And next day
Olaf went into her sleeping-chamber, and she
was sitting up against her pillow, and she was
dead. Everyone thought it a wonderful thing,
how Aud had kept up her state and her pride
to the very day of her death.5

INTRODUCTION 15

Within about a couple of generations since
the first settlement the whole island — that is, the
strip of coast-line which alone has been found
habitable — was occupied and parcelled out
among a number of great families of the various
kinds we have described. There were no towns
in our sense of the word, but scattered hamlets,
surrounding the great houses of the chiefs; the
dwellings of the small farmers who were in
more or less of dependence upon the nobles; the
cots of the thralls, and the 'sheilings5 or huts in
the hills among the sheep-runs, which of course
were abandoned in the winters. The names of
the chiefs are all known to us from the Land-
ndma Bok of the historian Ari — an indefatigable
investigator, born in the eleventh century, who
collected and set down all the information he
could get as to the settlement from the 'skalds'
or bards of the great houses. His work is as in-
teresting as that of Herodotus, and as accurate
as a gazetteer.

The Norsemen were not the first inhabitants
of Iceland. When they arrived there they found
in several places books, bells, crocks, and the
like, which showed that the Tapey' or Christian
hermits from Ireland or Scotland had been
there before them. But these old saints had all

1 6 THE NORTHERN SAGA

died, as perhaps they hoped to die, in these
distant retreats. The Norsemen were heathen,
nor did they learn Christianity for more than
a hundred years from the first settlement. Their
ideas, their customs, and their superstitions were
all 'of the old fashion'; and their poems and
stories exhibit corresponding features. During
the summer they busied themselves in Viking
raids, in visits to Norway, in fishing, in farming,
or in frightful feuds with their neighbours. An
Icelander fought with Athelstane against Anlaf
and Constantine at the battle of Brunanburh;
another assisted Ethelred the Unready against
the Danes. But — and this is characteristic of
Iceland — both these dauntless and unscrupu-
lous heroes were poets, and recorded their loves
and hates in song. For in Iceland there are four
months in every year in which the sun is
scarcely visible, and in these months there is
little to do but to tell the deeds done during the
summer. 'The holy Bede', says Ari, 'speaks of a
land called Thile, where there is no day in
winter, and no night in summer; and this Thile
is our Iceland.' All the great chiefs had at their
little courts some man, often a relative of the
chief, who was an authority on all the marriages
and genealogies, knew the origins of the feuds,

INTRODUCTION 1 7

the truces and the breakers of them, the love
stories and the hairbreadth escapes, the ballads
and the tales. During the winter nights such a
man was in his glory, for it was then that he
would bring out his harp and chant his lays, or
mount the dais and recite his histories, receiving
at the close a drink of mead and the proud
thanks of his chief. Nor was it only the profes-
sional who could do this. At Yule tide, as we
hear in the saga of Eric the Red, the whole
household played at 'tables' and told stories.
Many are the stories, in the sagas themselves,
of men who knew the sagas. Thus, for example,
in the Life of Harald Hardrada, we hear of a
blind man named Stuf, a grandson of the re-
nowned Gudrun, the heroine of Laxdaela Saga.
Meeting by accident with Stuf, the king was
struck with his ready wit and conversational
quickness. 'The king talked much with Stuf;
and when men would sleep, he bade him into
the sleeping-room, to skemta to him.5 Skemta,
properly 'to shorten or abridge', was used by
the Icelanders to denote the telling of tales, the
chanting of ballads, or anything else that was
good for making time pass quickly. 'And when
king was in bed, Stuf sang him afokk or lay;
and when he had finished the king asked for

B

1 8 THE NORTHERN SAGA

another. And as the king was long awake, Stuf
sang him thirty flokks. Dost thou know drapas
also? said the king (a longer and more stately
lay is a drapa} . No fewer are my drapas than my
flokks, said Stuf: whereupon the king told him
he was a goodfroediman' — that is, a man learned
in stories. When Harald fell at Stamford Bridge,
Stuf made the funeral drapa in his honour.

Similarly, in the same saga, we are told of
a young and clever Icelander, but poor and
ragged, who came to King Harald and begged
him for help.

'The king', says the story, 'asked him whether
he knew anyfroedi or traditions: whereupon the
Icelander answered that he knew certain sagas.
Then said the king, I will take thee into my
court, and thou shalt abide with me this winter
and skemta as men ask thee. And so he did, and
gained great friendship from the men, inso-
much that they gave him clothes, and the king
himself gave him good weapons. Thus the time
ran on towards Yule: but as Yule drew near,
the Icelander grew sad at heart. The king saw
this, and asked what it was that made him sad.
It is that I am born so, said he: I am of a change-
ful mind, now cheerful now gloomy. Not so,
said the king; and I will now guess what ails

INTRODUCTION 1 9

thee. This is my guess, that all thy store of sagas
is finished, for thou hast told to everyone that
asked, whether by day or by night; and now
thou thinkest it ill to be short of sagas at Yule-
tide, nor does it please thee to tell a tale a
second time. Thou hast guessed right, O king,
said the Icelander; for I have but one saga left,
and that is the tale of thy travels, which I dare
not tell here in thy presence. Nay, said the king,
that is the very saga which there is upon me the
greatest longing to hear. Now shalt thou cease
to tell tales till Yule, and on the first day of
Yule-tide shalt thou begin thy saga, and tell of
it some portion; and I will so fashion things that
thy tale and Yule shall end together: nor will
I let thee know, until the end, whether it please
me well or ill. And so it came to pass; on the
first day of Yule the Icelander began the tale,
and had said but little when the king bade him
cease; so there was much talk among the men
about that tale. Some said it was great daring
in an Icelander to tell it there, but others
thought not so. The king took pains that it was
well hearkened to, and, as he had said, he
ioned things so that the tale and Yule ended
together. Then on Twelfth Night the king said,
Hast thou no desire to hear how the tale has

20 THE NORTHERN SAGA

pleased me? Very fearful am I about that, herra
("lord"), said he. Me thinks it was very well told,
said the king, nor did it depart at all from the
truth: who taught thee? He answered, Every
summer in Iceland I went to the Thing, and
learned some part of the saga as Halldor, the
son of Snorri, told it. No wonder, said Harald,
that thou knowest well if Halldor taught thee:
therefore shalt thou be welcome every time thou
comest. So he stayed with the king that winter,
and at spring the king gave him store of goods,
and he was a thriving man thenceforward.'

Everywhere, in fact, we hear of men re-
nowned for their skill in story-telling and for
their accuracy in memory. 'Sir Ingimund the
sailor-priest', the hero of Helen Barmby's fine
ballad, was one of these famous tellers. Of Hall-
dor Snorri's son we have just heard. Sturla
Thord's son, the last and perhaps the greatest
of Icelandic historians, himself tells us how he
gained the favour of a hostile king by his gift of
story-telling — indeed, the king told him £he
spoke better than the Pope'.1 Nor were mortals
the only beings that might be thus propitiated.
A merchant was once telling his crew at sea the

1 'A jay can clepen Watte as wel as can the Pope' (Chaucer,
Prologue, 643).

INTRODUCTION 2 1

saga of King Vatnar, and called him a noble
man. When he lay asleep by Vatnar's Howe, he
dreamed that the king came to him, and said,
'Thou hast told my saga; I will give thee this
reward therefor. When thou wakest, look in my
howe and thou shalt find.' So when he awoke
he looked and found there a great treasure.

Such then was the origin of the saga. It was
at first literally what its name implies, a Saw or
thing said. Not till the twelfth century at earliest
were the tales written down; and even when
they began to be actually written in the first
instance, they still retained for many years the
character stamped upon them by a long period
of telling. Thus, for example, the Hakonar Saga
of Sturla was written from the first. It was based
upon information given by Hakon's son Magnus
and by his 'wisest men': it is in fact a history in
the proper sense of the word; but it is a history
told in saga style. What that saga style is it will
be the business of the following pages to explain
and illustrate.

SAGA CHARACTERISTICS

The first point, then, to be noticed in the
saga proper is that it is history: it is true. No

22 THE NORTHERN SAGA

mistake could be greater than to imagine that
the saga is a conscious work of fiction, or that it
is rightly judged by similar laws to those by
which we judge a Robinson Crusoe or a Gulliver's
Travels. There are, it must be confessed, spuri-
ous sagas — skrok-sogur is the Icelandic name for
them — in which old motifs are exploited and
the genuine saga more or less skilfully imitated.
Thus, for example, Finbow's Saga is a deliberate
fabrication; the incidents are stolen from true
sagas and tacked on to a genuine hero to whom
they do not belong; and at the end of Laxdaela
Saga is a spurious chapter pretending to tell us
more about the hero. Viglund's Saga, translated
by Morris, is also a skrok-saga. The so-called
'Tale of Ale-cap', again, is almost certainly a
somewhat clumsy adaptation from that admir-
able piece of comedy Bandamanna Saga (The
Story of the Banded Men). There must also be
spurious chapters in many of the genuine sagas:
thus some of the adventures ascribed to Gretti
in his story are as demonstrably false as others
are probably true. But the existence of false
sagas does not alter the character of the real
ones. As hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice
to virtue, so the spurious is a witness to the genu-
ine. No false saga can be proved to have existed

INTRODUCTION 23

before the thirteenth century, and few before
the fourteenth. The heroic story proper, be-
ginning about the middle of the eleventh cen-
tury, and continuing till the time of Sturla in
the thirteenth, was as near an approach to
history as can ever be made in the absence of
contemporary documents. Such touching up as
the stories received was not deliberate, it was
unconscious; often, it is true, with the uncon-
sciousness of genius, which adorns whatever it
touches, but always aiming at the truth. Scientific
exactitude, of course, the stories do not possess;
there is none of the careful balancing of evidence
which we see in a Gardiner or a Ranke; but as
literature they are none the worse for that.

Examples of the care with which the stories
were handed down we have already seen. Hall-
dor Snorri's son, for example, teaches his sagas
deliberately and diligently to his pupil, and the
first thought of King Harald is as to the accuracy
of the story. Sturla, when preparing his Hakonar
Saga, gets information from Hakon's son and
from his 'wisest men'. From the very first there
was a rigid determination that there should be
no wilful perversion of the truth. When Gunnar
Lambi's son, who had been present at the burn-
ing of Njal, told the tale 'unfairly, giving an un-

24 THE NORTHERN SAGA

fair leaning in his story', Kari, the relative and
avenger of Njal, unable to endure this perversion,
rushed forward and slew Gunnar in the presence
of Earl Sigurd himself. And, as Gunnar had lied
about the story, no one took vengeance on Kari.
'Then Flosi', the leader of the burners, 'under-
took to tell the story of the Burning, and he was
fair to all; and therefore what he said was be-
lieved.' Even the tales of long-dead heroes,
hoary with many ages, were not intentionally
invented. Sigmund, Sigurd, Angantyr, these be-
longed to an immemorial past; but the poets
and sagamen believed what they told of them.
Again, the saga as a rule belongs to the
anonymous class of literature. This is no trifling
or barren point. Much has been written on the
total indifference to literary fame which is
shown by so many writers of the Middle Ages:
by the author of Pearl, for example, and by the
author of the Pistill of Susan. The authors of
Jijal's Saga — one of the greatest books in the
world — of Laxdaela, of Eyrbyggja, are all un-
known: they were so utterly absorbed in the
story they told as to forget to let us know the
teller. But this anonymity had consequences
which have a very important bearing on the
saga as it has come down to us. Sagas were

INTRODUCTION 25

nobody's property; they were a common land
on which everyone might pasture his flocks;
susceptible of interpolation, of alteration, of
abridgment, just as it suited the successive
reciters or copyists. We have, for example, two
recensions of Bandamanna Saga; and it would
take a bold man to say which is nearer the
original. Of other sagas we have but one recen-
sion— but this is probably only because we have
but one manuscript. In the <pase of longer sagas,
such as Njala, it is quite impossible to decide
what was the original story, or when certain
additions were made, or to whom we owe its
present marvellously consistent and literary
form. That, when the first teller told the tale,
it was less enthralling and less dramatic than
now, is almost certain; but we shall never know
who it was that saw the wonderful possibilities
lurking in its crudity. On the other hand, some
stories — and Njala itself is in certain aspects one
of these — have seriously lost by addition. Legal
Dryasdusts have loaded them with forensic
subtleties and repetitions; flatterers of great
chiefs have added irrelevant genealogies; re-
citers have often inserted large fragments of
other sagas, often rather perhaps to show their
strength of memory than because the additions

26 THE NORTHERN SAGA

were to the point. In a word, the sagas are
often not the works of single men, but of 'syndi-
cates'. Just as, in the prevalent view, the Iliad
began with a short poem on the wrath of
Achilles, and gradually grew to its present shape
and size under the hands of many reciters, so
was it with the sagas. On the other hand, some
of them never found a man of genius to weld
them together. Liosvetninga, for instance, the
Story of the Men of Lightwater, is a mere con-
geries of isolated stories: had the 'author5 of
Njala got hold of it, we should have had a con-
sistent whole. Laxdaela, also, is not one saga,
but at least two; and, while its main story is
one of almost unequalled beauty, the work
itself is spoilt by a number of irrelevant episodes.
There is every excuse for these interpolators.
Where a family possessed but a single vellum,
there was every temptation for a scribe to enter
in that vellum everything that was likely to
interest the family: and he entered it where he
best could. Appendices, footnotes, excursuses,
were then unknown; and it is difficult for us
to-day, with all the stores of typographical
wealth which we enjoy, to make due allowance
for authors who did not possess such advantages.
Were Gibbon printed with all the footnotes in

INTRODUCTION 27

the text, we should read him with less pleasure:
were all the genealogies of the Plantagenets or
of the Stuarts thrust into the midst of Macaulay
or Green, the narrative would hardly run
smoothly. A true notion of the merits of the
Icelandic writers can only be gained by print-
ing them Tor modern readers', as Professor
Moulton has printed the Bible. Were this done,
they would take their places as what they are,
unsurpassed monuments of prose craftsmanship.
The family wished the records to be preserved
somewhere', and the family scribe thrust them in
where he could.1 In some respects, therefore,
the sagas are worse as written than they were
as told; for what the teller could do by a mere
reference or by a few words of aside, has now
to be laboriously read. Nevertheless, we must be
eternally grateful to those who did write them,
and thus rescued so many stories of heroism
and daring from the dungeon of oblivion.

When we say the stories are 'true', we must
remember in what sense truth is predicated of
them. They are the truth of a highly super-
Mitious and imaginative age and nation. Daring
and practical as the Icelanders were, they held

1 Flatcy-book, the property of a great family, includes an
enormous number of distinct stories.

28 THE NORTHERN SAGA

to the full all the beliefs common in a certain
stage of society; and it is probable that the Irish
strain in their blood had made them yet more
fanciful than their Norse fathers had been. If the
Venerable Bede, the most truthful of men, can
give us, on the evidence of eye-witnesses, the most
incredible stories about Aidan and Cuthbert,
much more did the sagaman admit wonders
into his tales. It was not his business to sift what
he had heard: he knew no distinction between
the natural and the preternatural, nor, if he had
known the distinction, was it the part of a story-
teller to insist on it. Hence the dreams, visions,
forebodings, curses, with which the sagas are
crowded. And it is precisely on the chances
which a tale exhibited of utilising these motives
to the full, that a good story-teller would in-
stinctively seize, and which, more or less uncon-
sciously, his genius would develop to the utmost.
There would be, as we have shown above, no-
thing of deliberate falsification; no purposed dis-
tortion; but an emphasis here, a slight suppres-
sion there, would give that unity to the tale,
provide that background, which would satisfy
the struggling artistic sense of the teller. An
example or two will make this plain. The tale
of Njal is long, complicated, and difficult. As

INTRODUCTION 2Q

first told, it was doubtless somewhat confused,
and the epic unity was wanting. But it had in
it the possibility of unity; and that unity lay in
the character of Hallgerd, the lovely but re-
bellious woman who is the evil genius of the tale.
And the first man who gave the due emphasis
to this feature is the real maker of the saga as
we have it. Recognising Hallgerd for what she
was, he puts her in the very forefront of the
story, so that none henceforth can mistake her
significance. So it runs in the very first chapter:
'It happened once that Hoskuld bade his
friends to a feast, and his brother Hrut was
there, sitting next him. Hoskuld had a daughter
named Hallgerd, who was then playing on the
floor with some other girls: fair of face and tall
was she, and her hair was soft as silk; so long
was it withal that it came down to her waist.
"Come hither, daughter", said Hoskuld. So she
went up to him, and he took her chin between
liis fingers and kissed her; and then she went
away. Then said Hoskuld to Hrut, "How think-

thou of this maid? is she not fair?" But Hrut
answered him not a word. Then said Hoskuld
to him the second time, "Is she not fair?" Then

1 Hrut, "Fair indeed is she, and many shall
rue her fairness: yet know I not whence thief's

30 THE NORTHERN SAGA

eyes have come into our family". Then was
Hoskuld wroth, insomuch that for long the two
brothers saw each other but little.5

In this manner, beyond the possibility of
mistake, the key-note of the story is struck. We
know quite well that the 'thief's eyes' will re-
appear; and amid all the ramifications of the
tale the figure of Hallgerd is at the back of our
minds. She grows up 'the fairest of women', and
she marries Gunnar, the noblest of men; but
her 'thief's eyes' bring him woe. And at last,
when he is surrounded by his enemies, and the
string of his mighty bow breaks, he says to
Hallgerd, 'Give me two locks of thy hair, and
twist them into a bowstring for me'.

'What hangs thereon?' said she.

'Even my life, no less', answered Gunnar;
'for they shall never attain near to me so long
as I hold my bow.'

'Then', said she, 'I care naught whether thou
holdest out a long while or a short, for I call to
mind all thou hast done to me.'

'All men have some pride', said Gunnar,
'nor will I stoop to ask thee twice': and so it
came about that his foes slew him.

Similarly, in the short saga of Gisli Sursson,
the unity is given by the fate that hangs over

INTRODUCTION 3 1

him from before his birth. An ancestor of Gisli
of the same name borrowed a sword from a
thrall named Koll in order to fight a 'holm-
gang5 or duel. Before Koll will lend it, he exacts
an oath from Gisli that he will return it, and
Gisli swears to do so. But when it has brought
him victory, he looks on the glorious blade,
forged long since by the elves, and not to be
dulled by spell or charm, and his heart fails
him: for, surely, never was such a miracle as
yonder brand. So, when Koll asks it back, he
refuses it : whereupon the two smite at each other,
and both are slain; but ere he dies Koll says,
'It had been better for thee that I had got back
my sword — and yet is this but the beginning
of the ill-luck that it shall bring thy kinsfolk'.

This also is told us in the very first chapter;
and we are thus prepared for all the ill that is
to follow. Gisli is the noblest of men, but the
doom is upon him which he cannot avoid — a
doom almost as terrible as that which hangs
over Oedipus. He does what he can to shun the
evil, but in vain. His wife, by a few innocent and
thoughtless words, causes a feud to rise — Gisli
blames her not, for 'that which is fated to come,
must come'. Dream-women hover over him,
deepening his melancholy forebodings, and at

32 THE NORTHERN SAGA

last he falls. Men said there had never been a
greater champion or a nobler hero, 'but he was
not a lucky man'.

The first and main motive, indeed, which all
good sagas exhibit and endeavour to develop,
is that of this overmastering fate; illustrations of
which could be multiplied to almost any extent.
It has often, for example, been noticed how
vastly superior is the Northern form of the
Nibelungenlied to the High German. The secret
lies in many points, but chiefly in this, that the
Northern form alone has unified the story by
deriving it from the curse laid on Andvari's
hoard. Andvari, the pike-dwarf, lived under a
waterfall and guarded his treasure. Now it
chanced that Loki killed Otter, the son of Hreid-
mar, and Hreidmar laid on him this were-gild,
that he should cover the skin of the otter with
gold. So Loki went to the sea-goddess Ran,
and borrowed her net; with this he went to
Andvari's Force and caught the pike: and
Andvari gave him gold. But there was still
left one hair uncovered; so Loki took yet from
Andvari the magic ring, which had in it the
power of multiplying gold. Whereupon Andvari
fled into a stone, and said that that treasure
should be the bane of all that held it. And so it

INTRODUCTION 33

came to pass; for Fafnir slew his father Hreidmar
to get the hoard, and Sigurd slew Fafnir, and him-
self perished at the hands of Hogni and Guttorm.
Very similar is the story of the sword Tyrfing 1
—from which doubtless Gisli's sword Graysteel
borrowed some of its magic properties. A cer-
tain king called Svafrlami rode a-hunting, and
was left alone of his men; then saw he a great
stone toward the sunset and two dwarfs thereby.
The king 'consecrated' the stone without with
his enchanted dagger, and so made the dwarfs
captive. 'What are ye called?' said he. 'Dvalinn
is one, and Dulinn the other ', said they, and
withal they offered ransom. Then said the king,
'For ransom shall ye make me a sword, the best
ye know how to make; the hilt shall be of gold,
and it shall bite iron as cloth, nor shall rust
abide thereon; and victory shall follow that
sword in all battles and holmgangs'. And to
this they agreed. And on the set day, the king
rode thither again, and the dwarfs gave him the
sword. But Dvalinn stood at the entrance of the
stone and said, 'Thy sword shall be the bane
of him who draws it, and with it shall three
nithing's* deeds be done; and thy bane also shall
it be '. Then the king was wroth, and hewed at

1 Htrvarar Saga. • Dastard's.

G

34 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the dwarfs with the sword; but they leapt into
the stone, and the doors closed behind them.
And he called the sword Tyrfing, and bare it
thenceforth in all battles and 'holmgangs'1; and
ever had the victory. But the rest of the saga
tells how it was his 'bane', and the bane of them
that slew him; and how the three 'ni thing's
deeds' were done. This saga, by the way, was
the first ever turned into English: a large part
of it is to be found in the Thesaurus of Dr. George
Hickes (1705), the famous Nonjuring Bishop of
Thetford.

It is needless, surely, to add that this sense of
fate lends a wonderful pathos to many of the
sagas. There is, as we shall see later on, in these
stories a certain reticence as to the feelings of
the actors; and this reticence at first sight might
seem to border on indifference or even on cal-
lousness. Partially, of course, this is to be ex-
plained by the fact that, as we have said, the
teller of a tale can convey, by tone or gesture,
conditions which it would require many pages
of writing to express fully. Partly, also, our
Northern ancestors, like their descendants,
fought shy of allowing emotion to appear. But
the fact that the lives dealt with by the sagaman

1 Duels: usually fought on holms or small islands.

INTRODUCTION 35

were lived against a vast background of inex-
orable fate is in itself a source of deep feeling.1
The story-teller is 'majestic in his sadness at the
certain doom of human kind'; for the doom is
written, and the gods know it; and we, the
hearers, watch the puny actors struggling in a
net from which there is no escape. So persistent
is this sense of fate that it is, as it were, taken for
granted; it is never emphasised, and only re-
marked on by accident. Yet it is felt everywhere,
and, like the music of the spheres, contributes
its harmony to the scheme of things. A man, we
are told, avoids almost inevitable death — be-
cause he is not yet 'fey'. 'It was not fated', says
the sagaman again and again, 'that so-and-so
should get his death of that blow.' On the other
hand, no precautions would avail to save a 'fey'
man. Gisli warned Vesteinn again and again;
but he rushed on his doom, and Gisli saw it was
not to be helped: 'weird' or fate would have it
so. In the saga of Hord the whole story depends
upon a curse, uttered by Herd's mother in a
moment of impatience, whose working is long
delayed, but is none the less inevitable and cer-
tain. Kjartan is offered help that would have

omparr ihc pathos lent to the story in the Iliad by
lies' knowledge of his approaching death.

36 THE NORTHERN SAGA

effectually warded off any attack: he refuses the
aid, and marches on to the doom that had been
foreseen for him years before. Over every saga
is written the word kismet: as our own Old
English poem of The Wanderer says, 'Weird is full
stubborn'.

The sagas have been accused of sameness,
and monotony of plot. Those who bring this
charge are not usually those best acquainted
with the whole range of the literature. There is
plenty of variety if we will but look for it: Banda-
manna Saga, for example, is not extraordinarily
similar to the tale of Howard the Halt; and neither
is very like the story of Kormak. Yet it must be
confessed that a large number of the tales are
based on the theme of a blood-feud. This is due
to the age in which they rose, an age in which
vendetta had not yet given way to law. Never-
theless, even in these very vendetta-sagas the
monotony must not be exaggerated. In some of
them, such as Njala and Eyrbyggja, one main
interest of the story lies in the struggle between
the rising principle of legalism and the ancient
principle of blood-revenge: we watch, with an
interest which the author surely shared, the
slow triumph of arbitration as against the sword,
and the gradual recognition of the superiority of

INTRODUCTION 37

brains to muscle. Njal's whole life is given to the
endeavour to substitute peaceful methods of
settling quarrels for bloody ones, and he dies at
last, the victim of a feud which he had done his
best to suppress, because he would live no longer
to carry the feud on. Snorri the crafty, again,
has very few bloody quarrels; such as he has he
usually settles without the sword, and many he
checks by the simple method of bringing public
opinion to bear against the aggressors. Nor has
the sagaman himself, as a rule, a sympathy with
bloodshed as such. He can describe a fight, when
it comes, with all the zest of Homer, but he gener-
ally lets us see that his feelings are with the
punishment of the wrongdoer. No character in
all the sagas is drawn with more sympathy than
Gunnar of Lithend, one of the two heroes of
Njala\ but in Gunnar strength and skill are the
least of his admirable qualities. There is in him
an amazing forbearance and gentleness which
set him, in many ways, far above Odysseus or
Achilles: we see in him a chivalry of which
Homer had scarcely a conception. 'I would like
to know', says he, when he has been tried and
provoked almost beyond endurance, 'whether I
am really less brave than other men because I
am slower to slay than they are.'

38 THE NORTHERN SAGA

It has often been noticed, and usually with
some severity of censure, that in the sagas it is
the women who kindle the fires of hatred, and
blow up the embers when they begin to flag.
Thus, in Laxdaela Saga, after the death of Kjar-
tan, his father Olaf settles the feud without
shedding a drop of blood. As soon as Olaf is
dead, however, his wife Thorgerd stirs up her
sons to a deed of vengeance which sets the whole
tide of slaughter and counter-slaughter flowing
once more. Similarly, at a later stage, it is
Gudrun who stirs up her sons to avenge their
father. In Njala two husbands, by a long-
continued series of full atonements, only just
succeed in undoing the mischief caused by the
revengefulness of their wives.

All this is true; and yet there is a brighter
side to it. Such an influence, evil as it is, as-
cribed to women, would have been out of the
question in an age in which women were not
duly respected: in such an age, for example,
as that of classical Athens, on the one hand, in
which women were not regarded at all; or as
that of the Troubadours, on the other, in which
they were in theory worshipped and in practice
despised. The epoch of the sagas is the truly
heroic age — that in which a Helen can be safe

INTRODUCTION 39

and honoured in Troy, or an Ethelflaed in
England. And such an age must have the de-
fects of its qualities; the same Beowulf which
pictures the stately grace of a Wealtheow de-
scribes also the cruelty of a Thrytho:

Thrytho the great Queen,
Did many a deed of dastardly crime;
Was none that dared look on her with eyes,
Of peers or paladins, but her lord only;
If so a man ventured, swift was the death,
First the hand-grip, and then the sword:
Surely unfitting for woman is this,
High-born though she be, to shorten men's life.
Woman is weaver of lasting peace;
Not her it becomes to sharpen the feud.

Next to the vendetta as a saga-motive—
indeed, often inextricably interwoven with it —
is the theme of love. This is the theme that has
attracted to the saga the attention of modern
poets. It was not, surely, the blood-feuds that
impelled Morris to the writing of the Lovers of
Gudrun, but, as the very title of his poem shows,
the more lasting and changeless human element
in the story of the Laxdale men. Vendettas have
disappeared from the Northern world; men no
longer slaughter one another in family quar-
rels; but love lasts, and beauty in woman is
ever born afresh, and perversity and pride will

40 THE NORTHERN SAGA

not fail mankind yet awhile. Gudrun was not
the first, nor will she be the last, who, in her
own immortal words, 'has treated worst him
whom she loved the most'. In Kormak's story
we have love linked with fate: Kormak is bound
to love while he cannot attain. In Gunnlaug's
tale we have the old old motive — the course of
true love never did run smooth. In Njala we
have the theme, indistinguishable from love,
that of hate. Hallgerd is doomed to be the bane
of those that love her: Gunnar, like Solomon in
the tresses of the Shulamite, is tangled in her
hair, and perishes. But in Njala also we have
a motive not too common in early romances—
the love of the wife for the husband, outlasting
years of wedlock, and triumphing over death:

Tlosi said, "I will offer thee, Njal, leave to
go out, for it is unworthy that thou shouldst
burn within". Njal replied, "I will not go out,
for I am old and unable to avenge my sons;
and I will not live in shame". Then spake Flosi
to Bergthor, NjaPs wife, "Come thou out,
housewife, for it is not my will at any cost to
burn thee". But Bergthor answered, "Not so,
for I was given to Njal young, and I have vowed
him this, that we should never be sundered in
our deaths". So they two went back into the

INTRODUCTION 4!

house together; and Njal said, "We will go to
our bed, and lay us down; for long have I
wished to rest". Then they signed themselves
with the cross, and gave their souls into the hand
of God; nor did men hear them say a word

more.'

This is a scene not unworthy to be compared
with the scene between Hector and Andro-
mache— perhaps the noblest passage in the
Iliad. But in the sagas there are scores only just
inferior: the scene between Bolli and Gudrun
after the death of Kjartan, the scene between
Gisli and his wife Aud shortly before his last
fight, the last parting of Signy and Sigmund in
Volsunga Saga, and many others.

Travel, again, is a motive rarely absent from
an Icelandic saga. At the age of about eighteen
y young hero feels the lust for going abroad
come upon him — a lust, as in Gunnlaug's case,
not to be quenched by paternal admonitions.
Kjartan, his father Olaf, Gunnlaug and Raven,
Thorkell the husband of Gudrun, Gretti — all
of them make the 'grand tour5 to the courts of
kings and jarls; all of them seek adventures like
knights of the Round Table, and find them in
plenty. Hence, though there is but little descrip-
tion of natural scenery in the sagas, there is a

42 THE NORTHERN SAGA

full supply of travellers' tales. Of these unques-
tionably the most enthralling is that found in
the saga of Eric the Red — the tale of the dis-
covery of America, where our ancestors did not
stay long enough to deprive Columbus, five
hundred years later, of the glory of a pioneer.
Other tales are less veracious than this; for the
sagamen, like other people, could believe much
more easily in wonders told of distant lands
than in those told of their own.

Certain other motives, recurring more or
less frequently, may be briefly dismissed. A not
uncommon theme is that of the exposure of a
girl child on the hills — a theme which all but
ceases when Christianity appears in the island.
An example occurs in the tale of Gunnlaug. A
quarrel, and a subsequent reconciliation, be-
tween a father and his son, is found now and
then. Many episodes deal with the purchase of a
bride by the parents of a young man; the bar-
gaining gives just that kind of simple intrigue
in which the saga-tellers delight. But perhaps
most noteworthy is the very common incident
of an Icelander on his tour who obtains the
favour of a king or other great man. Either by
'drapas' composed in the king's honour, or by
some more substantial service, the young hero

INTRODUCTION 43

rises high at the court. Later he is seized with
home-sickness; but it is always with some diffi-
culty that he wins the king's consent to his
departure. Such young heroes, among many
others, are Kjartan and Gunnlaug.

As for dreams and forebodings, they are
everywhere in the sagas; and none but the in-
experienced would on that account impugn the
sagamen's general credibility. Even to-day he
would be a bold man who would deny offhand
the prophetic character of all dreams and
visions; and in the eleventh century a saga with-
out such phenomena would either be a miracle
or a mass of falsehoods. Examples are so num-
erous as to be embarrassing. The dreams in
Gunnlaug '5 Saga are well known; a glance at
Njala in Dasent's translation will yield many
more. Take, for instance, chapter cxxvi., which
tells of the portents at Bergthor's Knoll just
before the Burning.

'Njal said, "Wondrously now it seems to me.
Mcthinks I see all round the room, and it seems
as though the gable wall were thrown down,
but the whole board and the meat in it is one
gore of blood." All men thought this strange but
Skarphedinn; he bade men not be downcast.'
Again, 'A man named Hildiglum looked into

44 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the west airt, and thought he saw thereabouts a
ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on
a grey horse. He passed quickly by him, and
rode hard. He was as black as pitch, and sang
a song with a mighty voice: then he hurled the
firebrand before him, and such a blaze of fire
leapt up to meet it that he (Hildiglum) could not
see the fells for the blaze. It seemed as though
that man rode east among the flames and
vanished there. . . . And that was the "Wolf's
Ride", which comes ever before great tidings.'

But the classical dreams of the whole range
of the sagas are those of Gudrun in Laxdaela,
which foretell her marriages and her destiny.
They are, of course, told by Morris; but they
may perhaps bear to be reproduced in prose.

'Guest, the son of Oddleif, was a foresighted
man, and many resorted to him for counsel.
Now it came to pass that Guest rode from
Sowerby and reached the spring of Saelingsdale:
and Gudrun came to the spring and gave him
greeting. Guest received the greeting well, and
they began to talk together. So Gudrun said,
"I have dreamed four dreams that do fret my
mind much, nor hath any man interpreted
them, and that though I ask not that the inter-
pretation be good". Then said Guest, "Tell me

INTRODUCTION 45

thy dreams; it may be that I can say somewhat
concerning them". So Gudrun said, "Me-
thought I stood by a certain brook, and I had a
crooked coif on my head, which I liked not; and
I tore the coif from my head and cast it into
the water". And Gudrun spake again, "This is
the beginning of my second dream, that I
seemed to be standing by a certain water; and
I had a silver ring on my hand, which fitted
me well, and seemed to me a very great treasure.
But when I least thought it, the ring slipped off
my hand, and into the water, and I saw it not
since. And grievous scathe indeed methought
that loss." Then said Guest, "No less a dream
is this than the former". And Gudrun spake
again, "This is the third dream, that I had a
gold ring on my hand, and methought my loss
in the former ring was now made up: but then
I fell, and the gold ring struck on a certain
stone, and broke into two parts, and the two
parts dripped blood: and what I seemed to feel
after was more like grief than sorrow for some
low". Then said Guest, "The dreams, me-
thinks, grow not less as thou tellest them".
Lastly said Gudrun, "This was my fourth
dream, that I had a helm on my head, made
of gold, and set with gems; and what I liked

46 THE NORTHERN SAGA

least about it was that it was too heavy, so that
I bore my head on one side; yet blamed I not
the helm therefor. And lo, the helm fell off my
head into Hvammfirth; and I awoke." Where-
upon Guest told her that the sameness of these
dreams meant that they all foreboded the same
thing, namely, marriage: "And my mind fore-
sees that thou shalt have four husbands, all of
whom thou shalt lose". "It is a fearful thing",
said Gudrun, "if all this thou sayest is to come
to pass." And so Gudrun went home, and Guest
rode on his way.'

Among minor motives ghosts are not likely
to be absent: and the Icelandic ghost-tale is in-
deed impressive — the more so as the teller makes
no attempt to conceal his belief in it. But the
ghost must not be conceived as a spiritual being.
He is terribly substantial, and palpable alike to
feeling as to sight. As a rule, he is an 'after-
ganger' — that is, he is the walking corpse of a
person recently dead, a corpse of which some
demon has taken possession. In this condition
he is of superhuman strength, and owns, be-
sides, certain powers like those of sorcerers or
enchanters. Daring indeed is the man who en-
counters such a being; for even if the ganger be
apparently slain, he will yet resume his uncanny

INTRODUCTION 47

life unless he be burnt to ashes and the ashes
scattered far and wide. A useful preliminary is
to cut off his head and lay it beside his thigh;
for this gives at least an interval of repose. The
most famous of all Icelandic ghosts of this kind
is Glam, whose story is told in Grettfs Saga; he
is perhaps even more famous under the name
of Grendel, whom Beowulf slew. But almost
equally instructive, and perhaps even more
curious, is the story of Thorgunn, which is told
with all the air of truth in Eyrbyggja Saga — one
of the best and most authentic of all the
Northern histories. I shall have to abridge it.

In the summer of A.D. 1000 there came to
Iceland a certain ship, with a Hebridean woman
on board named Thorgunn. It was noised
abroad that Thorgunn had great treasures of
woman's attire, the like of which no one had
ever seen in Iceland. And when Thurid, the
Lady of Frodey, heard thereof she rowed to the
ship, and saw Thorgunn and her treasures; but
for no money would Thorgunn sell them. Where-
fore Thurid bade her to her home at Frodey,
and she came willingly. She was of the Sudreys1
(Hebrides) : tall and large of frame, with black
eyebrows and dark brown hair. Her linen and

1 Hence the Bishop of Sodor and Man.

48 THE NORTHERN SAGA

her tapestry and curtains were indeed wonder-
ful, and she spent all her days working at the
loom. Now one day there was a great portent,
for it rained blood, and Thorgunn's clothes
were stained therewith, nor could they be
cleansed; and she took to her bed, saying the
portent boded ill to the house. And soon she
saw that she was dying; wherefore she sent for
Thorodd, the Lord of Frodey, and bade him
burn her bed with its curtains and linen and
tapestry: Tor I foresee', said she, 'that they will
bring ill-luck to them that own them'. Soon
afterwards she died, and Thorodd prepared to
burn those things even as she had said; but his
wife Thurid would not have it so; for it seemed
hard to her to destroy such treasures: moreover,
she thought that Thorgunn had given her com-
mands out of envy, lest other women should
enjoy those things. And so Thorodd yielded to
his wife, and spared those tapestries and hang-
ings. And Thorgunn's body was carried to
Skalholt and buried there.

But no sooner had the funeral-party come
back from Skalholt than strange doings began
at Frodey. A light entered the hall, which men
knew to be more than mortal, and it travelled
round the hall withershins (that is, against the

INTRODUCTION 49

sun): and Thorir Woodleg, the steward, said
that sight boded death, but whose death he
knew not. Not long thereafter the shepherd died,
and men saw his corpse walking. Then Thorir
Woodleg met that corpse without the house, and
the corpse seized him and hurled him to the
ground with such force that he died soon after
of his wounds; and thenceforward men saw two
walking corpses instead of one. Nor did things
stop here, for one man died after another, until
six more had died; and just before Yule Thorodd
himself perished at sea. At Yuletide Thurid held
the funeral-wake; and lo! all the dead men came
into the hall, speaking to no one — Thorodd
and his men dripping with water, and Thorir
and those others covered with earth-mould.
And this sight was seen every night all through
Yule.

At last Kjartan, Thorodd's son, knowing not
how to check these horrors, went to his uncle
Snorri, the priest, who was reckoned the wisest
of all men in Iceland that had not the second-
i. Snorri lived at Holy-Fell, and it hap-
pened that just when Kjartan came to Holy-
Fell there was a priest there who had come
from (.ji/ur the White; for Gizur had just given
up heathendom and become a Christian, and

D

50 THE NORTHERN SAGA

wished others to do the same. So Snorri said to
Kjartan, 'This shalt thou do: take this priest
with thee, and go back to Frodey. When thou
arrivest there, burn all the things that belonged
to Thorgunn — her bed, and her linen, and her
tapestry, and her hangings — and then let the
priest sprinkle holy water all over the house and
shrive them that dwell therein. And then shalt
thou hold a court at thy door, and summon all
the spectres thereto, and try them for the ills
they have done. And that thou mayst have no
need to summon thine own father, I will send
my son Thord Kausi and six men with him.'
And so Kjartan did: he went back home, and
when he came there he found Thurid his
mother lying ill, wherefore he knew there was
small time to lose. So he took all the things of
Thorgunn, and burnt them with fire. And then
he held a court at the door; and summoned
Thorir first thereto. And the sentence was that
he should leave the house forthwith; whereupon
Thorir rose, and said, 'I sat while it was lawful
to sit', and went halting forth. And next the
shepherd was banished; and last Thord Kausi
summoned Thorodd, who said, 'Inasmuch as
there is now no peace for us here, we make our
flitting one by one'. After which the priest

INTRODUCTION 5!

sprinkled the walls with holy water, and sang
mass, and shrived those that dwelt there. And
Thurid mended soon; and the ghosts haunted
Frodey no more.

Everywhere, in fact, such stories are met
with — not always, of course, as elaborate as the
one we have just quoted. In Laxdaela, for ex-
ample, there is a narrative of the drowning of a
certain sorcerer named Hallbjorn Whetstone-
eye (Slikisteinsauga). After his drowning his
body is washed ashore, and he begins to 'walk'
and cause great trouble in the neighbourhood.
Not far off, however, dwelt Thorkell of Thick-
shaw, a man of great strength and courage. One
evening a cow was missing at Thickshaw, and
Thorkell and a house-carle went to look for it.
It was after sunset, and the moon was shining.
Thorkell and the carle chose different paths;
and when he was alone he saw what he took to
be a cow; but when he got nearer he perceived
that it was Hallbjorn. A mighty struggle ensued,
and when Thorkell was just getting the better,
Hallbjorn sank into the earth out of his sight.
After that Thorkell went home, and there the
carle met him to tell him he had found the cow.
Thenceforward no harm happened from Hall-
bjorn.

52 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Those who wish for further examples need
only glance through Morris's translation of
Gretti's Saga, where they will find such tales to
their heart's desire. In later days they often take
a different form: Thorgisl, for example, is re-
presented as wrestling with Thor, who has just
been deposed from a god to a demon; and in the
tale of Thidrandi the Disir who slay the boy are
trembling on the verge between goddess-hood
and trollship. The first step taken by Christi-
anity was not to destroy the old gods but to
transform them into devils.

Men and women with more or less of super-
natural powers are of course equally easy to
meet with. In a Greenland story we hear of
Thorgunn's son by a man named Leif: men be-
thought them of the hauntings of Frodey, and
said that the boy was 'not quite like other boys'.
One of the commonest gifts was that of creating
a kind of 'glamour' by which people could be
deceived. Of a certain man called Thorbjorn
Stigand we are told in Hen-Thorir's Saga, in a
curious phrase, that 'he was not always there
where he was seen'; and later in the tale we find
that Thorbjorn has the power of vanishing as he
pleases. In Vatzdaela Saga there is a story of a
witch named Ljot, who repeatedly saves herself

INTRODUCTION 53

and her son Hrolleif from arrest and death by
casting such spells upon the searchers that they
cannot see what is before their very eyes. On one
occasion the pursuer sees nothing but a great
bundle of clothes and a piece of red cloth stick-
ing out of it, and not till afterwards does he
guess that that must have been Hrolleif and the
clothes he wore at a sacrifice. Finally Hrolleif is
caught by a man who understands the ways of
\\ itches, and sings the appropriate charms. But
even so, says Ljot, 'I should have turned the
land upside down, and ye would have gone mad
and run about with the wild beasts, if only ye
had not happened to see me before I saw you'.
'True', said Thorstein, 'but chance was on the
side of right.' We are reminded of the famous
passage in Virgil's Ninth Eclogue, in which 'the
voice fled from Moeris, for the wolves saw
Moeris before he saw them'.

Of witches, indeed, and their charms it would
be endless to speak. The central incident in that
fine saga, the Story of the Men of the Faroes, is
concerned with a woman, half goddess, half
witch, named Thorgerd Holgabrud, whom the
famous Earl Hakon worshipped. A young man,
Sigmund Brestison, had attached himself to the
carl, and was now going out to the Faroes on

54 THE NORTHERN SAGA

a dangerous quest. 'Thou art not', says Hakon,
'the kind of man I should wish to go out and
never return.5 Tor that', said Sigmund, 'I trust
in mine own right hand.' 'Much is that', said
the earl, 'yet is it not enough: I know a witch-
wife, whose name is Thorgerd, who hath such
power that she can make thee safe against all
evils; her let us visit.' So they went to Thorgerd's
house: it was splendid exceedingly, and adorned
with gold and silver on the gables and pin-
nacles; there were many windows in that house,
and all of them were glass. Very splendid, too,
was the attire of the witch-woman. Then Sig-
mund saw a strange thing; the earl, who never
bent to any man, flung himself on the ground
before Thorgerd, and lay thus a long while.
Then he arose, and said, 'She will not give way
yet; gold and silver we must heap upon her
chair'. So they piled up money; and then Sig-
mund saw how the earl drew near Thorgerd,
and tried to take away a ring from her finger,
but she would not have it so; then the earl
threw himself down on the ground, and prayed
again, even weeping; then stood he up a second
time, and now he drew the ring off easily. 'Take
that ring', said Hakon to Sigmund, 'and as thou
lovest me part not with it.' 'Never till my dying

INTRODUCTION 55

day', said Sigmund; and with that they separ-
ated, the earl to his court and Sigmund to his
ships. The rest of the tale tells how Sigmund lost
his ring and perished.

One might also mention Thorhild, who pro-
phesied to Gudmund the Powerful. Thorhild
was 'forn i lund5, old-fashioned in her ways,
and a great friend of Gudmund. To her he took
his way. 'Great desire have I to learn whether
there shall be vengeance for my slaying of Thor-
kell Hake.5 'Come thou to me later, and seek
me alone.5 So the days passed, and one morning
Gudmund went alone to her, and found her
dressed as a man, helm on head and axe in hand;
and she waded out into the sea, and smote the
waves; but Gudmund saw no change therein.
'No vengeance shall come to thee\ thou mayest
sit at home in thy splendour.' Then said Gud-
mund, 'Yet would I learn whether the venge-
ance will touch my sons5. '5Tis much thou
askest', said she, for she was risking her soul;

she waded again into the sea, and smote the
vith the axe; and now there was a great
crash, and all the sea ran blood. Then said she,
That deem I, Gudmund, that it will steer very
close to one son of thine; but no further will I
labour for thee, for at no little cost have I done

56 THE NORTHERN SAGA

this:1 and neither threat. nor blithe word will
avail to move me'. Gudmund said, 'Nor will I
lay more burden on thee5; and after that he
fared home, and sat there in his splendour. But
shortly thereafter a man named Thorhall
dreamed a dream, which boded ill to Gudmund;
and he rode to Gudmund's stead and told him
thereof. And that same night Gudmund died.
But the vengeance came to his son even as
Thorhild had foretold. And Thorbjorg the
'Little Sibyl', to whom Gudrid sang the war-
lock-songs, and who thus was able to prophesy
— is not her story told in the story of Eric the
Red?

Of 'skin-changers' and 'hard' men also the
sagas have much to tell. Certain persons,
whether of their own accord or by some mali-
cious enchantment, were often changed into
animals — a strange superstition which lingered
even in England till a generation or two ago.
In the very Faroe saga from which we have just
quoted, Sigmund, when a boy, kills a bear so
savage that even his foster-father Thorkell
would not face him, thinking him no bear but
a demon. Readers of the Volsunga Saga will

1 Like Sister Helen in Rossetti's ballad, she is risking her
soul.

INTRODUCTION 57

remember how Sigmund (the father of Sigurd)
and his son Sinfjotli were changed into wolves;
nor is it likely that to the early hearers of that
story this episode seemed the most improbable.
The poem of William of Palerne, which was
translated from the French into English about
the time of Chaucer, is entirely taken up with
a 'werwolf legend; and there is no reason to
think that it was not accepted as fact. Perhaps
the most familiar story of this kind in Icelandic
literature is that told by Ari in the Landndma
Bok:

'Dufthak took Dufthak's Holt, and was a
great skin -changer (ham-rammr\ as was also
Storolf of Hwale. These twain had a great feud
about pasturage; and it was so that one evening
a certain second-sighted man (dfreskr mathr — a
man whom no glamour could deceive) saw a
great bear come out of Hwale and a bull out of
Dufthak's Holt, and they met on StorolPs Field,
and fought furiously; but the bear had the
<T. Next morning it was seen that a ravine
had been made where they fought, as though
an earthquake had torn the earth asunder.
Both Storolf and Dufthak were sore wounded,
and lay in bed a long time.'

It will be noticed that this skin-changing

58 THE NORTHERN SAGA

took place at night: as in the beliefs of all nations,
the powers of evil are much more active after
sunset than in the day. An ancestor of Egill the
poet actually bore the name of Evening- Wolf,
and was believed regularly to change himself
into a wolf at dusk. The 'trolls', the river-spirits,
the nixies, all exert their influence mainly at
night.

Among the 'hard men' — those whom no
sword would bite — the Berserks take a foremost
place. Many pages have been written on these
men, and scholars have exhausted themselves,
to little purpose, in endeavouring to find out
how much truth lies behind the fantastic legends
that have come down to us about them. At
Hafrsfirth, as we have seen, Harald Fairhair
planted a band of these heroes in the very thick
of the fight. Prodigies of valour were performed
on both sides; the slaughter was terrific, and yet,
if we are to believe the tales, not a single one
of the Berserks received a scratch. Whether the
name be derived from bear-sark, as though
these men had changed themselves into bears,
or from bare-sark, as though they fought in
their shirts, such stories are equally wonderful.
The Berserks were not always on the side of
law and order; indeed, when they wandered

INTRODUCTION 59

about from hamlet to hamlet, exacting toll
from lonely housewives, they became like the
Free Companions of later ages, nothing but
public pests. Thus in Grettfs Saga we hear of
a Berserk named Snaekoll, who came to the
house of a bonder named Einar, and demanded
Einar's daughter to wife and with her a dowry
of five-score bags of silver. Unfortunately for
him, Gretti happened to be staying with Einar.
'Let us see how thou appearest when thy fit is
on thee', said Gretti. Thereupon Snaekoll bel-
lowed like a bull, rolled his eyes, foamed at the
mouth, and tore at his shield with his teeth.
Meanwhile, Gretti, approaching nearer, sud-
denly spurned at the shield with his foot, and
drove it upward so mightily that it broke Snae-
kolPs jaw; then rushing in he thrust the monster
from his horse and slew him with his own sword.
From this deed Gretti gained great glory, and
men gave him great thanks.

In Kristni Saga, the story of the conversion of
Iceland, we learn that the missionary Thang-
brand encountered a Norwegian Berserk, who
( halh -n^rd him to the holmgang or duel.
I hangbrand consented thereto. Then said the
Berserk, Little wish wilt thou have to fight with
me when thou seest my feats. I walk barefoot

60 THE NORTHERN SAGA

over burning iron, and I let myself fall naked
on to the edge of my sword, and neither harms
me. God will see to that, said Thangbrand. So
when they came to the holm, he consecrated the
fire, and made the sign of the cross over the
sword. And when the Berserk walked the iron,
he burnt his feet, and when he fell upon his
sword, he got his bane therefrom.' The historian
adds, 'Many good men rejoiced at this, even
though they were heathen5.

Nor were Berserks the only enemies met with
by Thangbrand. His enemies hired a certain
wizard named Galdra-Hedin (Enchantment-
Hedin) to try his powers against the new re-
ligion. 'And that very day, as they were riding
out of Kirkby from the house of Surt Asbjorn's
son — whose ancestors had been Christian for a
long while back — then the horse of Thang-
brand suddenly fell down into the earth, and
Thangbrand himself only just escaped by leap-
ing off his back; but he stood on the edge safe.'

In Gretti's Saga we are told that his enemies
went to a witch to have spells woven against
him. The witch found a log of driftwood,
planed it down, and cut 'runes' on the smooth
part — that is, she cut an incantation, written in
the old Northern characters called 'runes' or

INTRODUCTION 6 1

mysteries. This done, she lanced her arm, and
smeared the runes with her blood; after that she
wrought further spells, dancing and leaping
round the log; and finally she rolled the log back
into the sea, and the tide carried it to Drangey,
the island in which Gretti was. Gretti found it,
and started to cut it with his axe for firewood;
but the axe slipped and cut into his leg below
the knee. Of that wound came Gretti's bane:
Tor', said he, 'fate is approaching, and it cannot
be avoided. Well I know that this blow came
from that witch.'

A little later, as Gretti lay dying, his brother
Illugi saw him plucking at the wool of the sheep-
skins on which he lay; and Illugi knew that to
be an omen of death; for men were then skilled
in seeing signs and auguries.

Everything in fact was an omen. Just as, on
the last day of Tiberius Gracchus's life, men
took it as an evil augury that he struck his foot
against a stone and drew blood, so in old Ice-
land every little incident had its meaning. In
Vapnfirthinga Saga, a man named Bjarni goes to
the house of his enemy Geitir with murderous
intent; but he will not kill him until some word
is said which may convey the required boding.
The word, when it comes, is of the simplest, but

62 THE NORTHERN SAGA

it is sufficient. His friend Kolfinn 'began to
speak in an evil hour, and said, looking up at
the sky, Changeful is the weather; methought
it was somewhat icy and cold, but now I deem
it likely that it will thaw. Bjarni answered,
Then rarely will it not thaw, if it thaws now.
Then he stood up and said, My foot is "dumb".
Lie thou then in peace, said Geitir; and at that
word Bjarni hewed him his death-blow.' Doubt-
less he took the words as an omen that after the
murder he might sleep calmly and free from
fear; but it was not so.

When, in Njala, Gunnar of Lithend was ban-
ished from Iceland, he set out with his brother
Kolskegg to leave home. 'They rode along
Markfleet, and just then Gunnar's horse tripped
and threw him off. He turned with his face to-
ward the Lithe, and the homestead at Lithend,
and he said, Fair is the Lithe, so fair that it has
never seemed to me so fair; the corn-fields are
white to harvest, and the home-mead is mown;
and now I will ride back home, and not fare
abroad at all.' And so he does, and from that
comes his death.

An dfreskr, or second - sighted man, could
often see sights which, though invisible or un-
intelligible to ordinary men, to him foretold

INTRODUCTION 63

much. Thus, in Njala^ Thord Freedmanson
thought he saw a goat lying in a hollow, and it
was all one gore of blood. Njal said to him that
neither goat nor blood was there. 'What is it
then?' said Thord. 'Thou must be fey5, answered
Njal, 'for that must have been thy fylgja or
fetch, and now it behoves thee to look to thy
life.5 'Little boots it to take heed5, said Thord,
'if death is doomed; for no man can scape his
fate.5 So, in the tale of Thidrandi, Thorhall tells
Hall that the murderesses of Thidrandi were the
fylgjur or fetches of his family. Thejylgja might
take any shape: those of men might be wolves,
bears, or bulls; those of women, swans. When
the enemies of Gunnar were plotting his death,
Njal saw their fylgjur as flitting things darting to
and fro before his eyes; and scarcely had he told
his vision when a man came in and said that he
had seen twenty-four men lurking round who
meant evil to Gunnar. In Bandamanna Saga we
hear how Hermund, passing by Valfell, heard
is it were a bowstring clang in the hill, and
denly felt himself wounded under the arm.
He looked and saw 'two hundred in the gully5:
these were doubtless the fylgjur of his foes. In
a few days he died. Readers of our old English
>ry will remember the very similar story of

64 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the death of King Sweyn, which was attributed
by the Christian feeling of the time to a lance-
thrust from St. Edmund.

Such then being the material on which the
sagaman worked, a few words only are neces-
sary to describe the manner in which he dealt
with it; indeed, inadequate as all translation is,
the reading of a few specimens in English ver-
sions will give a better idea of the general char-
acter of a saga than many pages of description.
It may, however, be desirable to give the reader
a few preliminary hints as to what he is not to
expect, as well as what he may reasonably look
for. Afterwards he may well be left to do his own
criticism.

In the first place, the telling is of the directest
and simplest kind possible. Not even in Robinson
Crusoe has the author his eye more constantly
fixed upon his narrative than here. He does not
allow himself to be fretted by obstinate question-
ings of invisible things. Here we find no analysis
of motives or of character — scarcely indeed a
moral judgment of any kind. We are indeed
occasionally told that so-and-so was respected by
his neighbours, or that somebody else was gloomy
and morose. The most tremendous actions are
narrated as if they were ordinary. Thus in Hen-

INTRODUCTION 65

Thorir's Saga — 'BlundketiU's enemies woke him
when his house was ablaze. He asked who they
were that kindled such a fire. Thorir told him
their names. Blundketill asked if any terms of
peace might be made; but Thorir said there was
no choice but to burn: and they departed not
till every man's child was burnt to death.5 In the
beginning of the same saga we have two or
three lines on the ancestry of the great chief Odd
of Tongue, and to this account the brief sentence
is added, 'He was not called a man of fair deal-
ing'. Later in the saga we are given two or three
examples of much more than unfair dealing on
the part of Odd; but there is not a word of
comment. Similarly, throughout the whole of
Laxdaela Saga not one word is said by the author
to reveal the consuming pride arid jealousy of
Gudrun — a pride and jealousy like that of Luci-
fer himself, which are indeed the very main-
spring of the tragedy. A few sayings of Gudrun
herself, dropped as it were by accident, alone
reveal the terrible passions raging beneath the
calm surface of the saga. Occasionally a man's
character is summed up in a short and significant
epitaph: 'The slaying of Arnkell was bruited
wide abroad, and men deemed it great scathe'.
The dialogue is almost always short, sharp,

E

66 THE NORTHERN SAGA

and remarkably pithy. As few words are wasted
as in any composition under the sun. Thus, for
instance, when the noble bonder Blundketill
has been summoned by Thorvald, we are
simply told that Thorvald used those words
which he deemed most violent. 'Then Blund-
ketill went home, and there he met the East man
Orn. Art thou wounded, said Orn, that thou
art as red as blood? He answered, Not wounded
am I, but things are not better than if I were:
such words have been used to me as never
before.5 Here, as usual, we are left to guess
things from their consequences. The dialogue is
full of proverbs. 'A bairn grows, but breeches
grow not.' 'Bare is the back save a brother be
behind.' 'The look lies not, if a woman loves a
man.' 'Every man must fare when he is fey.'
'Long do men live who are slain with words.'
'Better is a good foster-child than an ill son.'
'But a little while is hand fain of blow.'

Allied to this reticence is a noteworthy love
of what the grammarians call 'litotes' — that is,
the figure of speech by which much less is said
than is meant. To the Icelander 'not often'
means 'never', 'not many' means 'few' or even
'none'. 'One blow was more than enough for
Koll' means that Roll was killed outright. 'If

INTRODUCTION 67

thou speakest thus again, something may hap
that thou dost not altogether like' is a prelude
to a deed of blood from which a whole saga of
vendettas springs. 'I have not noticed that where
thou art friendships grow' is a polite observa-
tion to one of the most desperate mischief-
makers in the whole history of Iceland.

When the hero is a poet, his words often take
a verse form — a form exceedingly difficult, for
the later Icelandic poetry is nothing but a
series of conundrums, in which 'kennings' or
periphrases are used for the most common
things. Poetry itself is in this language £the boat
of Odin'; a king is £the despiser of the flame of
the street of the hawk' — the street of the hawk
being the hand, the flame of the hand being
gold or rings, and the despiser of gold being
he who distributes rewards to his followers. A
sword is the gnat of the bone; and so on. It is
in the poetry that we find most interpolation;
for there can be no question that the earlier
poetry was simpler, and the later more compli-
cated and elaborate.

This form of art has its own dangers. As we
have seen and shall see, there is often a lack of
unity in the tales. The original teller, reciting to
hearers to whom every adventure in their own

68 THE NORTHERN SAGA

family was interesting, was not always careful
to conform his tales to rules that apply to
written compositions. He was sure of his audi-
ence so long as he stuck to the clan, and the clan
is the real principle of unity in these narratives.
Thus, for example, Laxdaela Saga is the story of
many people, and has in it many disconnected
episodes; but to the descendants of the heroes
every point was full of fascination, nor would
they rest till the last fragment had been told.
In Njala the genius of the author — or of one of
the authors — has contrived to create an extra-
ordinary oneness out of a most confusing multi-
plicity; and in some of the smaller tales, like
Gisliy Hen-Thorir, Bandamanna, there is a per-
fection of unifying art worthy of Ben Jonson or
Fielding. The monotony in subject, of which we
have spoken above, leads to no monotony in the
way of telling. The scenes of battle are usually
well balanced against those of law; and the
battle-scenes themselves, in the better sagas,
are less wearisome than some of those in the
Iliad. The mere nearness of the sea provides a
certain variety; for every Icelandic hero is an
amphibious being. When surrounded by foes on
land, he often takes to the water, and the saga-
man, who knows the sea, never fails to arouse

INTRODUCTION 69

our interest in the escape of the swimmer and
the disappointment of his pursuers.

Thus the saga is, as it has so often been called,
a kind of prose epic; and it presents many
curious parallels to the manner of an epic poem.
No part of the Iliad, for example, is more de-
servedly famous than the passage in which
Helen is presented to us on the walls of Troy,
pointing out the Achaean heroes to old Priam.
A very similar passage is that in Laxdaela Saga
in which Helgi's shepherd describes to him the
men he has seen, and Helgi guesses from the
description who they are. 'There sat a man in
a stained saddle, in a blue cloak; great of size,
and valiant to look upon; bald in front and
tooth-bare.' 'That', says Helgi, 'must beThorgils
Holluson.' The youth goes similarly through the
whole list, and Helgi tells him in every case
who the man described is.

Equally epical are the catch-phrases, the
balancings, the repetitions. As in Homer the
messenger tells his message in precisely the same
words as those in which he received it, so it is in
the sagas, and doubtless for the same reasons.
A work composed without the help of writing
requires and uses these aids to the memory.
Of such repetitions of phrase the account of

70 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the great lawsuit in Njala provides a good
example.

Again, the saga is like the old epic precisely
in its total carelessness of what used to be re-
garded as 'epic dignity'. Homer, says Matthew
Arnold, is 'uniformly noble'. He may be so, but
he is by no means uniformly sublime. He can
compare Ajax to an ass thwacked by his master,
or Menelaus to a courageous fly; he can de-
scribe a primitive laundress at work, or even a
Polyphemus barbarously devouring his loath-
some food. He is, in fact, thoroughly homely
when homeliness comes his way. Precisely
similar is the sagaman. To him 'the word is
cousin to the deed', and he has no foolish shrink-
ing from the plain: Gudmund falling into a
kettle of boiling milk, Earl Gizur hiding in the
whey-tub, the cutting up of a whale, the drying
of sea-drenched clothes — all these he describes
when they come his way with perfect simplicity,
just as he describes his battles and great
heroisms with perfect simplicity when they come
his way. He is a man, and nothing human is
alien to him.

But if the saga is thus an epic, it yet offers
many of the features of a tragedy. Not even the
Oedipus succeeds better than Njala or Hrafn-

INTRODUCTION *JI

keWs Saga in 'purging the mind of pity and
terror' by means of pity and terror themselves.
But the comparison which will rise oftenest to
the English reader's mind will be that with the
free romantic tragedy of Elizabeth's times — a
form of literature born in a Viking age not dis-
similar to that which produced the sagas. A
Drake, a Hawkins, and a Raleigh, in their
Tiberius-like mixture of good and evil, in their
portentous virtues and portentous crimes, in
their cruelty and their poetry, are very like a
Kjartan or an Egill; and the literature to which
their exploits gave birth is like the literature
that clusters round the Vikings. One point of
similarity will at once occur to all. The sagaman,
like the Elizabethans, knows well how the effect
of tragedy is heightened by allaying the gloom
with an infusion of comedy or even of farce.
For his object, like Shakspere's, is to hold the
mirror up to Nature. But, like Shakspere, he
gives us Nature touched with Art; he never for-
gets that his mission is to please. Above all, like the
old tragedians, he is careful not to fret us above
bearing: he dismisses us, at the end, in 'calm of
mind, all passion spent'; for after the heaving
storm of quarrel and revenge his story ends in
peace, even though it be the peace of death.

I

THE STORY OF ROLF KRAKI

THERE was a king in Denmark who was called
Rolf Kraki: he was the noblest of the kings of
old, alike in valour and in mildness, and also in
lowliness of mind. And of this lowliness this
story is a sign, which is ofttimes told. There was
a boy named Vogg, small and poor: he came to
King Rolf's court. At that time the king was
young and slight of body. Vogg came in and
looked up at him. 'Why lookest thou so at me?5
said the king. 'I had heard5, said Vogg, 'that
King Rolf of Leidra was the greatest man in all
the Northern lands: and now, there sits in the
high-seat a Kraki or little thin pole, and men
call that their king, though round him are twelve
Berserks, all mightier than he, and Bodvar
Bjarki mightier by far.5 The king, no whit
offended, took the lad's words kindly, and said,
'Now thou hast lengthened my name, and
henceforth I shall be known as Rolf Kraki. But

72

THE STORY OF ROLF KRAKI 73

'tis the custom at a naming-feast to give gifts:
take then this ring'; and he took his ring from
his hand and gave it to Vogg. Then Vogg said,
'This oath I take, that whosoever killeth thee,
of him will I be the bane'. All men laughed at
the boy's boast; but the king said, 'A little toy
makes Vogg glad'.

Now, after a long while, King Rolf set forth
with his warriors to Upsala where King Adils
ruled; and on his way thither he came to the
house of a peasant who called himself Rany: he
W3re a large hat that shaded his face, yet could
men see that he was one-eyed. He spake with
wisdom, and so that men could not but hearken;
and he told Rolf that he had too many men in
his host; better were it that some were sent back.
And so weighty was his speech that Rolf agreed,
and kept but his nobles with him. Then the old
man beckoned with his right hand, and the
Valkyries, the Maidens that choose the slain,
came at his bidding: they were Rist the storm,
and Mist the cloud, and Goll the speaker, and
Gondul the she-wolf, and Skogul the carrier, and
Hilda the warrior-maiden — whom the old man
called each by her name, bidding them give
victory to Rolf. And so it was; for in the battle
:hat came, the Valkyries gave victory to Rolf

74 THE NORTHERN SAGA

and defeat to Adils. And so they came baci to
Rany. And Rany showed Rolf a shield and a
sword and a byrnie or shirt of mail, saying, 'Take
these; for the time will come when thou shalt
need them all'.

But Rolf, whose eyes were blinded that he
knew not who it was that spake, answered, '111
becomes it a king that he take such gifts from a
peasant's hands'.

Then Rany was wroth, and his face dark-
ened, and he said, 'Go hence, ye sons of Jotutis:
some norn hath clouded your eyes from seeing;
lo, she hath cast the thread of your fate nor:h-
wards'. So saying, he vanished from their sigit.
Then said Bjarki, 'Methinks that peasant vas
more than he seemed'.

'Ay', said Rolf, whose sight was cleansed ;
'it was Odin's self, one-eyed, blue-caped, and
mighty.' But they saw him no more for a season.

Now it came to pass in later years that Skuid,
Rolf's sister, an evil witch, conceived a hatred
of the king, and by her enchantments stirred up
a like hatred in her husband, Hjorvard: and
the twain plotted to kill Rolf. Wherefore they
came to Rolf's court, and were welcomed
royally; but they told him not that they had
hidden their men round about the town. And

THE STORY OF ROLF KRAKI 75

when Rolf's men slept, the traitors stole in, and
slew men now here, now there. But forthwith
Bjarki awaked, and cried out to the men to
wake also. And then came a Valkyrie, and held
up her left arm, bent at the elbow, saying, 'Look
through the hollow of my arm, and the mist will
leave thy eyes, and thou shalt see'. And Bjarki
looked, and lo! he saw Odin among the traitors;
and he cried in anger, 'Would I could throttle
him as one throttles a rat!' And at last he saw
Rolf fall, and said, 'Ay, the noble-minded one
hath stooped to the hair of Earth' (the grass).
And again he cried, 'I see in the air the Val-
kyries, beckoning me to Valhalla'. And with
that the greatest of Rolf's warriors fell also.

Then it seemed that all were slain: but Hjor-
vard said, 'Is there none of all Rolf's heroes left?
Were there one, I would reward him.' Then
there rose up from the place of slaughter a man
covered with blood, but with the ring on his
arm that Rolf had given him. All men knew
him, that he was Vogg. And Vogg said to Hjor-
vard, 'My lord is dead: gladly would I serve thee,
had I but a sword; for mine own is broken in the
fight'. Then Hjorvard held out to him his own
sword. 'Nay', said Vogg, 'King Rolf ever gave
the sword by the point to the man he delighted

76 THE NORTHERN SAGA

to honour.' And the king therefore took the
sword by the point, and gave the hilt to Vogg,
who straightway thrust him through, saying,
'Go thou to the realm of Hel, where thou shalt
walk in valleys of misery'. Forthwith the men
of King Hjorvard cut him to pieces with their
swords; but he said, cNow is my vow fulfilled,
and I have avenged my lord'.

All this was told in a lay called the 'Waking-
Song of Bjarki'. Hundreds of years later, on the
night before the last battle which Olaf the Holy
ever fought, the good king asked for a song, and
his skald, Thormod, sang him this song of Bjarki
and Rolf. The king said it was a good song to
bid men quit themselves bravely; and next day
he went into the battle, and, fighting valiantly,
perished like King Rolf.

(Hrolfs Saga Kraka.}

The reader will think of the passage in Virgil
(Aeneid ii. 604), borrowed from Homer, in
which Venus removes the mist from the eyes
of Aeneas. 'Lo, I will snatch from thee the
cloud that darkens thy human vision. She spake,
and dread faces loom before me, and the mighty
Powers, gods that love not Troy.'

II

THE STORY OF KORMAK

IN the days when Athelstan the Mighty ruled
over England; when witches still had power and
elves still danced their rings; when 'stitch' was
still caused by goddesses that shot invisible
arrows into a man's side; when 'wise women'
could foresee the future, or make a man invul-
nerable, or change themselves into animals — in
those days a certain man, named Ogmund, set
sail from Norway to go to Iceland. He carried
with him the twin pillars of his high-seat, images
of Thor and Odin, for these had within them
his luck. And when he drew near to Iceland
he cast these same pillars overboard. And they
came ashore in Mid-firth, where dwelt a chief
named Skeggi. Skeggi welcomed Ogmund, and
gave him a plot of ground whereon to establish
himself and build a house. Now it was the belief
then that if in measuring for a house a man
found the meteyard too short, then would the

77

78 THE NORTHERN SAGA

fortune of the house be shortened also; and
three times did Ogmund measure, but three
times did the meteyard fall short. Wherefore
men deemed the luck of that house would be
scant; yet Ogmund builded there.

Ogmund took to wife a woman named
Dalla, who bore him two sons: the elder was
called Thorgils, and he was quiet, gentle, and
slow to move. The younger was called Kormak;
he was gloomy, passionate, and hasty of temper,
black-haired, tall, and strong; a good 'skald' or
poet, and his verses were easily remembered.
When these two had just reached early man-
hood, Ogmund their father died, and Thorgils
took the household in hand. Men reckoned him
a good bonder. As for Kormak, he stayed at the
house a while, but did little therein.

Not far from thence, at a place called Tongue,
lived a chief named Thorkell: he had a son also
named Thorkell, whom they called Tooth-
gnasher: proud men were both father and son.
A daughter had Thorkell, whose name was
Steingerd: bright-eyed was she, beautiful-haired,
and the fairest of maidens. She was away from
home, at a house called The Peaks, near to the
farm of Thorgils and Kormak. Now one day it
happened that Kormak and Tosti, a friend of

THE STORY OF KORMAK 79

his, had gone some distance from their home
after their sheep; and they stayed the night at
The Peaks, for they were weary. Large was the
hall, and fires were lit for the guests. Now Stein-
gerd and her maid were eager to see what guests
had come that night; so they came and peeped
over the door of the hall; and as they did so,
Kormak spied her feet below the door. Where-
upon he whispered a visa to Tosti:

*Lo the feet of the maiden

Below the door;
With love hath she struck me

To my heart's core:
Ill-luck will she bring me,

Sadly I fear;
That maiden brings danger

Whene'er she draws near.'

Now Steingerd saw that she had been seen;
so she ran along the passage, until she came into
the hall at the far end, behind the high-seat.
Here she deemed she would be hidden by the
carved pillars, and she stood and gazed at the
young man. But of a sudden the fire flamed up,
and its light flashed upon her bright eyes, so
Kormak saw her once again:

'Lo, those are the maiden's bright bright eyes!
Methinks they will harm me in wondrous wise.*

80 THE NORTHERN SAGA

So spake he to Tosti; but meanwhile, Stein-
gerd and her attendant were speaking of him;
and Steingerd, as the manner of women is, took
pleasure in making light of him, that she might
hear her handmaid praise him.

In the morning Kormak saw her as she was
combing her hair; and the handmaid said to
him, 'What wouldst thou give for a wife with
such hair and such eyes as Steingerd's?' And he
answered, in yet another visa:

'I price one of her eyes at three hundred in silver,
And the head she is combing at five hundred.'

Then said the handmaid, 'Pity is it that she
thinks not the same of thee'; but she knew well
what were Steingerd's true thoughts of him.

'As for the whole of her', said Kormak, 'I
would value it against Iceland, and Denmark,
and England, though I might rule over all
three.' Then came Tosti, and asked him to go
out after the sheep; but what were sheep to
Kormak then? Better loved he to stay in the
house, and to play chess and tables with Stein-
gerd, than to look after cattle on the hills. Late
was it ere he could bring himself to go home.
And when he reached home, he told his mother
of his love, and said to her, 'Mother, make me

THE STORY OF KORMAK 8 1

fine clothes, that I may find more favour in
Steingerd's sight'.

'Alas!' said Dalla, £well I perceive the evil
that is coming on our house. Hast thou thought
how this will seem in the eyes of Thorkell her
father, and of his son?'

Now Thorkell was proud and haughty, and
when men told him that Kormak loved Stein-
gerd he was aflame with wrath. 'Who is this
Kormak?' said he; 'is he much better than a
thrall of Midfirth-Skeggi?' Now there was a man
named Narfi, a low man and an insolent, whom
Thorkell kept in his house; and he heard these
words of the father. Wherefore, one day, when
Kormak was at the house — for Steingerd had
now come to Tongue — he seized some sausages
that were on the fire, and thrust them in
Kormak's face. 'How likest thou these kettle-
snakes?' said he in a kind of doggerel rhyme.
Kormak, not wishing then to quarrel, for Stein-
gerd was by, said he liked them well; but at
even, when he was about to go home, he saw
Narfi and remembered these insolent words. So
he stayed him, and bade him take back what he
had said. 'Not so', said Narfi; 'if thou like not
the fare, thou needest not come to the dinner.'
And at that Kormak struck at him with his axe,

F

82 THE NORTHERN SAGA

but Narfi fled from him, and so escaped for a
season.

Now there was a witch-wife named Thor-
veig; she dwelt at Stanstead in Midfirth. She
had two sons, Odd and Gudmund, violent men
both. To them spake Thorkell, and promised
Odd many gifts if he and Gudmund would lie
in wait for Kormak. So they watched for their
chance. And one day, when they were in the
great hall and Steingerd was on the dais, they
saw Kormak coming towards the door. So these
two brethren rose up to slay him as he entered
the door. And Odd seized a sword that was
there, and Gudmund a scythe. But Kormak
chanced to see them, wherefore he thrust his
shield into the room before him, and bent the
scythe and brake the sword. Then Thorkell
came out and said that Kormak was ever a
brawler, and a madman in his words; then sent
he Steingerd out of the hall, and said that
Kormak should never see her more. At that
Kormak spoke a verse —

Let my foes, these brethren, whet their swords,

Yet shall they not slay me;

Let them set on me in the open field,

It will be as though two ewes attacked a wolf.

Now, later, Kormak found that Steingerd

THE STORY OF KORMAK 83

was in a certain house; so he went thereto, and
when he found it locked he broke it open and
talked with her. But she said, 'Little care hast
thou of thy life, for the sons of Thorveig are
seeking after thee'. 'Little indeed care P, said
Kormak, and abode there all that day. And as
he departed, he saw three men waiting for him
in a dale; these were Odd, Gudmund, and Narfi,
whom Thorkell had sent to watch for him and
slay him. So he spake another verse:

Three men lie in wait for me;
They strive to keep my maiden from me:
But the more they seek to hinder us,
The more we love each other.

And at that moment the three sprang out on
him. The two brethren fought bravely, but
Narfi hung behind, for he was fearful and a
coward. Now Kormak fought like a lion, and
the two brethren could not slay him; wherefore
the fight was long, and Thorkell deemed it were
best to go to help the brethren. But when he
donned his armour Steingerd clung to him so
that he could not go. The end was that Kormak
slew Odd, and wounded Gudmund so that he
died soon thereafter.

Then went Kormak to Thorveig. 'Thou
canst not abide longer in these parts', said he;

84 THE NORTHERN SAGA

'thou must flit thee abroad at such a time, nor
will I pay thee any were-gild for either of thy
sons.' Thorveig answered, 'It is likely enough
that I must yield to thee and go hence; and as
to the were-gild thou hast the power to deny
it; yet shall I pay thee thy due reward — never
shalt thou desire to have her save when thou
canst not get her'. 'Do thy worst, thou evil
woman', said Kormak. A little later he told
these words of Thorveig's to Steingerd, and she
was sad about them, for she feared the power of
the witch. Kormak replied,

All the rivers shall run backward,
Ere I leave thee, lady mine!

'Boast not thereof, said she; 'many a little thing
may bring thy boasts to naught.' 'Fear not',
answered he; 'dost thou choose me for thy hus-
band?' 'Surely', replied she. 'Then urge thy
father to let me wed thee.' After that, Kormak
gave Thorkell great gifts for Steingerd's sake,
and many men of mark took up the cause and
pleaded for Kormak with Thorkell. And the end
of it was that Thorkell gave way, and consented
to give his daughter to Kormak. But so soon
as this was done, the mind of Kormak began
to change, for Thorveig had wrought mighty

THE STORY OF KORMAK 85

spells. When Thorkell began to speak about the
dowry, Kormak thought himself not fairly dealt
with therein, and quarrels began; insomuch that
when all things were arranged for the bridal,
Kormak came not to it: and all men thought
that a deadly shame done to Steingerd, and her
father, and his whole house.

There was a man named Bersi, who lived at
Sowerby not far from Tongue. Many a duel had
he fought, and therefore was he known as Holm-
gang Bersi, or Bersi the Duellist. To him came
Thorveig when she was driven from Midfirth;
and Bersi received her well, and gave her a
portion of land west of Midfirth. Now Thorkell,
after the shame put upon him by Kormak,
remembered Bersi, and deemed he would be a
great help if it came to an open quarrel with
Kormak. So Narfi was sent to Bersi, and was
told to offer him Steingerd to wife. Narfi went,
and Bersi greeted him well. 'Men say, Bersi5,
said he, 'that Steingerd and thou would make a
good match. Nor is there need to think of
Kormak, for he has shown he thinks no more of
the maiden.5 The end was, that Bersi was be-
trothed to Steingerd, but Steingerd's own heart
was not in the matter: and she sent Narfi to tell

86 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Kormak thereof. Little pleased was Narfi with
his errand; for well knew he how hasty was
Kormak with his blows; so he rode with a shield
in front of him, and stared all round like a
frightened hare. Now when he came to Kor-
mak's home, he found him building a turf-wall,
and beating it with a mallet. 'What tidings,
Narfi, that thou comest thus to me?' 'Slight
tidings: we had many guests last night.' 'Who
were your guests?' 'Holmgang-Bersi, and seven-
teen others, for he had come to his bridal.'
'Who was the bride?' 'Steingerd, Thorkell's
daughter', said Narfi. 'Ever dost thou bring ill
news', said Kormak; and he rushed upon Narfi
and smote him with the mallet so that he fell
from his horse stunned. 'Ill done was that', said
Kormak's brother Thorgils. 'Not so', replied
Kormak; "tis but that a churl hath got his
deserts.' Soon Narfi came to himself, and told
them all about the wedding. 'Did Steingerd
know of it beforehand?' 'Not until the very
evening they came thither', said he. 'But thou
wilt find it a lighter thing, Kormak, to ill-use
me than to fight with Bersi.'

Now when Kormak knew that Steingerd was
wedded to another, all his love for her came
back as it were a flood. Straightway he took his

THE STORY OF KORMAK 87

horse and weapons, and started to rush after
Bersi. 'Whither wilt thou? ' said Thorgils. £After
him who hath stolen her whom I love', said he.
'Vain is thy errand5, said Thorgils; 'long since
will Bersi have reached his home: yet will I go
with thee.5 Tor no man will I tarry', said Kor-
mak; and forth he rode, so that ere he had gone
far he foundered his horse. And Thorgils with
seventeen men found him nearThorveig's home.
Now Bersi had come to Thorveig but a little
while before, and she lent him a boat to cross
the firth. 'But ere we part', said she, 'I would
give thee a little gift — 'tis this shield; me thinks
thou canst not be wounded if thou earnest it.
Small is this gift in return for the home thou hast
given me.' Bersi thanked her, and so they
parted. And Thorveig, by second-sight, knew of
the coming of Kormak and Thorgils; wherefore
she sent men to bore holes in all the other boats.
Straightway came Kormak and the rest, and
asked Thorveig for a boat. 'Not for nothing will
I do thee that service', said she: 'here is a boat
which I will lend thee for half a mark.' Thorgils
said two ounces would be more than enough.
'Waste not time', said Kormak; he leapt into
the boat and Thorgils after him. But scarcely
had they gone far, when it filled beneath them,

88 THE NORTHERN SAGA

and hard work had they to come back to land.
'Thou deservest punishment rather than pay,
thou evil woman', said Kormak. 'A little jest
was it of mine', said Thorveig; and with that
Thorgils paid her the money. Meanwhile Bersi
had got safely home.

Now after this naught would content Kor-
mak but that he should send a challenge to
Bersi, though Bersi offered him his sister Helga
to wife. 'That is well offered', said Thorgils; 'for
Helga is deemed a good match.' 'Not so', said
Kormak; 'what are all the women in the world
to Steingerd?' wherefore the challenge was sent.

Now when Dalla, Kormak's mother, heard
thereof, she was displeased with him. 'Thou hast
done foolishly', said she; 'for Helga is a good
match, and Bersi hath not his equal as a fighter
in all Iceland. Moreover, he hath a sword called
Whiting which naught can resist, and a healing-
stone which will cure all his wounds; and by
these hath he come through a score of fights;
and yet more hath he Thorveig's spells to aid
him: what hast thou against all these?' 'My
good axe', said Kormak.

'Little boots that', said Dalla. 'Go hence to
Midfirth-Skeggi, and borrow his great sword
Skofnung: that alone can break the spells.' Now

THE STORY OF KORMAK 89

Skofnung was indeed a mighty brand, and a
wise man holding the same could fail not of
victory. For there was tied to it a small wallet,
which must not be touched: the sun must never
shine on the hilt; and it must never be worn
save when the owner was making ready for
battle. If drawn in haste it would shriek; but if
drawn with heed it would do strange things; a
snake would creep out from under the hilt, and
then, if the blade were duly slanted, it would
creep back again in sign of good luck.

Therefore, when Kormak went to Skeggi and
begged for his sword, Skeggi would not give it.
'Slow is the mind of the sword', said he, 'and
thou art hasty. Little good wilt thou do it, and
little will it do thee.5 But Dalla went to Skeggi
and asked for it. 'I will lend it5, said he, 'if he
will do all I tell him; otherwise it will go hard
with him'; and he told Kormak all the needs of
the sword. Kormak took it, and straightway for-
got all that Skeggi had told him. In his house
he dragged the sword from its sheath, and it
came out shrieking; and so hastily did he draw
it that he tore off the wallet therefrom. 'Alas',
said Dalla, 'all is over with thee. I should have
known how it would be, hasty-tempered as thou
art!'

90 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Nevertheless, Kormak carried Skofnung with
him to the holm. So swiftly went he, that he
kept not the sun from the hilt: Skofnung shrieked
as he was drawn, and when the snake crawled
from under the guard, Kormak slanted not the
blade. Wherefore the luck of Skofnung fled from
him.

In those days it was the custom at the holm-
gang that each man should smite thrice at the
other's shield, one first and then the other; and
if no blood was shed, then should they fight
without shields. Now Bersi had brought three
shields, and the third was that which Thorveig
had enchanted: yet, had Skofnung been duly
dealt with, little would have booted her en-
chantments. So they smote in turn, and each
shield was split in turn, till it fell to Kormak to
strike at the magic shield. And so it was that
when he smote, Skofnung was broken, fire flew
from the shield, and the point of the blade was
driven back on to Kormak's hand, so that blood
fell on the rug whereon they fought. Then men
went between them, and said that Kormak was
conquered. Little liked he his fate; but he had
to pay the ransom, and to tell Skeggi how he
had fared with the sword. Skeggi said that it had
happened as was to be expected from such a

THE STORY OF KORMAK 9 1

man as Kormak. Long was it ere the wound
was healed, and longer ere Kormak had peace
of mind, for he loved Steingerd, and could not
bear that another should have her. As for Skof-
nung, the more men strove to grind it to a point
the worse it was.

Long stayed Kormak at home, eating his
heart with care and grief. Then it came to pass
that Bersi had yet another holmgang; and in
this he was grievously maimed : therefore Stein-
gerd, scorning to be the wife of a maimed man,
and also loving Kormak, put him away and
went home to her father's house. 'Now', thought
she, 'Kormak will surely wed me.' But Thor-
veig's spell was still mighty; and as before he
loved her not.

Now Steingerd was given in marriage once
again, this time to a certain man named Tin-
tein, who dwelt in the north of Iceland. And no
sooner did Kormak hear thereof, than his love
welled up once more. 'I cannot bear', he said
to Steingerd in one of his verses, 'that thou
shouldst be wedded to a tin-man; never shall I
smile now thy father has given thee to such a
nithing.' Steingerd said, 'Thou wouldst not have
me when thou mightest; little good is it to wail

Q2 THE NORTHERN SAGA

now thou canst not'. And she told Tintein of
Kormak's words. Thereupon, Tintein spake to
his brother Thorvard. And Thorvard watched,
and saw that Kormak oft tried to get speech
with Steingerd. Wherefore Thorvard sum-
moned Kormak to the holmgang. All men knew
that Kormak was the better sword-player;
therefore went Thorvard to a wise woman
named Thordis, who, though she was friendly
to Kormak, yet prepared Thorvard for the
battle by many spells. Not long thereafter, Kor-
mak came to Thordis, and begged her to pre-
pare him likewise. 'Alas!' said the wise woman,
'thou hast come too late: I knew not that I was
preparing an enemy of thine: yet, for the
friendship that is between us, I will undo the
spells I have laid upon him. But I fear thy
hastiness; take heed therefore to speak no word
except I speak to thee, whatever thou seest me
do.' Now to undo the spell she had to slay three
geese on the holm or place of battle. And three
nights she went with Kormak to slay a goose
there, but such was his hastiness that each night
he spake to her: so that at last she said to him,
'Vain is it to try to help thee, so hasty as thou
art: hadst thou but obeyed me, I had given thee
victory to-morrow, and also had broken the

THE STORY OF KORMAK 93

spells of Thorveig, so that thou shouldst have
married Steingerd and loved her till thy death-
day; but now it cannot be'. Angry indeed was
Kormak, but it availed him naught to rave.
Wherefore the battle came on, and Kormak did
not lose in it, yet did he not win Steingerd.

Now Steingerd and Tintein set out for Nor-
way, and it happened that Kormak and Thor-
gils his brother set sail about the same time.
And on the voyage Tintein's ship was attacked
by Vikings, but Kormak was near and saved it,
not for love of Tintein, but for love of Steingerd.
And so they went together to the court of King
Harald of Norway; and here Kormak saw Tin-
tein often in the company of Steingerd, and
liked it ill. One day it came to pass that he saw
them on their ship together in the harbour;
wherefore he was suddenly angry and seized the
tiller of his own boat and hurled it at Tintein so
that he fell stunned. Many such quarrels had
they; and at last Tintein and Steingerd left
Norway for Denmark.

Now one day, when Kormak was cruising in
his ship, he saw another ship coming towards
him, and when it drew near he saw that the
captain thereof was Tintein. But Tintein said no
words of wrath to him, but asked his help; Tor',

94 THE NORTHERN SAGA

said he, 'certain Vikings attacked us and carried
off Steingerd, and I would have thy aid in tak-
ing her back5. 'Assuredly will I help thee', said
Kormak; 'where lie those pirates?' 'Not far
hence', said Tintein. So Kormak sailed with
Tintein, and, as luck would, he came up with
the pirates in a certain harbour, when most of
the men were ashore. He rushed on board, and
slew the first man he saw — and that was Thor-
stein, the man who had carried off Steingerd :
and the rest of the crew either were slain or
swam ashore. Thus Steingerd was taken back
again; and Tintein said to Kormak, 'She is thine
by law of conquest — take her and go in peace'.
But scarce had Tintein said these words, when
Kormak felt in himself that he could never wed
her. So they parted, and never saw one another
again.

Little more need one tell of Kormak. With
Thorgils sailed he about the British Isles; and
men say they founded Scarborough, and called
it after Thorgils' other name Scard; but the end
was that in Scotland he fell in combat with a
giant or blot-risi. So died Kormak Ogmund-
son, whose fate it was never to wed the woman
he loved, nor to love her except when she was
wedded to another.

THE STORY OF KORMAK 95

And as for Thorveig, so men say, she died in
the manner following. As Kormak was sailing to
Norway, a walrus rose out of the sea, and made
as though it would rush at the ship of Kormak.
But Kormak smote it with a long pike; hard and
true smote he it, so that it straightway sank, and
never rose again. But as she sank, men say they
saw her eyes, and they were the eyes of Thor-
veig the witch: for she had made herself a
walrus to slay Kormak, and had been slain her-
self. Howsoever this be, at that very hour
Thorveig fell sick in her house in Iceland, and
died in her bed.

(Kormak1 s Saga.)

Mr. Maurice Hewlett has based a novel on
this saga.

Ill

THE TALE OF GEIRMUND
HELL-SKIN

GEIRMUND and Hamund were the twin sons of
King Hjor. And this is the story that tells why
the twain were both called Hell-skin. At the
time when King Hjor had to go to a kings'
moot, his queen was 'not well', and while the
king was out of the land she bore two sons; and
they were fine children, but that was the great-
est mark upon them, that never had men seen
darker skins than were on those children. The
queen set little store by them, and deemed their
colour of ill omen. Now there was a thrall
named Lodhott, who was set in charge of other
thralls. He was married, and his wife bore a
son at the very time that the queen bore the
twins: and this boy was so exceeding fair, whom
the thrall's wife had borne, that the queen
deemed her own sons but ill-favoured, to com-
pare with him. Wherefore she devised to make

96

THE TALE OF GEIRMUND 97

an exchange with the handmaid; and though
the handmaid deemed even as the queen that
her own son was the fairer, yet dared she not
deny to make the bargain. So the queen took
the thrall's son, and spread it abroad that he
was her own, and called his name Leif, while
the handmaid took the twins and brought
them up in thrall fashion, till they were three
winters old; but Leif had the honour of a
prince. Yet the twins showed tokens of their
true birth.

Now it came to pass that Bragi the skald
came to King Hjor, and abode with him some
time. And when the king one day went a-hunt-
ing, there were but few left in the palace. Bragi
was in the window-seat, with a reed in his hand;
and the queen was lying in an alcove, • so
hidden that none could see her. Leif sat in the
high-seat, and played with a gold ring. And
the twins, thinking the hall empty save of Leif,
and seeing him thus playing, drew near; and
Geirmund said to his brother, 'How were it if
we took the ring from Leif, and played there-
with ourselves awhile?' 'Ready am I', said Ham-
und. So they ran up and took it from Leif;
whereupon he wept bitterly. Then they said,
'A strange thing surely, that a king's son should

G

98 THE NORTHERN SAGA

weep to lose a gold ring!' and, pulling him from
the high-seat, they mocked at him.

Now all this Bragi saw: wherefore he rose and
went to the queen, and, touching her with the
reed, spake a verse:

'Twain are in hall, both know I well,
Hamund and Geirmund, Hjor's sons are they:
And Leif the third, Lodhott's child:
Thou didst not bear him: few viler could be!'

Thereupon the queen arose, and went forth
with the boys, and took back her own, restoring
Leif to his mother: for she deemed — as was
indeed true — that they had in them the high
spirit that it was likely, from their birth, that
they would have. And at eventide, when the
king returned and sat in his high-seat, then
went the queen to the king, taking the two
lads with her, and told him all she had done,
and of the exchange with the handmaid,bidding
him deal as he deemed fit. Then the king, look-
ing at the boys, said, 'Of a truth I perceive that
these boys are of my race; yet never have I
seen such dark-skinned boys as they are'. There-
fore were they thenceforward both surnamed
Hell-skin. And as soon as they were full grown
they went out of the land a-harrying, and
gained both wealth and glory, steering with skill

THE TALE OF GEIRMUND 99

a great ship a long while: insomuch that it is
said in some sagas, and specially in the saga
of Rolf the Black, that those brothers were held
the greatest Vikings among sea-kings of that
time.

(Sturlunga Saga, i. i, 2.)

Twin-stories are common in all languages.
With this may be compared that of Romulus
and Remus. Twins were suspected of coming
from double parentage, human and divine, and
were often cast out of the house as ill-omened.
See Rendel Harris's Dioscuri.

IV
THE SAGA OF HORD

THIS is the story of one whose luck was evil
from his youth, and who came to an ill end
through a curse laid unthinkingly upon him by
his own mother when he was a child. For in
those days men had to take heed to their words:
inasmuch as, if they spake unadvisedly with
their lips, the Weird Sisters listened, and would
assuredly suffer not the words to fall to the
ground.

There was a man named Grimkell in the
south-west of Iceland, silent and dour, but just
and honourable; never failing in doing sacrifice
to the gods. He sought in marriage Signy, the
daughter of Valbrand, a widow, wealthy, whom
men deemed a great match. But Valbrand
thought Grimkell no unequal husband for her,
and hesitated not to consent; though Torfi his
son, thinking the twain unlikely to agree, set his
face against the thing, and said ill-luck would

100

THE SAGA OF HORD IOI

arise therefrom. Yet was the bargain hanselled
and carried through.

Valbrand, being old, went not according to
custom to the bridegroom's house, but sent a
friend of his, whose name was Kol, instead.
With Kol went Grim, the son of Signy by her
former marriage, and thirty men besides. Evil
were the omens on that journey: a horse was lost
in a snowdrift, and Grim wished even then to
turn back, but Kol made him go on. Grimkell
gave them a great feast, wondering much, how-
soever, that neither Valbrand nor Torfi had
come with the bride.

Signy was proud and fond of show: Grimkell,
as was said, was silent and loved not company
and merry-making. Soon therefore the pair be-
gan to disagree, and might have quarrelled, but
that Grim, loving them both, ofttimes played
the peacemaker. He was gentle and honest; but
ere long he wedded and left the stead. His wife
was Gudrid, the daughter of Hogni, a man of
wealth. Grimkell stocked his farm right royally,
so that Grim speedily became rich. He and
Gudrid had a son whom they called Geir.

Now Signy had a dream. She saw a great
tree growing, with such mighty branches that it
overspread the house; but it bore no blossoms.

102 THE NORTHERN SAGA

This dream she liked ill, wherefore she told it to
her foster-mother Thordis, a woman skilled in
omens; but Thordis liked it no better. 'This is
the meaning', said she. 'Thou wilt bear a son,
strong and fair, but there will be no love lost
between him and his kin.5 Soon thereafter did
Signy bear a son, whom she called Hord: fair
and strong; but there was this marvel about
him, that he walked not till he was three winters
old; and men deemed this unlucky. Now one
day when Grimkell was sacrificing in the
temple, Signy sat on a stool, with a necklace
across her knees that was an heirloom and a
great treasure. The child, seeing the glitter of
the necklace, rose to his feet — having never
walked before — and came to his mother,
snatched at the necklace, and broke it, so that
the pieces fell on the floor. Signy, in hasty anger,
cried out, 'See this child! Unlucky are his first
steps, his next will be worse, and worst of all his
last!' Grimkell, hearing the words, and knowing
that the Weird Sisters must have marked them,
spake no word, but took up the child and
carried him to Grim and Gudrid. 'Rear him for
me', said he, 'for his mother draweth ill-luck on
him.' They took him and brought him up with
Geir; but Signy, angered with herself and with

THE SAGA OF HORD 103

Grimkell, thenceforward saw less of her hus-
band than ever. Shortly afterwards a maid-
child called Thorbjorg was born to her at Torfi's
house, and she died in giving her birth. Torfi
liked not the child that had caused this ill, and
bade that she should be thrown into the river.
But the man, instead of so doing, carried her
to Grim and Gudrid, who took her also, and
brought her up with Geir and Hord.

Now Grimkell, hearing this, was wroth with
Torfi, and would fain have slain him; but Grim
and the lawman, Thorkell the Moon, a just
man, won him over to take as atonement six
hundred ounces of silver. When Torfi came to
pay it, Grimkell said, CI ask it not for myself:
pay it, and the interest thereon, to Hord when
he reacheth man's estate'. Torfi answered, 'I
will pay it if Hord is a better man than his
father!' 'Be it so', replied Grimkell; 'little good
in any wise will it do him, seeing whence it comes.
But boys take after their mother's brothers:
wherefore I deem that Hord will turn out worse
than I.' At this there arose a great shout, and
things came nigh to bloodshed; and though the
two men fought not at that time, little love was
between them thenceforward. Thus early was
Hord the cause of quarrel among his kin.

104 THE NORTHERN SAGA

At twelve years Hord was a match for most
boys of sixteen; and at fifteen he was a head
taller than the most part of full-grown men; and
he had further this gift, that no glamour could
make him see things save as they truly were.
He had the keenest eyesight of all men, and in
all sports was the greatest champion. Geir also,
though less than he, was tall and strong; and the
two were ever together, and had but one mind
between them.

Now it chanced that a ship came from Nor-
way, the owner whereof was a man called
Brynjolf. At the 'Thing' Brynjolf met Grimkell,
and said, ' Gladly would I see thy son Hord, of
whom I have heard much praise5. And just then
Hord and Geir passed by: so Grimkell called
Hord, and made him known to Brynjolf, who,
looking on him, saw that fame had not erred in
praising him; and he said, 'If thou desirest to go
out with me to Norway, I will be thy partner
and give thee a half-share in all our gains'.
'That is a strange word', said Hord, 'to one thou
hast never seen before: yet will I go with thee if
but I can gather enough goods to trade with.'
Geir, too, was eager to go; and he urged Hord
to take a man with them called Helgi Sigmund-
son, Hord liked this not, for, seeing things as

THE SAGA OF HORD 105

they were, he perceived in Helgi a hasty temper
that would bring ill-luck: yet did he yield to
Geir. Grimkell gave them a large sum of money,
and store of merchandise wherewith to trade:
and so they set sail, and arrived at Bergen with
a fair wind.

This was when Harald Grayfell was king in
Norway, and about the time when Edgar the
Peaceable reigned in England. Harald received
Hord well, gave him leave to trade, and made
him his man. Soon it was seen how noble Hord
was: he did great things in war, and gained
wealth and high renown. For one thing he did
he won especial fame. There was a howe on
a hill, wherein was buried an ancient Viking.
Men said he had a great sword in his hand and
a precious ring on his finger: yet none dared to
enter the howe to get these treasures. Hord,
hearing thereof, entered the howe, fought with
the Viking, and, overcoming him, took sword
and ring. Of which deed the fame spread far
and wide, insomuch that the Jarl of Gautland
gave him his daughter Helga to wife: and,
though Helga was the paragon of women, it was
said that such a man as Hord was no ill match
for her.

Meanwhile in Iceland his sister Thorbjorg

106 THE NORTHERN SAGA

had grown up and had wedded a man called
Eindridi. Soon after this marriage Grimkell died,
and, what was great scathe, Grim and Gudrid
died also. Eindridi and Illugi, who had married
GrimkelPs eldest daughter, saw to the sharing
of the lands and goods. Soon afterwards, Hord,
being then thirty years old, returned with
Helga his wife, Helgi Sigmundson, and a train
of followers. Little ill-luck had been his thus far;
but the Weird Sisters had not forgotten. He met
Eindridi and Illugi, and fairly they dealt with
him. Eindridi would take no more than Thor-
bjorg's share; and Illugi entertained him so
royally throughout the winter that Hord said he
was happy in having found such a brother-in-
law. But next he bethought him of the money
due to him, by the award of the lawman, Thor-
kell Moon, from Torfi. So he went to Torfi and
asked for it. Torfi replied, CI mind me of my
words to thy father, that I would pay thee only
if thou wert a better man than he. No proof do
I see that thou hast yet excelled thy father.'
Hord answered, 'I boast not myself so highly,
but the money is mine and I will have it'. So
saying, he rode thence and told Illugi of Torfi's
unfair dealings. Straightway the twain gathered
a band of men, and rode to Broadbowstead,

THE SAGA OF HORD 1 07

where Torfi dwelt; and Torfi, seeing the host,
came forth and said, 'Now see I plainly thou art
thy father's son: what I said was but to prove
thee. Take thy money, lands, and all; and I
give thee to boot sixty head of sheep as seal to
the friendship that ought to be between men so
near of kin.' Hord took the gift, but, seeing
Torfi as he was, loved him but little more for
his yielding and his words.

Now among Torfi's men was a yeoman
named Aud, whose horses strayed often into
Hord's lands, doing great damage. Wherefore
one day Hord said to Helgi Sigmundson, 'Go
forth and drive away these horses'. Helgi went
forth, and found Sigurd, Aud's son, driving the
horses home. 'Wherefore art thou so slack in
tending thy beasts?' said he. 'Thou and thy
father are the pests of the land.' Upon which,
Sigurd answering no less fiercely, a quarrel
arose, and the end was that Helgi slew Sigurd.
Soon thereafter came Hord, and saw what had
befallen. 'A knave art thou', he said to Helgi,
' to slay a harmless lad: it were but just if I slew
thee in thy turn; yet will I spare thy life. But my
mind bodes me that this is the beginning of ill-
luck to thee, and that upon me also it will
drag the evil that hath been foredoomed.' So

108 THE NORTHERN SAGA

saying, he went not forthwith to tell Aud, but,
casting a cloak over the boy, departed home-
ward.

A little later he went to Aud, and said, 'Sore
grief is thy son's death to me, and much against
my will it came to pass. Self-doom I give thee:
name thy own price for the were-gild; none shall
say that I have dealt unfairly with thee.' 'It is
too late', said Aud. 'I have been to Torfi, who
hath taken up my case, and hath promised to
pursue it to the utmost.' Whereat Hord, feeling
a sudden rush of wrath, which men deemed
to have come from the Weird Sisters, drew his
sword and cried, 'This for calling in Torfi
against me!' and slew Aud. Nor did he cease
therewith, but set fire to his stead and burned it
to the ground. And when this was done, the
fury ran out of him.

And Torfi, hearing of this, summoned Hord
to answer for it at the Althing or Moot of all
Iceland. Hord said he would scorn himself to
answer Torfi, who had ever been his enemy;
but he sent Helgi to Eindridi, asking him to take
up the case at the Althing. Eindridi replied that
he had at that time a case at a smaller Thing,
having promised to help Illugi therein; 'But',
said he, 'if Hord will come to my stead he shall

THE SAGA OF HORD IOg

not lack for aid from me5. Helgi returned to
Hord, and, saying naught of this last offer, told
him that Eindridi refused to help him. Thus it
was that, when the case came on at the Althing,
there was none to speak on Hord's behalf, and
he and Helgi were alike outlawed.

When Hord heard the news, he mocked
thereat, saying, 'Torfi hath had me outlawed;
but what care I?' and, destroying all such pro-
perty as he could not carry with him, he went
over to Geir's house at a place called The Flats.
There, having left little spoil for Torfi to take,
he fortified The Flats, and lived thenceforward
as a freebooter, Geir willingly joining with him.
And finding the cattle too few to feed so great a
company, Geir and Helgi went forth to a farm-
stead called Waterhorn, slew the herdsman, and
drove off the cattle. Hord liked this ill. 'Ye may
rob openly', said he, 'but stealing of this kind
must cease.' Yet could he not hinder his men
from doing much that he liked as little as this.

The news of this deed at Waterhorn spread
far and wide, and made a big stir. But more
news soon came. There was a man named Kol-
grim, living no great way off; and he asked the
Flat-men to play games on the ice at Yuletide.
At these games the Flat-men ever got the worse,

110 THE NORTHERN SAGA

but could see no reason therefor, till they
thought that Kolgrim had laid an evil charm
on their shoes, which were made of ox-hide from
stolen cattle. When they told Hord of this, he
said, 'Little good are we if we cannot avenge
ourselves'; and came himself to the games, and
fought so furiously that six of his enemies lay
dead on the ice. As for a seventh, whose name
was Onund, he was sore wounded, but dragged
himself thence: yet, as he came near his house,
he said, 'I must sit down and bind my shoe',
and sitting down he died straightway. That
place was ever after known as Onund's Knoll.
Such things made men resolve to make an
end of The Flats and of the outlaws dwelling
there, whose numbers increased continually as
other outlaws joined them. At the summer
Thing men met and planned to destroy them;
and Hord, hearing thereof, and knowing that,
however long he held out, famine would con-
quer in the end, bade the men remove to a
holm or island in the firth by Dinner Ness. This
isle runs sheer down into the sea, and few men
were needed to defend it against thousands.
Two hundred went with Hord, taking boats
from the boat-sheds of any men that lived near
by. There they built a great hall on the very

THE SAGA OF HORD III

edge of the cliff, and cut underground passages,
so that if need were they could escape thereby.
They had but one lack — there was no sure
supply of water: therefore they built a great
tank, and sent men from time to time in a seal-
boat to the river mouth to bring fresh water
from thence, which they emptied into the tank.
And they made laws. All men were to obey
first Hord and next Geir. If any were sick, and
recovered not within three days, they threw him
over the cliff. All men had to swear an oath to
keep these laws, and to be faithful unto death.
Of these the chief were Thord Kott, Thorgeir
Girdlebeard — of him none spake a good word—
and Helgi Sigmundson, who was scarce better
than Thorgeir. In that fortress were Helga,
Herd's wife, who was no whit in endurance
behind any of the men, and her two sons Grim-
kell and Bjorn.

Three years was Hord in that holm, and daily
were there battles, and robberies, and evil deeds,
in which Thorgeir was the worst: nor could
Hord restrain his men from such, though he
knew they brought ill-fame upon him. Some-
times the men of Geir's Holm — for so that isle
was called — had the better in fight, and some-
times the worse; but all men feared them and

112 THE NORTHERN SAGA

desired their destruction. Of these three years
the saga tells many things, which here we pass
over and come to the end.

None hated the holm-men more than Ref,
the godi or priest, a chief and a great fighter.
Ref had a brother called Kjartan, strong of his
hands likewise, but not held to be a truth-teller,
evil-minded and not greatly beloved. Their
mother was a very old woman named Thor-
bjorg Katla, a witch whose spells were mighty.
Katla boasted that by her spells and glamours
she was safe from the holm-men, howsoever
they might strive to harm her. This boast came
to the ears of Geir, and he was minded to put
it to the proof; wherefore he set out with Thord
Kott and eleven others to the house of Katla.
Drawing near thereto, he left two men to guard
the boat, and set Thord on a rock to keep
watch, while with the others he came toward
the house. But Katla, knowing by her arts that
a boat had set forth, straightway came to her
door and raised such a mist and glamour that
no man could see his fellow. Then, sending a
messenger to Ref, she waited; and Ref came in
haste with fifteen men. They found Thord on
the rock, and forthwith slew him, and then
turned to the shore where Geir was. Suddenly

THE SAGA OF HORD 113

the mist lifted, and the bands saw each other,
whereon began a fierce fight. All Geir's men
were slain, and three of RePs: as for Geir, he
was sore wounded, and had a hard task to reach
the holm, where Helga, who knew leechcraft,
tended his wounds.

A little later, Hord, deeming that Eindridi
had been faithless to him — for he trusted the
tale of Helgi — sent men to set fire to Eindridi's
house. Small success had the men: yet the
chiefs, feeling that an end of these dangers must
be made, held a moot to plan the taking of the
holm; and one said this and another said that.
And as they were thus talking, a woman rode
into the moot — even Thorbjorg, the wife of
Eindridi and Herd's sister. 'Hearken5, said she;
'I know your devisings. As to what may hap to
the rest, I care not; but whosoever slays Hord,
let him know that I will be his bane!' At this
a dead silence fell on the crowd; but at length
they said, 'Even so an end must be made of the
holm-men, or the land will perish'. And Ref
said, 'Force against the holm is vain; fraud must
be tried. Let therefore a man go thither, and
take the oath as one of them; and when he hath
gained their trust let him say that if they scatter
and go back to their homes their lives will be

H

114 THE NORTHERN SAGA

spared.' Torfi deemed this advice good: 'But
first5, said he, clet us move to the Ness, out of
hearing of any of Hord's men'. Next day they
dined at the Ness, wherefore it is called Dinner
Ness unto this day. And then they looked round
for a man to go. 'Whoso goes', said Torfi, 'shall
gain great honour. Moreover, I deem that by
now the holm-men, by their evil deeds, have
lost their luck, and will not see things as they
are.' Then said Kjartan, 'I have my own score
to settle with the holm-men, and will go. But
if Hord be taken, ye shall give me that treasure
of his, the ring of gold which he took from the
cairn.' 'So shall it be', said Torfi.

Now there was a man named Thorstein, who
had sworn never to harm the holm-men. His
boat Kjartan took, and went over therein. The
men welcomed him, for Weird had cast a
glamour on their minds, and any tale would they
believe. Hord alone, who ever saw things as they
were, was not deceived. 'But see', said Geir, 'he
has come over in Thorstein's boat, and Thorstein
has promised never to betray us.' 'Thy eyes
are blinded', said Hord; 'an ill man is Kjartan
for a friendly errand.' 'I will take thy oath if thou
wiliest', said Kjartan. 'Thy oath is as thy mere
word, worthless', said Hord. None the less the

THE SAGA OF HORD 115

men, who were fey and weary of their narrow
life, disobeyed Hord, and would go: nay, he was
gladdest who got to the boat first. Kjartan took
them round a point that hid them from the view
of the holm-men, and here were they all slain.
Then Kjartan came back; and now Geir was
eager to go, for he too was fey and beglamoured.
'Thou art bewitched5, said Hord: 'seest thou not
that Kjartan hath returned alone? Had he been
true he had brought witnesses of his truth.' But
the doom was on Geir, and he went, and many
with him. As they came round the point, Geir
saw the throng of bonders. 'Ill-luck follows
ill-rede', cried he.' 'Ever hath Hord seen
farther than I', and straightway sprang into the
water. But a man named Orm, a friend of
Eindridi, who was the best of javelin-throwers,
saw him, and forthwith hurled a javelin, which
struck Geir and slew him. Men said that was
the best throw that had ever been heard of.
All the other men were then slain.

Much was Kjartan praised for his craft; and
Torfi said, 'Few can be left: wilt thou try yet
again?' He answered, 'I will put the knob on
the stick', and set forth for the last time.

Now there remained on the holm but Hord,
Helga, their two sons, Helgi Sigmundson, and

Il6 THE NORTHERN SAGA

a few more. And Helga saw the death of Geir
from the cliff, and bade Hord look. He looked,
and saw naught. 'Never ere this hast thou failed
to see things as they are', said Helga; 'I fear
doom is on thee.5 Then came Kjartan, and
Hord said, 'Wherefore came Geir not back with
thee?' 'He waiteth to take the peace along with
thee', said Kjartan. 'Looks lie if thou speak
true', said Hord. 'Then thou art afraid to come',
said Kjartan. 'Naught fear I', replied Hord;
'nor wilt thou doubt that ere the day is over.'
Then he said to Helga, 'Gome thou also'. 'Nay',
said she; 'I perceive that thou art fey; and 'tis
said that there is no help for a doomed man.'
So saying, she wept sore.

Hord stepped into the boat, and said no
word till they reached the shore; and there he
saw the body of Geir with the javelin right
through it, floating on the waters. 'Not long',
cried he to Kjartan, 'shalt thou rejoice in thy
treachery', and with the old Viking's sword
clove him to the waist. But just then the boat
ran ashore, and straightway the men seized him,
and Eindridi bound him fast, and Helgi with
him. 'Fast dost thou bind me', said Hord. 'So
did ye hold me fast when ye strove to burn me
in my house', said Eindridi. 'Will no one slay

THE SAGA OF HORD 1 17

him for me?5 But all remembered the words of
Thorbjorg, and stood still.

Suddenly Hord broke loose, snatched the axe
from Eindridi's hand, and rushed through the
midst of his foes. Ref pursued him, being on
horseback, but he too remembered Thorbjorg,
and dared not smite him. And then had Hord
escaped his enemies, but the 'war-fetter', that
fear which the gods send on the bravest, of a
sudden descended on him, and held him fast,
so that the men overtook him again, and
dragged him back. 'Not ye could hold me', said
he; 'but 'tis some evil power that hath come
upon me.' With that he leapt forward, and say-
ing that none else should have the glory, slew
Helgi with one blow of his sword. And just then
came up Thorstein. He, knowing naught of
Thorbjorg's words, gave Hord his death-blow.

So died Hord. Men praised him for his cour-
age, and said his ill-deeds were less his own than
those of others. 'But there was a doom on him',
said they, 'and he was not a lucky man. What
is fated none can shun.'

To Thorstein, Torfi would fain have given
the great sword; but when Thorstein heard of
Thorbjorg's threatening, he would have chosen
not to have earned the reward. The chiefs then

Il8 THE NORTHERN SAGA

planned to go over to the holm for Helga and
her sons, meaning to slay the boys; but that
night they stayed still, and next day it was too
late. For Helga was a paragon among women.
She took her younger child Bjorn on her back,
and swam with him that night to the mainland.
Then, leaving Bjorn, she swam back and carried
Grimkell over in like manner. The night they
spent in a clift of the rock, which was after-
wards called Helga's Clift. Then all three went
to Eindridi's house, and called Thorbjorg out.
When Thorbjorg came forth, she spake no word,
so deeply moved was she. But she put the three
in an outhouse, and waited for Eindridi.

When Eindridi returned, she bade him tell
her the whole story of Herd's death, and he told
her. Then she said, 'Thy wife will I not be, un-
less thou slay Thorstein'. Little did he like the
work, but, forasmuch as he loved her, he did
so, and then came back to tell her. 'Fulfilled is
my vow', said she, £that I would be the bane of
Herd's slayer; yet remains there another thing.5
'Speak thy mind', said he. 'Even now never will
I be thy wife save thou promise to shelter Helga
and her two sons, if so be they come to us for
help.' 'An easy promise is that', said he, 'for
assuredly they are dead. Strictly did we search

THE SAGA OF HORD Iig

the holm, and found them not: wherefore it is
our belief that they threw themselves into the
sea and perished therein.' Then went Thorbjorg
to the outhouse and brought in Helga and the
lads. 'Too crafty hast thou been with me', said
Eindridi; 'yet will I keep my word to thee.'
And so did he, receiving them into his house,
and bringing the children up as his own.

Hord was thirty-nine years old when he died.
For thirty-six of these he was in honour and
good fame, and for three an outlaw. But men
deem that few have surpassed him, first because
of his wisdom in counsel and skill in fight;
secondly because of the noble woman who was
his wife; and lastly because of the vengeance
that was taken for him after his death.

And here endeth Holmverja Saga, or the Story
of the Holm-men.

THE TALE OF GRETTI AND GLAM

[See page 46]

So Gretti rode to ThorhalPs stead, and the
bonder greeted him well. He asked whither he
wished to fare, and Gretti said he willed to abide
there overnight, if so it seemed good to the
bonder. Thorhall said he would be glad
enough therefor: 'But few think it profitable to
guest here for long; thou wilt have heard tell
what is here to face, nor would I desire that thou
shouldst come by any danger through me; and
though thou thyself shouldst come off un-
scathed, yet know I that thou shalt lose thy
horse, for none that come here can keep un-
harmed their goods'. Gretti said there was
supply of horses whatever happed to this one.
Thorhall rejoiced greatly that Gretti would be
there, and welcomed him with both hands.
Gretti's horse was tied fast in the stall, and then

120

THE TALE OF GRETTI AND GLAM 121

went they to sleep; and the night passed in such
wise that Glam sought not the house. Then said
Thorhall, 'Well hath been thy coming to me,
for every night hath Glam been wont to ride
the house and break the panels, whereof thou
canst see the marks3. Gretti said, 'Two ways may
that be taken: either he will not rest for long, or
the ridings may cease for more than one night;
I will abide here yet another night, and see how
it fares'. Afterwards they went to see the horse,
and behold, no harm was done to it; and the
bonder deemed this even as the rest, such was
the luck of Gretti. So Gretti abode another
night, and the fiend sought not the house that
night either, which seemed to the bonder a sign
of hope; but when they went to see the horse,
the stall was broken up, and the horse dragged
out of door, and every bone in him broken in
sunder. This did Thorhall tell to Gretti, and
bade him take heed to himself, 'for certain is
thy death if thou abide Glam'. But Gretti said,
'It is little indeed to do for my horse, if I abide
the fiend'. The bonder said, 'Ay, but small good
wilt thou do, for he is not of human shape: yet
do I own that every hour seems good to me
when thou art here'. So the day goes on; and
when men should go to sleep, Gretti said he

122 THE NORTHERN SAGA

would not go out of his clothes, and lay down
in front of the bonder's locked chamber. He had
a rug over him, and twisted one fold under his
feet, and another under his head, and looked
out through the neck-hole. In front of the bench
on which he lay was the house-pillar, strong and
firm, and Gretti set his feet against that pillar.
The door was all broken, but in its place was
set a hurdle, which men had hastily fashioned
for that end; and the cross- wainscot was broken
also. All the beds were taken away, and very
inhospitable seemed that hall. A light burned
therein through the night.

And when a third of the night had almost
passed, Gretti heard without a great noise; then
was there a sound overhead, and the roof was
ridden, and that so violently that every beam
cracked. This went on long; and then the steps
came down off the roof and came to the door;
and as the hurdle was fastened over it, Gretti
saw that the fiend put in his head, and it
seemed terribly big and wondrously harsh of
feature. Glam came in slowly, and stretched
himself up when he had entered the door; he
loomed up toward the roof, and laid his arms
on the cross-beam, and so glared through the
hall. Gretti lay still, and stirred no whit. Then

THE TALE OF GRETTI AND GLAM 123

saw Glam that a strange heap was lying on the
bench, and he came towards it and seized it; but
Gretti set his feet against the pillar and yielded
not. So Glam tugged thereat even harder, and
yet could he not drag the rug away. Then tugged
he a third time; and this time he pulled Gretti
from the bench; nay, the rug came in sunder
between them. Glam stared at the rent, and
wondered much who could be so hard tugging
against him; and at that Gretti leapt in under
his arms, and grasped him round the waist, and
hoped that Glam would give way and fall; but
the demon pressed on Gretti's wrist so hard that
he was bowed down by the force thereof. And
Gretti stayed himself at all the seats, and set his
feet against all he could, to hold himself back,
and the pillars of the hall started from their
sockets, and all that was in their way was
broken. Glam strove to drag him from the hall,
and Gretti strove to stay within; for hard as
it was to hold up within the house, well knew
he that it would be harder without; but Glam
increased his might, and notwithstanding all
Gretti's strength did Glam drag him out of the
hall and into the porch; and there he drew him
even towards the door. And at the door Gretti
suddenly thrust hard against Glam, so that he,

124 THE NORTHERN SAGA

not expecting it, fell backwards, and Gretti fell
face downwards upon him. There was a moon
that night, and at whiles it shone forth, and at
whiles it was covered by the clouds; and when
Gretti saw Glam's face his strength left him,
so that he could not draw his sword, but lay
between this world and the next. And then did
Glam show forth his accursed might, more than
other aftergangers, in that he spake thus: 'Great
daring hast thou shown, Gretti, that thou hast
faced me; yet deem it not strange that thou
shalt gain little luck thereby. For thou hast yet
achieved but half thy full strength, yet shalt thou
never be stronger than now; and henceforth all
thy luck shall turn to evil: thou shalt be an out-
cast and a wanderer, and whenever thou art
alone thou shalt see these glaring eyes of mine
till loneliness shall be a horror to thee; and this
same horror shall drag thee to thy doom.'

And when the demon had thus spoken, the
weakness ran off Gretti that had been upon him;
then drew he his knife, and hewed the head
from Glam and laid it by his thigh. Then came
out Thorhall, who had clothed himself while
Glam was speaking; but he had dared not to
draw nigh till Glam was dead. He thanked
Gretti, and praised him much, that he had

THE TALE OF GRETTI AND GLAM 125

vanquished this unclean spirit. Then burned
they Glam to cold ashes, and after that they
bare the ashes away in a scrip and buried them
where neither men nor cattle were wont to
tread.

Thorhall sent messages to the nearest ham-
let, telling what had been done; and that was
the saying of all men, that never had there been
in the land such a man for strength and daring
as Gretti, Asmund's son.

But thenceforward Gretti was never as he
had been before; and this was the difference,
that whereas of old he feared nothing, now he
had become afraid of the dark, so that he never
dared to fare alone after night had set in, for
he seemed then to see phantoms of every kind.

(Grettfs Saga.)

VI
THE TALE OF THIDRANDI

Now toward the end of the time when Iceland
was yet heathen there came rumours of a
greater god than Odin or Thor from over the
sea; and some men wondered whether, if that
god came, they would worship him or cleave
to the old gods. For there were strange whispers
that this 'White Christ' was a god that would
reward the men who served him. Of such men
was Hall of the Side, a just man and a true; and
it was deemed that Thorhall of Horgsland, a
friend of Hall's, knew more of the coming change
than he would say, for he was a great spa-man,
and foresighted. Hall and Thorhall loved each
other much; and when Hall went to the Thing
he would guest at Horgsland, and Thorhall
would often stay long whiles at the house of Hall.
The eldest son of Hall of the Side was called
Thidrandi: he was the best-loved youth in all
Iceland, handsome and kind-hearted, and good

126

THE TALE OF THIDRANDI 127

to the poor, and blithe with every bairn he met,
so that men's hearts went out to him. Now one
summer, when Thidrandi was eighteen years
old, it chanced that Thorhall was staying with
Hall; and men began, as they ofttimes did, to
speak well of Thidrandi and to praise his ways.
But Thorhall held his peace, saying neither good
nor bad. At last Hall said to him, 'Why art thou
so silent about my son Thidrandi, seeing that to
me thy words are of more account than all
other men's?' Thorhall answered, 'It is not that
I mislike aught about him, or that I am slower
than other men to see that he is the best of
youths: rather is it that I know he will always
have many to praise him, but I forebode he may
not be long with us, and then, the more men
have praised him the sadder wilt thou be'.

And as the Yule-feast drew near, Thorhall
waxed more and more sad. 'Wherefore art thou
sad?' said Hall. 'I like not this coming feast',
said he; 'for I forebode that a spa-man will be
slain there.' 'That need not grieve thee', an-
swered Hall. 'I have an ox called Spa-man: him
will I slaughter at the feast, and no harm shall
befall thee, though thy boding be fulfilled.'
'Not for myself was my fear', said the prophet,
'but for great tidings and strange, which I

128 THE NORTHERN SAGA

foresee, but which I will not tell forth as now.'
Then shall we put off the feast?' 'Not so; for
what must be shall be, let men do as they will.'
And when Yule came there were few men
at the feast, for the weather was cold and very
wild. And as men sat at the board at even, Thor-
hall said, 'This is my boding, that it were better
for no man to go out this night, whatever hap-
penings he hear outside: let him pay no heed,
whoever knocks or cries'. Hall said to his men,
'Hearken to Thorhall, for great things hang
upon his words: what he forbids let no man do'.
Now Thidrandi was waiting on the guests: he
was, as ever, courteous and well-beloved of all.
And when night fell, Thidrandi put guests in
his own locked bed, and slept outside in the hall.
And when men slept, there came a knocking at
the door; and all men made as if they heard it
not, for the warning of Thorhall was strong upon
them. But at the third knock Thidrandi said,
'Great shame it is to us to make as if we slept,
and men without on such a night as it is: these
are guests my father bade to the feast, who have
been lost, and are but just arrived hither'. So
he took his sword in his hand, and went out;
but he saw no man. So he went a little farther,
and heard a sound of riding from the north:

THE TALE OF THIDRANDI I2Q

that was a company of nine women, all with
drawn swords, and dressed in black garments.
Then he heard a sound of riding from the south:
that was a company of nine women, all in white
garments, and riding on white horses. Then he
would have turned back and told his vision; but
lo! the black-stoled women came between him
and the door, and made at him with their
swords; nor was he slack to defend himself.

Now, a long while after, Thorhall awoke, and
called Thidrandi; but there was no answer.
'Slow is he to answer', said he: whereupon men
rose, and went out. The moon was now bright,
and the frost clear, and they found Thidrandi
lying sore wounded. So they carried him in; and
when they had speech with him, he told them
all even as it had happened. At daybreak he
died, and they laid him in a howe after the old
heathen fashion. And they made inquisition to
find who had slain him; but no man knew of
any enemy of Thidrandi's; as indeed all men
loved him. Then Hall spoke to Thorhall, 'What
deemest thou of this strange deed?' said he. 'I
know not', answered he; 'but this is my guess
thereat: those women will be none other than
the fetches of your friends, and the goddesses ye
worship. Not long hence will be a change of

I

130 THE NORTHERN SAGA

faith in this land, and better gods will come to
drive out the old; and thou, Hall, shalt take to
these new gods: wherefore these have come to
take toll of thee beforehand, in revenge for what
thou shalt do to them. And those in white were
the better ones, that strove to help Thidrandi;
but so it was not to be.5

Hall liked so ill the death of his son that he
bore not to stay at his old home, and moved
thence to the place that was afterwards called
Baptism River. And there also Thorhall visited
him; and one morning, as he looked out of the
window, Hall saw him smile. 'Why smilest thou?5
said Hall. 'Therefore I smile5, said he, 'because
I saw every howe and cairn opened, and all the
ghosts, and Discs, and fetches, both small and
great, passing away, and making Flitting-day.5
And soon after came great tidings, as we shall
now tell.

For even then King Olaf of Norway was
sending out Thangbrand to teach the new faith
in Iceland. And Thangbrand came to Side on
Michael's Day, and did the service for St.
Michael. Tor whom doest thou these strange
things?5 said Hall. 'For Michael the Archangel5,
said Thangbrand. 'And what is his power?5
asked Hall. 'It is to meet the souls of the dead,

THE TALE OF THIDRANDI 131

and take them to their appointed place.5 'If his
power be so great5, said Hall, 'then great indeed
must be the might of him who gave him the
power5, said Hall. 'God hath put that thought
in thy mind5, said Thangbrand; and he went on
and told the story of the White Christ, and of his
birth and death and rising again. And Hall and
all his house believed the story, and were bap-
tized by Thangbrand in Baptism River, which
keeps that name unto this day. And so the bod-
ing of Thorhall was fulfilled; for a better race of
gods had come to Iceland.

(Thidranda Thdttr — a short story inserted,
perhaps from the lost Hall's Saga, in
Olqf's Saga Tryggvasonar.)

VII
THE TALE OF HALLBJORN HALI

THERE was, in Iceland, a skald or poet called
Thorleif, skilled in all drapas and visas, and
knowing all kennings and metres: he was re-
nowned far and wide in that country. When he
died, men laid him in a ho we. And not far from
that howe dwelt a bonder named Thorkell,
gentle of disposition, and wealthy, but not of
great rank or honour. His shepherd was a lad
called Hallbjorn, whose eke-name was Hali.
And Hali had keen desire to make a praise-song
on the poet of the howe, and ofttimes, when by
the howe, tried to make that song. But foras-
much as he was no skald, and knew not the
devices and ornaments of song, he got not the
poem made; and could attain no further than
these words, 'Here lies the man'.

Now it was that one night he was lying, as
often, by the howe, and striving zealously to
achieve that lay of praise to the howe-dweller,

132

THE TALE OF HALLBJORN HALI 133

but as ever he succeeded not. Then at last he
fell asleep; and in his sleep he seemed to see that
the howe opened and a man came forth, great
and tall, and well set up. He came up the hill
to Hallbjorn, and said to him, 'Here liest thou,
Hallbjorn Hali, and eager art thou to do that
which thou art not by fate gifted to do, namely,
to make a song of praise to me. And the choice
lieth thus: either thou wilt attain the gift, and
that in higher measure than most other men—
and this is the more likely chance — or else thou
shalt fail, and then needest thou no more strive
to attain the gift. I will speak in thy ears a visa;
and, if so be thou rememberest that visa and
hast it in mind when thou wakest, then wilt thou
be a skald, widely renowned throughout the
land, and sing the praises of many chiefs; and
great shall be thy gain therefrom.' Therewith he
came yet nearer, and drew out the lad's tongue,
and spake this visa:

'Here lies the man; since time began the best of poets he:
Whene'er he sang the rafters rang with merriment and
glee.'

'Now', said he, 'must thou learn the art of
poetry, to make a due praise-song on me when
thou wakest, and it must be well wrought, with

134 THE NORTHERN SAGA

the right words and metre, and specially with
kennings.' Then he turned toward the howe,
and entered therein, and closed it behind him;
but Hallbjorn woke, and seemed to see his
shoulders as he vanished.

But he remembered the visa; and after a
while went home with his sheep, and told men
what had happened to him. And afterwards he
made the praise-song on the howe-dweller, and
went far and wide through the land, singing
songs about many chiefs, and gaining great
glory and good gifts from the chiefs for his songs,
so that he became a man of wealth. And of him
many things are told, both in Iceland and
abroad, though they be not here written.

(Flatey-Book.)

Compare Bede's story of Caedmon. An
Icelandic court-poem is a series of periphrases,
called 'kennings': e.g. 'bone-gnat' for sword;
'hair of earth' for grass; 'ring-giver' for king,
etc. The best parallels for the English reader
may be found in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes.

VIII
THE TALE OF BJARNI

IN the days when Ethelred the Redeless was king
in England, a certain Icelander, named Eric the
Red, was living in Greenland; and his men used
to sail from thence hither and thither over the
seas. And at one time there came home his son,
a captain, named Leif, whom men called 'the
Happy', and Leif said he had sighted a fair land
to the west; which, indeed, was no other than
the land men now call New England.

When Eric heard this, he sent out a man
called Thorfinn Karlsefni to spy out more news
concerning that country. And Karlsefni went
forth, and found the land good; and his men
lived there three years. With Karlsefni there was
a man called Bjarni, GrimolPs son, brave and
noble.

Now after the three years, Karlsefni and his
men set sail again for Greenland; and it was so
that the ship of Bjarni, going too far east, was

135

136 THE NORTHERN SAGA

sundered from the others, and fell into that sea
which men call the 'Maggot Sea5; for there
swarms that maggot or teredo which bores
through the planks of ships. And Bjarni found
that his ship was bored through by this pest;
nor was there chance of keeping her afloat. But
they had a boat which was smeared with seal-
tar, which same seal-tar men say the maggot
will not touch. So they launched that boat; but
she would hold only half the ship's men. Then
said Bjarni, 'As this is a thing of life and death,
it shall not be settled by rank or nobleness. We
will draw lots to see whom the gods will to die
and whom to live.' And as it chanced, the lot
fell on Bjarni himself to leave the ship: whereon
he entered the boat with all the others to whom
the same lot had chanced.

Now on the ship was a young man who was
Bjarni's companion. Their fathers had sworn
that they should never part, whatever betide,
and the young men had never been parted till
now. But now the lot willed that this young man
should stay in the ship and perish, while Bjarni
should go in the boat and live. And so, as the
boat was about to draw aside, he leant over the
ship's side and said:

'Bjarni, wilt thou leave me?'

THE TALE OF BJARNI 137

'So it is fated', said Bjarni; 'it is not by my
will.'

'Then what becomes of our oaths and of our
friendship? Is there no other way?5

'No other way, since the gods will have it so.'

Then the young man wept, for he feared
death; and he said, 'Yea, there is another way:
let us change places, and come thou into the
ship while I come into the boat'.

'Is it so', said Bjarni, 'that so great a dread
of death is on thee? If it be so, and thou hast
such desire to live, let us even change places as
thou wilt.5

And with that he climbed up into the ship,
and the young man down into the boat. And
this is the story that men tell, that Bjarni went
down there in the Maggot Sea and all the men
who were with him. But the boat, and those that
were therein, went on their way till they made
land, and there they told this tale, which shall
not be forgotten while the world lasts.

(From Rink's Saga Rauda.)

IX
THE TALE OF LODIN

TOSTI, the brother of Harold Godwin's son, was
of an evil heart, and tyrannous; and, being Earl
of Northumberland, did sorely oppress the
people. And when he added to his oppressions
this also, that he slew Orm Gamal's son, the
same who built that church at Kirkby which
standeth till this day, the men of Northumber-
land appealed unto Harold. And Harold, being
a just man, finding the charges true, spared him
not for that he was his brother, but bade him
depart out of the realm. And Tosti, being angry,
went first to Earl Baldwin of Flanders, and
asked him for help against Harold, which Bald-
win denied him. Then went he to King Harald
Sigurd's son of Norway, whom men called
Hardrada or the Stubborn-counselled. And
King Harald, not for love of Tosti, but for
desire of war and glory, granted to go with him
and strive to win back his earldom for him.

138

THE TALE OF LODIN 139

And he gathered three hundred ships for that
war; but the wind was contrary, and sorely did
Harald chafe thereat.

Now as he lay in Solund, there sailed into
the bay from the North Sea a Greenland ship;
and the captain of that ship was a man called
Lodin, whose eke-name was Corpse: for he had
brought from Greenland the corpse of Finn
Fain, the nephew of King Olaf the Holy, King
Olaf so bidding him. That ship was all seared
and charred, and men wondered at the sight.
Then the crew put off from her in a boat, and
came to King Harald's ship; and Lodin
saluted the king. Then said the king, 'Have
ye any tidings to tell of your voyage?5 'Naught
new, O king5, said Lodin; whereupon his men
rowed the boat away. Then said the king, 'Thy
men deem not that thou tellest true: say thy
tale now they are gone. How long were ye on the
voyage?5 'Seven nights5, said Lodin. 'Tell thy
hap5, said the king. Then said Lodin, 'We sailed
two nights away from the land; then saw we a
fire burning, stretching so far north and south
that no end on either side could we see: it was
as blue as flame, and though we had the fairest
wind, yet could we in nowise sail by it: where-
fore at last it was my counsel to sail straight for

140 THE NORTHERN SAGA

that place where the fire blazed least. Sorely
did we feel the heat, and the spars and sheets,
as thou seest, were scorched thereby. And this
seemeth to me a great sign, O king.'

'Speak further', said Harald.

'We went three half-days, and a rack of
clouds came upon our ship, causing a darkness
so thick that we could not see our hands before
our eyes. And then there came a mighty crash,
and the cloud was rent a-twain, and straightway
there fell upon our ship a rain of blood, as a
waterfall, so huge was it; and I made my men
set buckets thereunder, but not so but the decks
were all spattered therewith; and that blood can
still be seen on the deck, but cold and clotted,
whereas when it fell it was warm. And that too,
O king, seemeth to me to bode great things.'

'Speak further', said King Harald.

'We sailed yet other three half-days, and we
heard a roaring in the air; and looking upward
we saw many birds flying, small and great, their
names I knew in Norway. With high glee did
they give forth their voice. Three hours they
took in passing, none coming back, so that we
saw not the sky because of them. Then we sailed
two days more, and made land yester-even. And
lo, we saw the same birds, yet not the same, for

THE TALE OF LODIN 141

there were none great among them, but the
small only, and those small were as it were
sorrowful, and flew by in silence. And when they
reached the shore, they scattered, each one to its
place. And that seemeth to me a great sign: nor
have I more to tell thee.'

Then said the king, 'So it was this thou
didst desire to keep secret from me when thou
saidst thou hadst seen nothing?'

'Ay, my lord, for meseems these things are
no wonder when thou art going on this expe-
dition from this land.5

'Wherefore?' said Harald.

'Because5, answered Lodin, 'assuredly thou
wilt not return; and, ere such mighty men fall,
'tis to be expected that great tokens will be seen;
and such tokens have I seen.5

'Wilt thou go with me?' said the king.

'If so thou wiliest; but in anywise I will seek
the bodies of those that die.'

'More need have I of men while I live than
after death', said the king: 'yet would I rather
have thee with me, insomuch as thou sayest thou
knowest all our farings.' Then said he to Tosti,
'What thinkest thou of these tokens?' Tosti an-
swered, 'It were indeed a token had it happened
to a truthful man'.

142 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Lodin replied, 'It were worth much, Tosti, if
thou shouldst lie no more between land and land
than P. And the king gave Lodin leave to go.

And, paying no heed to all these wonders,
the king, and Tosti, and all his host sailed for
England, and landed at Scarborough. And,
first meeting with Edwin and Morcar, they
gained the day; but then came Harold of Eng-
land, and fought them at Stamford Bridge.
There was King Harald Sigurd's son slain, and
Tosti, and Eystein Orri, and all other of the
great chiefs; and but few of the lesser men made
their way back to Norway, silent and sorrowing.
They came in three hundred ships, and re-
turned in twenty-four. And thus were fulfilled
the omens that Lodin had beheld; for it is vain to
speak words of warning in the ears of a fey man.

(Heming' s Thdttr or Short Story.}

[Of Heming it is said, that having contests
with King Harald, he won all; wherefore the
king bade him shoot a nut off the head of his
brother Bjorn. And Heming cleft the nut with-
out harming his brother; but he went and joined
himself to Harold of England. And in the battle
of Stamford Bridge it was his arrow that smote
King Harald.]

X

BRAND THE GENEROUS

ONE summer there came out from Iceland to
Norway a man named Brand, the son of Wer-
mund. He was always called Brand the Open-
handed, and well he deserved the name, for he
was always giving. Now, at the time he came to
Norway, King Harald Hardrada was in Dron-
theim, and staying with the king was a man
named Thjodolf, a friend of Brand's; and Thjo-
dolf spoke many things of the open-handedness
of Brand, so much so that the king smiled and
scarce believed the half of what he said.

At last the king said, 'Well, Brand is now in
Norway: we will test whether he is as generous
as thou sayest. Go to him, and bid him give me
the cloak he is wearing.'

Thjodolf went straightway, and found Brand
in a little house, measuring linen. He was in a
scarlet kirtle, and over the kirtle was a scarlet
cloak, which he had thrown loose over his

M3

144 THE NORTHERN SAGA

shoulder while he measured the linen; and hang-
ing to his wrist was a gold-handled axe.

'The king wishes to have thy scarlet cloak',
said Thjodolf.

Brand answered him not a word, but let the
cloak slip from his shoulders and went on with
his work. Thjodolf took it up and went back to
the king.

'How did it fare with thee?' said Harald.

'Brand spake no word', answered Thjodolf.
Moreover, he told all about Brand's behaviour
and about the axe with the gold handle.

Harald answered, 'Truly is he an open-
handed man; yet meseems he has no small pride
about him, forasmuch as he spake no word. Go
back to him, and tell him I would have his axe
with the gold handle.'

'I like not to go on such an errand. It may
be he will deem I am jesting with him, to ask his
weapon.'

'Nevertheless', said Harald, 'thou shalt go,
or else what must I deem of all thy boasting
of his open-handedness? I shall hold him no
generous man if he withholds the axe.'

So Thjodolf went and asked for the axe.

Again Brand spake no word, but in silence
gave him what he asked.

BRAND THE GENEROUS 145

Thjodolf departed, and told the king even as
it had fared with him.

The king answered: 'Now begin I indeed to
fancy he is more generous than other men; yet
will we test him yet again. Go and ask him for
his scarlet kirtle.'

'I like not to go on such an errand; he
will surely, this time, take me for an ill-timed
jester.5

'Nevertheless thou shalt go', said Harald.

So Thjodolf went the third time.

'The king wishes yet another gift, thy scarlet
kirtle', said he.

Again Brand spake no word; but he stepped
out of the kirtle, cut one sleeve from it, and kept
the same: the rest he gave to Thjodolf, who fared
therewith to the king.

'Now', said Harald, when he saw the gift,
'now see I indeed that Brand is not only
generous but high-minded also. Well do I
see his riddle; he meaneth that I am a man
with but one hand, even the hand that takes
ever and not the hand that gives. Go now
yet again to him, and bid him follow thee to
me.'

And so was done. Brand followed Thjodolf
to the king, who smiled at him and said, 'Thou

K

146 THE NORTHERN SAGA

shalt see that I have the other hand also; I will
give thee precious gifts and great honour'.

And Brand abode in the king's court, and
well did men see that the king held him in
high esteem.

(From Harald's Saga Hardrada.}

XI
THE BURNING AT FLUGUMYRI

EARL GIZUR had made many enemies, and they
had sworn his death. On October 22, 1253, he
was holding the marriage-feast for the marriage
between his son Hall and Ingibjorg, the daugh-
ter of Sturla the historian, who himself tells the
tale. Sturla had ridden away but twenty-four
hours previously. The narrative is thus practi-
cally that of an eye-witness, for Sturla heard it
all from Gizur himself. The tragedy is one of the
most awful in the whole tragic history of Ice-
land. It was shortly afterwards terribly avenged.

[There being two Gizurs mentioned, I have
called the hero of the story the Earl, though he
did not become actually an earl till some years
later].

And when they came to Seljungsstead, Eyjolf
said to his whole company that it was his intent
to go to Flugumyri with all his force, and to seek
Gizur with sword or with fire, if he could not

M7

148 THE NORTHERN SAGA

find him otherwise. Many were the men there
to whom either course seemed ill, to go on or to
turn back; yet none turned back of all that had
come thus far. Now took they to hard riding, for
the country is there easy to ride upon. Men have
spoken afterwards, telling how swiftly they rode.
They came out about Deepdale River, and rode
then the higher way of the fell above Bygghol;
and at last they came over the fell, and drew up
in the garth at Flugumyri. There they leapt off
their horses' backs, and tied them up, and went
very silently up to the house. There were two
men in the 'town', Markus and Beini. Markus
ran straightway out of the place, when he spied
there were enemies about, and stayed not till
he came to the church at Gross-water; there he
told men what was a-doing. Beini ran with all
his might into the hall, and bade men wake,
'for foes were come'. At that there was a great
hurrying to and fro; and those men that tried
to get out at doors were hewn down.

Now Gizur and Groa his wife lay in the room
near the quarters of the women, and Hall his
son and Hall's bride, Ingibjorg, lay in the room
next theirs. Then when the alarm came, Gizur
ran into Hall's room and bade them rise: then
he put on his helm and his byrnie, and Groa

THE BURNING AT FLUGUMYRI 149

brought him his sword 'Byrnie-biter'. Hall also
took his weapons, and bade men quit themselves
well. And so they did; nay, even John the priest,
though unarmed, fought bravely, and urged on
other men to do gallant deeds; and little ad-
vance did the foe make, either upon Hall's men
at one door or upon Gizur's at another. It was
a hard battle and a stern one: men fought most
part of the night, and it was easy to see how the
fire flashed from the weapons when they met;
and Thorstein Gudmundson said afterwards,
that surely never was there such defence as
there: for they thrust with swords, and smote
with axes, and broke the points off hooks in
the women's chamber, and fought therewith.
Eyjolf 's men taunted Gizur with every kind of
insult, that they might know where he was; but
he never answered a word; but once he came
very near to killing Eyjolf.

And at last, when Eyjolf saw that he and his
men prevailed not, and feared that the men of
the places around would come to help Gizur,
then he bade his men set fire to the house. John
of Bank, one of his followers, had store of tar
with him: they took sheepskins off the frames
whereon they were stretched to dry, and carried
lighted tar in them; some men took hay and laid

150 THE NORTHERN SAGA

it at the doors and set fire to it. Straightway was
there a great and choking smoke in the house.
Gizur and Groa laid themselves down with their
faces close to the floor to breathe, and a man,
named Thorbjorn Nef, lay likewise facing him.
Then Gizur began to pray, and Thorbjorn
thought he had never heard such words nor so
earnest a prayer, though he could scarce part
his lips for the smoke and reek. And after that
Gizur stood up, Groa supporting him, and went
to the southern door; and then was he sore put
to it for the smoke and heat, and he deemed it
better to look out than to be stifled in the house.
Now his namesake, Gizur the Glad, was standing
just outside the door, and talking with Kolbein
Beard, the greatest champion in Eyjolf's com-
pany. Kolbein offered Gizur the Glad peace;
for they had before this agreed that each should
yield the other peace if need were and power
was. Earl Gizur stood just behind his namesake
while they talked; and cooled himself a little.
And Gizur the Glad said, 'I choose me a man
to have peace along with me5. 'Any thou wilt',
said Kolbein, 'save Earl Gizur and his sons.' At
that moment there came to Groa Ingibjorg the
little bride, Sturla's daughter: she was bare-
footed and in her night-dress. She was but thir-

THE BURNING AT FLUGUMYRI 151

teen years old, but tall for her years and fair
to look upon. She had round her her silver belt,
and a pouch hanging to it, with much money
in it. Groa was very glad to see her, and said,
'One fate shall overtake us both'. And when
Gizur had cooled himself a little, he did not
feel so ready to rush out; but he expected death
for himself and life for Groa; therefore he gave
to her two gold rings from his pouch — one his
uncle, Bishop Magnus, had owned, and the other
his father, Thorvald. 'Take these', said he, 'for
it is my will, if thou livest, that my friends should
have them.' He looked in his wife's face, and
saw therein that the parting was very grievous
to her. And after that he went back into the
house, and with him Gudmund the Haughty,
who would never leave him. They came first to
a small postern door, and listened; but they
heard the talk of men and their curses without,
so they turned back.

Now to tell of Groa and Ingibjorg: Groa
bade Ingibjorg go out; and Kolbein Beard
heard the words, and told her to come out to
him. 'Not unless I can choose a man to go with
me', said she. That cannot be', said Kolbein.
'Go out', said Groa. 'But I must look for little
Thorlak', said she (Thorlak was her sister's son,

152 THE NORTHERN SAGA

aged ten years; now he had run out already, and
was at the church). But Kolbein rushed into
the fire and seized Ingibjorg, and carried her
also to the church. As for Groa, it is said that
Thorstein the Noisy thrust her into the fire.
Gizur's son Hall, and Ami the Bitter, his attend-
ant, came a little later to the southern door, but
they were both nigh overcome by the flames,
for the fire had now become very fierce. Hall
ran out first, and a man named Einar hewed at
him as he came, and gave him a mortal wound.
When Einar and his men had left him, a certain
monk spread a sheepskin under Hall, and drew
him to the church; but the cold came into his
wounds. Arni leapt out next, and fell as he came
out. 'Who are you', said they, 'that comest so
furiously?5 'I am Arni the Bitter', said he; cnor
do I ask peace; for I see that Hall is lying in
front of me, and I wish no other fate than his.'
Now Arni, some years before, had been the
death of Snorri Sturluson: wherefore Kolbein
said now, 'Is there no one who remembers
Snorri?' Whereupon many men smote at him,
and so he got his death. And by now the whole
house was in flames, save the kitchen and the
dairy.

Now to tell of Earl Gizur: he came to the

THE BURNING AT FLUGUMYRI 153

dairy, and with him his kinsman Gudmund.
'Leave me now', said Gizur, 'there may be some
way of escape for one, if it be so fated, but scarce
for two.' At this came up John the priest, and
bade them both come with him; so Gudmund
went with him out of the south door, and men
gave them both peace. As for Gizur, he took off
his byrnie and his helmet, but he kept his sword
in his hand; and then he went into the byre,
and saw there a tub of sour milk standing, and
he tried it with his sword, and the whey came
right up to the hilt. The tub was sunk in the
ground, and the whey nearly covered it. But
there was room enough left, so that Gizur got
into the tub, and sat down in it as he was, in his
linen clothes, and the whey came up to his
breast. It was deadly cold in the tub, but he
stayed there. He had not been there long, when
he heard men's voices, and they were saying
how they would deal with him if they caught
him: there would be no hurry as to killing him,
but three men would each give him blows, and
see how he bore it. A moment later, they came
into the byre with a light, and looked around.
They came to the vat in which he was, and
three or four times did they thrust into it with
their spears. Some said there was something

154 THE NORTHERN SAGA

there, and some said not. Gizur kept off the
spears from him with his hands, but gently, so
that they should notice as little as possible. He
was scratched on his hands and all down his
body to the knees; those wounds were not great,
but they were many. He said afterwards, that
when he first came into the byre he shuddered
with cold, but when the men came in he did not
shudder at all. They came in twice, and twice
they looked about, but found him not: then they
went out and departed for their homes.

(Sturlunga Saga.}

XII
THE STORY OF VIGLUND

IN the days of Harald Fairhair there was a great
chief in Norway named Thorir: he was married
to a noble woman, and had a daughter named
Olof. Olof, even when very young, was a paragon
among maidens, and skilled in all womanly
arts; wherefore her name was lengthened, and
she was called Olof the Star. Thorir loved her
much, and would suffer no man to talk with
her; and he built her a beautiful bower, roofed
with lead and girded around with railings of
iron. And when she grew in years, many men,
rich and great, sought her hand; but Thorir
would give her to none of them, nor did she
desire to look on them. So went the days by.

Now the story takes in other names. There
was a man named Ketill, who ruled in Rau-
marik; a great man, wise, and with many
friends: his wife Ingibjorg was of high descent,
and their two sons, Gunnlaug and Sigurd, were

155

156 THE NORTHERN SAGA

nobly taught in all that should become men:
they rode out often to shoot deer or birds, and
excelled in all sports. Ketill was a great holm-
gang-man: he had been in twenty duels, and had
had the victory in all; moreover, he was so per-
suasive of tongue that, when men heard him
speak, they ever deemed that things were as he
said. King Harald loved Ketill much.

Now it so happened that Harald made ready
his ships to sail south, and took with him Ketill's
sons; but Ketill himself abode at home, for he
was now somewhat stricken in years. So the
king sailed, and came to Rogaland, where was
a jarl that ruled in the land, Eric by name, a
mighty chief, and well-dealing with his friends.
When Eric saw the king, he gave him good
welcome, and brought him to his house with
songs and much joy. And the king was pleased
thereat, for the jarl spared naught to make him
blithe: good drink was brought forth, and the
men were soon drunken. And after fair harping,
the jarl took the king to show him all his estate.
In an orchard was there a grove, where sat
three boys playing at tables; all three were
handsome, but one passed the others. And after-
wards they took to wrestling, and that one was
a match for the other two. So the king asked

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 157

their names, and Eric said, 'Sigmund and Helgi,
and Thorgrim is the third; he is not of the same
mother as they'. Then the king, seeing how
strong and handsome Thorgrim was, took him
to himself, and made him his henchman. And
as time went by, the king laid great honour on
Thorgrim, so much so that his name was
lengthened, and he was called Thorgrim the
Proud. And as the days went by, Jarl Thorir
came to the king's court, and with him Olof
Star; and Thorgrim cast eyes on her and loved
her, nor did Olof disdain his love. But, even at
that time died Ingibjorg, the wife of Ketill; and
Ketill asked of Thorir his daughter Olof to wife.
Now, as Ketill was a great chief, and King
Harald urged the suit, Thorir agreed thereto;
but men say that Olof would have chosen rather
to take Thorgrim; but it was not so to be. So the
bride-feast was fixed for the next Yule, at the
house of Jarl Thorir.

Now Thorgrim was out harrying that sum-
mer; and when he returned, he heard that Olof
was betrothed to Ketill; whereat enraged he
went to King Harald, and asked that he would
help him against Ketill. 'Not so', said the king,
Tor Ketill is my friend.' 'But Olof and I have
plighted troth; nor will I break my word with

158 THE NORTHERN SAGA

her; and if thou, O king, wilt not help me, then
will I no longer be thy henchman.' cDo as thou
wilt', said the king; 'but I deem thou wilt no-
where find greater honour than with me.' So
Thorgrim took leave of the king, and went alone
till he came to the house of Jarl Thorir. And
when he came there, he found the house all
made ready for the marriage-feast: bright lights
in the hall, and the finest entertainment, and
Ketill the bridegroom there also. Thorgrim
came forward, and said, 'Hast thou, Ketill,
chosen to wed Olof ?' Ketill said that it was even
so. 'And did she give thee her consent?' said
Thorgrim. 'I deemed', said Ketill, 'that Jarl
Thorir could dispose of his own daughter, and
that a bargain would hold that was made with
him.' 'This say I', replied Thorgrim, 'that Olof
and I have plighted troth, and she hath promised
to have no man but me; or is that so, Olof?'
And Olof said it was even so. 'Then must I
have her', said Thorgrim. 'Her shalt thou never
have', cried Ketill; 'and I have had dealings
with greater men than thou art, and come not
off worse than they.' At that suddenly all the
lights went out, and there was great confusion
in the hall; and when the lights were brought
in, then was Olof vanished, and Thorgrim like-

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 159

wise. Then men seemed to know that he had
done this, and so it was, for he had bidden his
men put out the lights, and he had carried Olof
to his ship. Men thought that Ketill had taken
great shame from this, and the king made Thor-
grim an outlaw for what he had done.

Now that was the 'landnam-tide' in Iceland,
when men were taking land there, and Thorgrim
came to Iceland, to Snowfellsness. There dwelt
a man named Holmkell, a kindly man, whose
wife was Thorbjorg, a harsh woman. Their sons
were Jokull and Einar. Now Thorgrim bought
land close by HolmkelPs stead, and great friend-
ship grew up between them two. In Iceland
Thorgrim made the wedding-feast for Olof; and
there, a year later, was born their first-born son,
whom they called Trausti. A year later was
born their second, Viglund; and it happened
that in the same year was born a maid-child to
Holmkell and Thorbjorg, whom they named
Ketilrid: and it was said there was no fairer pair
in all these parts than Viglund and Ketilrid.
Now Thorgrim spared no trouble to teach his
sons manly deeds; but Thorbjorg loved not her
daughter Ketilrid, and would teach her none of
the arts of ladies. Wherefore it came about that
Holmkell gave Ketilrid to Thorgrim to foster;

l6o THE NORTHERN SAGA

and so she and Viglund grew up together. Olof
had a third child, a daughter Helga; and so it
was, that in all games they played, Viglund and
Ketilrid were on one side, and Trausti and
Helga on the other. And some men say that
Viglund bound himself by oath to Ketilrid; but
others say that she would none of that for fear
of her mother, yet told him that she would
choose him rather than any man.

Now is it to be told that Jokull and Einar
took after their mother, and behaved themselves
unwisely in that country: Holmkell liked their
ways ill, but they heeded not his advice, and
rather did worse the more he warned them.
They had a fighting-horse, brown of colour,
very wild and fierce, whose teeth were sharp and
terrible, like the teeth of no other horse. Viglund
had also a horse, tawny in colour, the best and
fairest in that neighbourhood; and of these
horses there will be a story later.

Now one day Einar came to his mother, and
said, '111 seems it to me that Thorgrim the Proud
has such renown in these parts: methinks if I
might deal an insult to Olof Star, that might
minish his pride much; or, if he sought venge-
ance therefor, it is not certain that he would
come out higher than F. She said that that was

THE STORY OF VIGLUND l6l

well said, and was even as she would have
desired. So one day, when Thorgrim was not
at home, Einar and his brother Jokull rode to
Thorgrim's stead. But OloPs handmaid spied
them coming, and deemed from their looks that
they were after no good; so she told Olof. And
Olof said, 'Take my mantle, and wrap thyself
therein, and sit at the high-seat, so that they
may think that thou art I; and I will see that
no harm befalls thee'. So the handmaid did;
and when the young men came to the door,
another servant told them that Olof was at the
high-seat. So they went thither, and thought it
was really Olof, and talked with her. Suddenly
in rushed a man with a drawn sword: he was
not tall, but very furious. 'Hence', said he, 'and
greet Thorgrim the Proud; for he is riding into
the garth!' They sprang up and looked, and
beheld Thorgrim with a throng of men: where-
upon they leapt on horseback and rode for their
lives. But soon it was spread abroad that the
man with the sword was Olof herself: wherefore
the young men got nothing but shame and
laughter from that journey. Thorgrim said to
Olof, 'Forasmuch as they did not get their end,
and for the love I bear to their father Holmkell,
I will seek no vengeance as at this time'.

L

1 62 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Now another day also Jokull and Einar rode
to Thorgrim's stead; and Jokull asked Viglund
whether he would give him the tawny horse.
'Not so', said Viglund. 'Then will you match
him against my brown?' said Jokull. 'That may
be5, said Viglund. 'I deem the horse then better
than given', said Jokull. 'Things do not always
go as one deems', answered Viglund; and then
they appointed a time for the horse-fight. When
the time came, the brown horse was brought
out, and it took both brothers to hold him, so
terribly did he behave. Next came out Viglund's
horse; and scarce had he seen the brown when
he rushed at him, and smote him so hard with
his forefeet that he dashed out all his dreadful
fighting- teeth; nor was it long before he dealt
so rudely with him that the brown fell down
dead. At this Jokull and Einar were so angry
that they took their weapons and attacked
Viglund; nor did they cease till Thorgrim and
Holmkell came up and parted them; but even
so one man had fallen of Viglund's company
and two of JokulPs. Holmkell and Thorgrim
still kept their friendship; and when Holmkell
heard of the love between Viglund and Ketilrid
he rejoiced thereat, but to his wife Thorbjorg
and her sons it was a bitterness. Soon was it said

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 163

abroad that no pair were the equals of Viglund
and Ketilrid in all that might become man and
maid.

It is told that one night Jokull and Einar
stole out to Thorgrim's stead, and came to the
pasture where was the tawny horse, and tried
to drive him and the other horses home. But
that could not be, for he resisted bravely; and
at last they grew so angry that they sought at
him with their weapons and tried to kill him.
Even so it was long ere they attained their end,
for he fought long with hoofs and teeth; yet at
last they brought it to this, that they slew him
with spear- thrusts. And then they feared to
drive the other horses home, for they saw that
men would know they had slain him; therefore
they dragged him over a cliff, trusting that it
would be thought he had fallen over and so
killed himself. Then they went home. Their
mother knew all they had done, and in truth
urged them on to it.

Now when Viglund and Trausti came to the
stables, they missed their horse, and found him
under the cliff; but such were his wounds, they
saw he had been slain, and they seemed to know
who had done it. But when they told Thorgrim,
he said, 'Keep yet the peace; if it so goes as I

164 THE NORTHERN SAGA

expect, they will do some other thing that will
entangle them'. And so it was: for not long
after, the oxen of Thorgrim were lost, and men
said that HolmkelPs sons had done that also.
And when Holmkell heard that said, and further
found out that it was even so, he took his horse
and rode to Thorgrim's house, and told him
that he deemed his sons had done Thorgrim
that scathe. 'Wherefore', said he, {I leave thee to
put thy loss at what sum thou wilt, and I will
pay it.' So Thorgrim put it at the sum he thought
just and fair; and he and Holmkell parted with
great friendship.

There was a woman named Kjolvor, who
dwelt at Hraunskarth : she was a great witch, in
every way ill-thought of and unholy in her deal-
ings, a great friend of Thorbjorg. Now Thor-
bjorg and her sons offered her a hundred in silver
to do some harm to Viglund and Trausti as she
saw best chance so to do; for they had great envy
of those brothers, and, moreover, they had heard
of the love between Viglund and Ketilrid. And
indeed Viglund and Ketilrid loved each other
dearly; for it is the nature of love to burn more
brightly the more men try to check it or wish it
harm; and so they continued loving till death.
Now Kjolvor knew that one day Viglund and

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 165

Trausti were out fishing with a man named
Bjorn: whereupon she went into her house and,
by her enchantments, made bad weather come
up over the sea. When Viglund saw it coming,
he said, 'That seems best to me, that we fare
home'. But Bjorn was so great a seaman that he
deemed no weather too bad to sail in; so he
said, 'We will not fare home till we have loaded
the ship with fish5. And Viglund said he should
be the master. Then came the bad weather —
wind, frost, storm, and hail; and Bjorn said,
'Now will we turn home'. 'It had been better
earlier', said Viglund, 'yet will we say naught
of that.' Trausti and Bjorn rowed, but made no
way, and the ship began to fill under them.
Then Viglund took the oars and bade Bjorn bale
and Trausti steer; and so mightily did he row
that they made land at Dinner Ness. Next day
they fared home, and Ketilrid rejoiced much to
see them, for she had thought them dead.

Now the story returns to Ketill in Norway:
he took ill the loss of Olof Star, and wished for
vengeance; but he grew old and could not take
it himself. His sons Sigurd and Gunnlaug grew
into mighty men, and his daughter Ingibjorg
was the fairest of women. Now a certain man of
the Vik sought Ingibjorg to wife: his name was

1 66 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Hakon; he was rich in money and strong of
his hands. Ketill said to him, 'I give thee my
daughter on this condition, that thou go first to
Iceland and kill Thorgrim'. So Hakon set sail;
and when he reached Iceland, Jokull and Einar
met him, and Hakon told them his errand. At
that they rejoiced greatly, and promised him, if
he killed Thorgrim, that he should have Ketil-
rid to wife. Then they took him to their home,
where Thorbjorg gave him good welcome, but
Holmkell liked things little.

Now after a time Hakon asked these brothers
where the fair woman was that they had pro-
mised to give him to wife, Tor I would fain
see her5. They said she was out fostering with
Olof the Star. Then Hakon asked that she might
be fetched home: 'And with your help I doubt
not then that she will take me to husband'. A
little later Thorbjorg said to Holmkell, That
will I, that Ketilrid should come home to us'.
'It seems to me', said he, 'that she is better
where she is.' 'Not so', said Thorbjorg; 'I would
rather seek her myself than that she should wed
Viglund; it is my wish that she marry Hakon.'
Now Holmkell thought it better to seek her him-
self than that Thorbjorg should go: wherefore
he set out. And when Viglund saw him coming,

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 167

he said to Ketilrid, 'Here is thy father; me-
thinks I know that he desires to flit thee home;
but I bid thee remember all our speech together,
and what we have plighted'. Ketilrid answered,
and wept much: 'Long have I thought that we
should not be able to be together: almost I
think it better we had said naught to each other;
and it is not clear that thou lovest me more than
I thee, though I say less thereof than thou. Now
I see that all this is my mother's doing; I have
had little love from her this long time, and
likely it is that our days of joy are over if she has
her way. Now either shall we see each other no
more, or my father's wish will prevail; and that
is not likely, for it is hard for him to strive
against my mother and my brothers, and they
are all set against my will.' Then Viglund kissed
Ketilrid, and it was easy to see that parting was
a grief to them both.

Now when Holmkell came, Ketilrid told him
that he should rule in this matter; and together
they rode home; but all in Thorgrim's house
were sad to lose her, for she was gracious to
every man. And at home, despite her mother,
she would have none of Hakon; and her father
Holmkell aided her therein; and so many days
passed in which she said no word to Hakon,

1 68 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Now about this time there were games at a
place called Esjutarn; and HolmkelPs sons came
to the sport with Ketilrid; Thorgrim's sons
also came. Ketilrid rejoiced to see them, and
talked long with Viglund. Then she said, 'I will
lengthen thy name, and call thee Viglund the
Fair; and I give thee this ring as a christening-
gift'. And Viglund gave her a ring in return.
Now this came to the ears of Jokull and Einar,
and they liked it ill: so Thorbjorg saw to it that
she went not out alone again.

In those games Viglund and Jokull came
against each other in the ball-game, and Vig-
lund threw the ball further than Jokull. At this
Jokull was wroth, and hurled the ball in Vig-
lund's face, so that the skin of his forehead was
all torn. Trausti bound it up with a piece of his
dress; and when that was done, Jokull and Einar
had gone off home. So Trausti and Viglund
went to their house, and when Thorgrim saw
them, he said, 'Welcome, son and daughter!'
'I am no daughter', said Viglund, 'though this
bandage makes me look like one.5 And they told
Thorgrim what had passed. 'And didst thou not
avenge thyself on Jokull?' said Thorgrim. 'He
was gone before I had finished bandaging the
wound', said Trausti. But the two brothers

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 1 69

waited not long for vengeance; for ere the games
were over, Viglund met Jokull and smote him
with the ball in the forehead, even as Jokull had
smitten him before. Jokull tried to strike Vig-
lund in return, but Viglund rushed in under his
arms, and threw him mightily to earth, so that
he lay stunned, and had to be carried home by
four men holding a sheet at the corners, and it
was some time ere he was whole.

And Viglund visited Ketilrid at her father's
house, and talked with her, and played tables.
Her brothers were then not at home, but when
they heard of his doings they lay in wait with
ten men to kill him and Trausti. Ketilrid saw
their ambush, and bade Trausti and Viglund to
go home some other way; but they answered,
'We will alter our purposes for no man'. So they
came to a certain stackyard, and there Jokull
and his men burst out upon them. And Jokull
said, "Tis well we have met; now will I take
vengeance for the fall thou gavest me and for
the blow5. 'Be it so', said Viglund; and fought
so well and bravely that he was the bane of two
men, while Trausti slew another. Then the other
nine drew off, and went back home, and told
Holmkell that Viglund and Trausti had with-
out cause slain three of his men. At this, for the

170 THE NORTHERN SAGA

first time, Holmkell was wroth; and, when
Hakon again asked for Ketilrid's hand, he re-
fused no longer. Hakon gave up all thought of
returning to Norway or of marrying Ingibjorg;
and he deemed also that he would never attain
to killing Thorgrim. But Ketilrid liked the mar-
riage ill, and when Viglund heard the news he
was sore pained at heart. And again he came
to her house, and she told him that it was
against her will that it had happened. 'And now
we must part; but go not home the way thou
earnest, for Hakon and my brothers, and men
beside, are waiting to kill thee.' 'Not so', said
Viglund, cfor it comes into my mind that now
Hakon and I must settle things between us for
ever.5 So he and Trausti went out, and he came
to the stack-house as before. There were twelve
men awaiting them, but the two brothers fought
hard and well, until at last there were left but
Jokull, Einar, and Hakon on the one side, and
the two sons of Thorgrim on the other. Then
said Jokull, 'Let Einar fight Trausti, and Hakon
Viglund; and I will sit by'. So Trausti fought
Einar, until both fell. Then Viglund fought
Hakon; this battle lasted long, for Viglund was
exceeding weary, and Hakon strong and cour-
ageous; yet it ended so that Hakon fell dead,

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 1 71

and Viglund was sore wounded. Then sprang
up Jokull: he was fresh and without wound,
and long did he fight with Viglund. Now Vig-
lund felt himself growing weak with loss of blood,
and thought he might fail to finish with Jokull
for his weakness; therefore he suddenly changed
his shield to his right arm and his sword to his
left, for he could use either hand equally, and
smote Jokull's arm off at the elbow. At that
Jokull went backwards, nor could Viglund
follow him for weakness; but he seized a spear
lying close by, and hurled it at Jokull; and it
came between his shoulders and out at the
breast: then Jokull fell down dead. As for Vig-
lund, he fainted from the blood-rush, and lay
there as it were a corpse.

Then men rode to HolmkelPs house and told
him the news that both his sons were killed, and
Hakon, and Thorgrim's sons also. And when
Ketilrid heard it she fell down in a swoon.
When she came to herself, her mother said,
'Now is revealed all thy love for Viglund, for
thou didst faint when thou heardest he was dead;
well is it that ye are now parted for ever'.
Holmkell said she had paled as much for her
brothers as for Viglund. 'Be that so or not', said
Thorbjorg, 'now seems it to me that we should

172 THE NORTHERN SAGA

gather men and kill Thorgrim the Proud.5 'Not
so', said Holmkell: 'little is Thorgrim's blame
for the death of our sons; and as for Viglund and
Trausti, what more could they lose than their
lives, which are lost already?'

Now Viglund and Trausti lay some while on
the field; but at last Viglund came to himself
and staggered to his brother, and saw that there
was still life in him. As he was wondering what
to do, for he was too weak to carry another, he
heard a slight moving over the ground, and he
looked and saw his father Thorgrim therein.
Thorgrim took them with him to a certain
underground dwelling, where their mother Olof
was: she bound their wounds and tended them
long in secret, until, after many months, their
hurts were healed. Nearly all men fancied they
were dead. Holmkell buried his sons in a ho we
called Kumli's Howe: he and Thorgrim divided
not their friendship, but were agreed to bring
the matter neither to law nor to private doom.
And so things were for a time.

Now the story shifts again to Norway. Men
came to Ketill and told him all that had hap-
pened: how that Hakon was dead and Thor-
grim yet unpunished. And forasmuch as Ketill
deemed it a shame to him that vengeance came

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 173

slowly, he bade his two sons, Sigurd and Gunn-
laug, take up the case and go to Iceland to kill
Thorgrim. Now both of them had taken vows:
Gunnlaug that he would refuse no man help if
it were a case of life and death, and Sigurd to
return no man evil for good. Little did they like
their errand, yet for their father's sake they set
sail. Now off the coast of Iceland there came a
great storm, and their ship was broken near to
Thorgrim's stead. Thorgrim heard of this, and
took them into his house, and gave them all they
needed. There Sigurd saw Helga, Thorgrim's
daughter; and some men said that love passed
between them, but that came not into wide
knowledge. Viglund and Trausti still lay hidden,
nor did KetilPs sons hear aught of them. One
day Gunnlaug said to Sigurd, 'Shall we not take
vengeance on Thorgrim? Methinks it were now
easy to do.' 'Speak never again thereof, said
Sigurd. 'That were to repay ill for good; for he
hath taken us in after our shipwreck, and helped
us in every way.' And Gunnlaug never spoke
thereof again.

Now when it had come about that Thor-
grim's sons were healed of their wounds, they
asked their father what it was best in his mind
that they should do. He answered, 'That seems

174 THE NORTHERN SAGA

to me good, that ye should embark on ship-
board with the brothers Sigurd and Gunnlaug,
and say, as is even true, that it is a matter of
life and death, and ask them for a faring from
Iceland: and, methinks, they will grant you this
request, for they are good men both'. And so
it was done. Men say that Ketilrid was sore
grieved that winter: she slept little and wearied
much. But that same night, when KetilPs sons
were due to set sail, went Viglund to her, and
Trausti also: great was her joy to see them. 'I
deem myself free of all ilP, said she, 'now that
ye are healed of your wounds.5 Then Viglund
told her of his purpose abroad; and she was glad
thereat. 'I rejoice that ye are safe5, said she,
'howsoever it goes with me.5 'Wed no other
man5, said Viglund, 'while I am hence.5 'That
will my father decide5, said she. 'I will never
go against his will; yet it may well be that I
shall find pleasure with no one as with thee.5
Then Viglund bade her trim his hair; and she
did so: whereupon he said, 'No other shall trim
my hair than thou while thou art in life5. Then
they kissed and parted; and easy was it to see that
it grieved them sore to sunder; yet so it had to be.
A little later Holmkell found his daughter
greeting much. He asked why it was so sad to

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 175

her. 'Dost thou wish me to avenge thy brothers?'
said he. 'Know of a truth that 'tis for thy sake I
have spared these other brethren; but if it be
thy will, I can easily have them slain.' 'So far is
my thought from that', quoth she, 'that I would
neither have had them outlawed nor have chosen
to send them penniless out of the country; nor
would I, were it in my choice, take any other
than Viglund to be my husband.' When Holm-
kell heard that, he took his horse and rode after
the brethren. When Trausti saw him, he said,
'Here rides Holmkell all alone; it were an easy
way, and not a noble way, to get Ketilrid, if
thou wert to slay Holmkell'. Viglund said, 'If
so were that I should never see Ketilrid again,
yet would I never harm Holmkell: small grati-
tude were such a deed for all the good that he
hath done me; and Ketilrid hath grief enough,
though her father be not slain — he who hath
willed her naught but happiness'. 'Thou hast
spoken well', said Trausti. Now Holmkell rode
past them and then turned back; and when
they came to where he turned, they saw there
money and a gold ring and a rune-stick carved,
whereon were cut all the sayings of Ketilrid and
Holmkell, and this besides, that she gave that
money to Viglund for his journey.

176 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Afterwards they went to the ship, and there
were Sigurd and Gunnlaug ready to sail, and
a land-breeze blowing. Viglund called to the
ship, and asked if Gunnlaug were on board, and
whether he would give him passage to Norway.
'Who are ye?' said Gunnlaug. £We are Vandred
and Torred', said they. 'What urges you to sail
abroad?5 said he. 'Our life lies on it', answered
they. 'Come into the ship', said he; and so did
they.

Now when they were some way out into the
sea, Gunnlaug asked the strong man why he
called himself Vandred. 'I called myself so',
said he, 'because great dread is round about me;
but my real name is Viglund and my brother's
is Trausti: we are the sons of Thorgrim the
Proud.' At that Gunnlaug was silent a space, and
then said, 'What is now to do, Sigurd? for well
I know that Ketill our father will have them
slain so soon as they come to Norway'. 'Surely',
said Sigurd, 'we must do to them even as their
father Thorgrim did to us — namely, that he
saved our lives.' 'That is nobly spoken', said
Gunnlaug, 'and so let us do.'

They had fair weather, and came easily to
Norway; and when they came to Raumsdale
Ketill was not at home. When he returned he

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 177

sat in his high-seat with his men around him;
then he greeted his sons. 'But who are these un-
known men?' Sigurd said, 'They are Viglund
and Trausti, the two sons of Thorgrim the
Proud5. £Up, men!5 cried Ketill, 'and seize
them: I would Thorgrim were with them, that I
could deal so with him!5 But Sigurd said, 'Not
so did Thorgrim deal with us, for he took us in
after shipwreck, and did to us even better than
the day before; and now wilt thou slay his sons,
though guiltless? Nay, for we will be their com-
rades, and one fate shall happen to the four of
us!5 Then said Ketill, 'I cannot fight with my
own sons5; and the wrath ran from him. Then
said Gunnlaug, 'This is my advice, that Thor-
grim keep his wife Olof, and that she have her
inheritance from her father Thorir; that Trausti
marry our sister Ingibjorg, and that Sigurd
marry Helga, Thorgrim's daughter5. To all did
that advice seem good; and according to that
advice was it done. They stayed there that
winter in great friendship; Trausti wedded
Ingibjorg, and in the summer they all went a-
harrying: all were men of renown, but Viglund
gained more renown than any; yet had he
little delight, for never was Ketilrid out of his
thoughts. So went three years by.

M

178 THE NORTHERN SAGA

Meanwhile strange things had happened in
Iceland. A man named Thord came to Holm-
kelPs stead, and asked the hand of Ketilrid; and
because of the urgings of Thorbjorg, and also be-
cause Viglund delayed, at last Holmkell gave
her to Thord; but she liked it ill. And that same
summer came Viglund home from his harrying;
and all the other men had their hair trimmed:
but he said, 'No other will I have to trim me,
save Ketilrid; so did I promise her when we
parted'. Then next summer they all came out
to Iceland, and told Thorgrim of the peace
made with Ketill, whereat Thorgrim rejoiced
greatly; but sad was Viglund when he heard
that Ketilrid had been betrothed to another
man. Still were his thoughts on her, so that
when he made lays on her, her name came both
at the beginning and at the end of his verses.

Now Viglund and Trausti set out to find the
dwelling of Thord. So they called themselves by
other names: Viglund called himself Orn, and
Trausti was Hrafn; and set sail. Long were they
on the voyage, for the wind was contrary. And
when they came thither, Thord received them
kindly, and bade Ketilrid do well by them. Now
Ketilrid knew Viglund, but Viglund did not
know that she knew him. Thord was stricken in

THE STORY OF VIGLUND 179

years, and, as old men will, he slept in the after-
noon: and Viglund came in with drawn sword,
and said to himself, 'How easily could I slay
him!' But Trausti had followed him, and said,
'Do not so ill as to kill a sleeping man, and him
old; bear thy fate manfully5. So Viglund put up
his sword; and all that winter, though he saw
Ketilrid many a time and oft, he said no word
of love to her.

Now, as summer came on, old Thord set out
from home, and came back with many men —
Thorgrim the Proud, and Olof his wife, and
Helga, and Holmkell, and others. Then Viglund
and Trausti received them in Thord's house.
And Thord stood up and spoke, 'Well know I
who ye are, Orn and Hrafn; ye are the sons of
Thorgrim; and I know well what was between
thee, Viglund, and Ketilrid. Now will I tell thee
who I am: I am Helgi, thy father's brother, and
I have taken Ketilrid only that she might be
given to no other: I have kept her here with
me, but married her not. Now, therefore, take her
at my hand: right sure I am that Holmkell will
refuse her not. For it is my advice that ye and
Holmkell be reconciled, and that ye live in
peace hereafter.'

And so it was: Viglund went up to Holmkell,

l8o THE NORTHERN SAGA

and a peace was made between them; and he
and Ketilrid were wedded with great splendour.
And here ceases this saga. To us who have copied
it, there seems much pleasure therein.

(Viglundar Saga.)

A skrok-saga, i.e. spurious: a specimen of
the false tales that arose when the genuine kind
was dying out. Other specimens are Finbow's
Saga and Frithjofs Saga, adapted by Tegner.

XIII
MASTER PIERS

THERE was a certain sea-captain once upon a
time who was known for his bravery and kind
heart: he used to put down and kill all the
pirates he met and let all good men go free. So
he was very well liked, and all the kings around
gave him what he wanted. One day he was in
his ship by the coast, and his cook had just begun
to boil a fowl for him. At this moment a certain
magician named Master Piers came on and said
to him, 'I have heard such good tales of thee
that I would fain do thee a good turn: wouldst
thou like to be king over some country?'

The captain answered, 'I have never let my
thoughts run so high5.

'Wouldst thou', says Piers, 'become a king if
thou hadst the choice?'

'Of course', said he.

'Wouldst thou reward him well through
whom it came to thee?'

181

1 82 THE NORTHERN SAGA

'Of a surety', said the captain.

Piers said, 'Wouldst thou give him ten marks
a year?'

'Ten, or two hundred, if he liked.'

'I ask no more than ten', said Piers.

'That I promise willingly', said the captain;
and therewith they parted.

Piers went on until he came to a certain
city where the king had died, leaving behind
him his queen and his three-year-old son. The
people were just then choosing a king, and it
seemed good to all that the son should follow his
father. Hereupon Piers stood up and began to
speak.

'True it is', said he, 'that the son should suc-
ceed the father; but now the son is too young
either to rule us or to defend us, more especially
if the pirates attack us. Have ye not heard
tidings thereof?' They answered 'No'.

He said, 'I have heard that a great host is
come to the land, and ye yourselves can see
that the bays are full of ships. Therefore it is
fitting that you take a brave captain to rule
over you; for the pirates will not spare to take
your queen and your goods.'

The men saw that he said true, for the bays
were floating with ships, and fear filled their

MASTER PIERS 183

hearts: so they asked Piers what chief he had in
his mind to rule them. Piers told them how that
there was no other so fitting as the aforesaid sea-
captain for bravery and wisdom, and how far
he passed other men. It came to this, that the
men chose him to be king, and to this the queen
agreed. Then went Piers back to the captain,
and told him that he now had the choice of
becoming king if he would give him the ten
marks every year. The captain consented, and
straightway gave him the money.

The sea-captain went to the city, where he
was chosen king, and took the queen to wife.
So mighty was his name that the pirates who
had come to the land fled at once, nor did any
man know what had become of them. Thus
passed the first year.

At the end of the year, to a day, came Piers
to the palace and saluted the king, who re-
ceived him kindly.

Piers said, 'I am come to receive my money
ofthee'.

'Right', said the king; 'here it is, ready', and
weighed out to him ten marks of gold; but to
the courtiers that seemed strange.

So passed a second year.

A second time, on the same day of the year,

184 THE NORTHERN SAGA

came Piers, and asked for his money; but now
there is great murmuring among the courtiers
that this stranger should be asking tribute of
the king; they say also that some ill secret must
lie behind it. When the king heard that, he told
Piers to come no more for his money; yet he
gives him, for this time, his ten marks. Piers
answered that he would come whatsoever the
king said, took his money, and fared thence.

So passed the third year.

The third time, on the same day of the year,
came Piers to the king and asked for his ten
marks. But the courtiers murmured exceedingly
that their king should be such a slave to this
man.

When the king heard that, he said to Piers,
with anger, 'Thou art a rogue and a rascal to
dare to ask money of me, and to repay so ill the
kindness I have shown thee. Cease thy villainy,
or somewhat will happen to thee that thou
likest not.'

Piers answered, 'Think not that thy threat-
enings will make me cease to claim my own
goods'.

The king said, Then it is not unlikely that
I have thee seized, and, perhaps, it may be that
thou be slain'.

MASTER PIERS 185

'Rememberest thou', said Piers, 'where we
met the first time?'

'I remember it well', said the king.

'Then\ said Piers, £thou wast but a sea-cap-
tain, and men said that thou wast a just man
and not very avaricious; but now, when thou art
a king and mayest do as thou wilt, thou art
unjust and a miser; and, forasmuch as I have
proved thee what thou art, I tell thee that the fowl
is boiled.'

Instantly the king looked round, and, be-
hold! he was again in his ship, and all his
adventures — his kingship of three years, his
marriage with the queen, and all else — were
nothing but an illusion that Master Piers had
raised; nor had it lasted longer than the time it
took for the fowl to boil, for Piers had meant to
prove him and see what sort of man he would
be when he could do according to his will.

Another time there was a rich chief whose
name was Prince, great in wealth and fond of
arraying himself in fine apparel; his horses also
were better than other men's. It chanced that
one day he rode from his house with twelve
attendants through a wood, himself and all the
twelve being very gaily apparelled. And as they
rode through the wood they saw a man riding

1 86 THE NORTHERN SAGA

towards them who seemed to them tall and
strong. His horse was so fine that they thought
they had never seen its like either in size or in
beauty; and the man's dress, also, was far above
what they had ever beheld. And as they were
coming towards each other, small wonder it is
that they speedily met.

Straightway spake Prince to this man. 'It
seems to me, friend', said he, 'that thy apparel,
and horse, and weapons befit not a low-born
man: I will therefore give thee my own apparel
and weapons, and gold beside, if thou wilt give
me thine in return.'

The stranger said, 'I care not to have thy
horse or raiment rather than mine own; let
each keep what was his before'.

Prince replied, 'Whether thou give it or sell
it, needs must that it be mine'.

He answered, 'Though thou take all I have,
yet will not thy greed be diminished; neither
will I give unless I be compelled — which,
indeed, may easily be, for I am one and ye
thirteen'.

So they alighted from their horses and laid
hands on him, stripping him of his clothes and
laying on him those of Prince; whereupon they
departed, each his own way.

MASTER PIERS 187

Now to one of Prince's men, and him the
wisest, it seemed not altogether as it did to the
others. Wherefore, taking a magic crystal from
his pouch — through the which looking none
could be deceived — he looked through it, and
lo! his master, Prince, was riding on a hobby-
horse of rubbish and brambles, tied together
with thorns and straw, and Prince himself was
dressed in rags and tatters. Now, deeming his
own eyes might have deceived him, he called a
companion, and bade him also look through the
crystal — to whom also the same appeared.
Whereupon they called Prince and bade him
look through, which doing, he was furiously
angry, and made them ride after that vagabond
thief who had thus cheated him; and, as he was
not far before them, they soon overtook him,
laid hands on him, and carried him bound to
Prince, who, seeing him, told him he had
cheated in their bargain. But Master Piers — for
it was he — said there had been no bargain.

'Nay', said he, ' 'twas thy own greed had made
me turn to my enchantments; for hadst thou not
wished to rob me, then had I not bewitched
thine eyes to fancy me so apparelled.'

Then Prince, being angry, dragged Piers with
him to a certain bridge nigh the sea, meaning

1 88 THE NORTHERN SAGA

to hang him thereon; and so closely did his
men hold him that they thought him as good as
dead for all his magic and enchantments.

But Piers looked up and spake. CI am bound',
said he, 'yet will I be loose.5 Whereupon he sat
loose upon the bridge. Then it seemed as if he
took a piece of chalk out of his pouch and drew
a ship upon the wall, with all the tackling that
a ship should have: whereupon suddenly behind
them they heard a great ship riding through the
waves, and, looking, they saw Master Piers
upon that ship, hoisting sail. Then Master Piers
and the ship sailed away out of their sight.

And this is the second story of Master Piers
and his enchantments; but there is a third to
come, which is as follows.

There were once on a time in a far country
two brethren, who had taken the rule thereof
after their father: the name of the one was
William, and of the other Eric. Their sister was
named Ingibjorg, the fairest of women, and
gifted in most arts. Their counsellor was Piers,
who had chief share, under those brethren, in
guiding the land. He had asked the hand of
Ingibjorg, but they refused to give her to him,
for that he was a man of no wealth or name,
though of all men the keenest in mind. It is not

MASTER PIERS 1 89

told that the brethren were greatly wise. Now
their sister had a bower apart from the palace,
where she took her meals with her ladies. And
Master Piers had made it a condition with the
princes that from the moment he went to dinner
till evening none should come to him for advice
or say a word to him; for he desired to have that
time to himself, and to be free from business.
Now there were certain courtiers of those princes
who greatly envied Master Piers the honour he
enjoyed, and sought occasion to set him at odds
with their lords. And it happed one day that
the brethren were going out at the time of
evening meal, and came nigh Ingibjorg's bower,
whence they heard a sound of great joy: where-
fore they came into the garth to know what was
the cause. And looking through a window they
saw their sister with Master Piers; and it seemed
to them that the twain took great pleasure in
each other's company; and they deemed they
had sufficient occasion now against Master
Piers. Wherefore, hastening home, they went to
the dining-hall, and there sat Master Piers ac-
cording to his wont, with two servants waiting
on him as he was at meal. They could not tell
what this meant, and did not dare to speak of
it at that time, but thought they would wait

1 90 THE NORTHERN SAGA

till they knew what the truth was. So they de-
parted; but another evening they went again to
the bower, and saw once more Master Piers
and the maiden blithely talking to each other;
and hasting back, found as before Master
Piers sitting at table, after his custom. And yet
they were sure of this, that he could not be in
two places at once. So they entered the hall and
spoke to him; but he answered not a word; so
that they were more than ever at a loss as to
what was the truth. At length, gaining courage,
they tried to touch him, but could not, and per-
ceived that the room was empty and that he was
not there. Then, in a rage, calling their men,
they rushed to the bower, and broke in. The
princess, hearing the noise, said to Piers, 'Thou
art a dead man!5 Tear not', said he; and throw-
ing over him a blue cape which he wore daily,
lay down calmly in the high-seat. The princes,
coming in, searched a while, and then found
him. Then said William, 'Let me now repay him
for the shame he hath done us, for I am the
elder brother5; and straightway hewed him into
pieces. The blood poured over the floor; but so
furious were they that they forbade their sister
to cleanse it: and so departed. The princess fell
fainting to see her lover so vilely handled. But

MASTER PIERS

it was no long while ere she came to herself; and
lo! there was Master Piers coming towards her,
whole and unwounded. How it was in truth
she knew not, but deemed him some after-
ganger. Tear not', said he; £I am hale and liv-
ing: when William hewed at me he was really
hewing at a stock in the hall, and not a blow
did I receive; such a glamour did I cast upon
them all.' And she, casting her eyes around, saw
there was not a drop of blood in the place.
'Save thyself, said she: Tor they are still not far
off.' 'First', said he, £we will dress ourselves for
abroad, and then go to the palace': and so did
they. And when the princes saw them, they
wondered sore what device had foiled them;
and bade their men seize Piers and put him in
irons: which was forthwith done. Then, calling
a great company, they dragged him to a wood,
where they meant to slay him. But when they
reached the appointed place, Master Piers said,
'I am bound; but henceforth I will be free. Ye
brothers are but fools: I asked the hand of your
sister, and ye denied me, for ye thought me
low-born in comparison with yourselves. Now
though I have less gold than ye, yet have I far
more wisdom, and had ye yielded to my desire
ye might have used my wisdom for ever, for I

THE NORTHERN SAGA

would never have left you. But as it is, ye are
doomed to ill-luck and evil fame.5 And then it
seemed to them that he took a ball of string out
of his pouch, and threw it into the air; and
holding one end of the string, wound it up, and
so vanished from their sight; nor did they ever
see him thenceforward.

(From Gering's Islenzk Aeventyri.}

XIV
THE THREE COMPANIONS

ONCE upon a time there met together in a hunt
a king's son, a duke's son, and an earl's son.
They were all strong and of full growth, though
none had as yet succeeded to his father's place.
Now it chanced that the deer were so swift, and
the young men so eager in the chase, that they
were parted from their attendants, and found
themselves alone in a laund or clearing in the
wood. Then said the king's son, 'How to pass
the time, seeing we have neither meat nor drink?'
'Decide thou', said the others. 'Then', said he,
'let each of us tell the story of the greatest
danger he hath ever been in during his life; and
thou, earl's son, begin.'

So the earl's son began, and spake as follows.
'Some time since I set forth on a visit, having but
one servant with me. Now the way ran along a
steep ghyll, and, being eager to see the maiden
I was visiting, I set my horse to a gallop; but a

193 N

194 THE NORTHERN SAGA

loose stone twisted under his hoof, and he fell
sideways over the cliff, throwing me out of the
saddle so that I was caught on a projecting
ledge of the cliff. As for the horse, the precipice
was so deep that I never heard where he fell
down to. There was such a long and steep over-
hanging rock above me that I gave myself up for
lost. While I was looking round for a way of
escape I heard my servant come along; and loud
were his cries when he saw where I had fallen,
for he made sure that I was dead. I shouted out
and told him to stay where he was; but even so
I could see no way of safety, for the rock was as
smooth as glass, and even on hands and knees
I could not have climbed a yard. At last a
sudden thought struck me. Feeling in my pocket
I found there a needle and thread, without
which no one in our country ever goes abroad.
Then with my knife I slit a few strips off my
cape, and, sewing these together, made a toler-
ably long rope. To one end of this I tied a stone
which I broke from the cliff, and then, exerting
all my strength, threw it up towards the mouth
of the ravine. Whether it was by good luck, or
because God was willing to grant me a longer
life, the stone went up over the edge of the cliff,
and my servant caught it. He was thus able to

THE THREE COMPANIONS 195

let down another stronger rope to me, by which
I climbed up the side of the rock and so was safe.
That was the greatest danger that ever I was in:
and so ends my story.'

The king's son answered, 'You showed great
presence of mind in getting out of so dangerous
a place; but now it is the turn of the duke's son
to tell his tale'.

The duke's son answered, 'I was in love with
the daughter of a certain rich man, who lived
an hour's ride from my father's house. When our
affection had lasted some time, she took a seri-
ous illness, so that she seemed to know her end
was near. Accordingly, she sent a confidential
messenger to bid me come and visit her. As you
may imagine, I hastened to be by her side, and
found her all alone. I thought that she wished
to talk to me in private; and at first indeed she
did speak of her love for me; but afterwards she
said, "I wish you would unlock yonder chest, my
love, that stands at the end of my bed, because
in it there is something that I wish to entrust to
you alone". I did so, and found the chest empty,
except for some shavings and sawdust, which I
tried to search in. As I bent down to do so, I was
suddenly seized and pushed right into the box,
which was instantly locked over me. Then my

196 THE NORTHERN SAGA

lover sent for her father, and said to him, "It is
fated, father, that you and I must soon part; but I
wish to ask one favour of you, that you will have
that box there carried to my grave, and buried
under my coffin: for I have put into it that
which I am determined no one else shall enjoy
after I am dead; and I desire also that no one
should know what is inside". The father replied
that he would see it done, though there were
three chests instead of one. I thought my case a
hard one, and yet I held my peace; for shame
seemed to me even harder to bear than being
buried alive. There is no need to waste words:
she died, and soon after was borne to the church-
yard, to which I also was carried in the chest. I
was let down into the grave below her; the grave
was rilled up and everybody went away. Now,
as I heard afterwards, the rumour was spread
abroad widely that the great chest must hold gold
and jewels ; for the girl had loved them much dur-
ing life. This rumour came to the ears of certain
thieves, strong and vigorous men, who accord-
ingly came to the grave next night, opened it,
and pulled out both the coffin and the chest.
When this was done, they deliberated some time
as to what to do; for my chest was iron-bound:
so at last they decided to set it on end and stave

THE THREE COMPANIONS 197

a side in with hammers. Here, then, I was in
great danger of being killed with their blows;
and therefore, as soon as the side was stove in,
I set up a great cry: whereupon the thieves,
thinking I was a ghost or the devil, ran away
as fast as their legs could carry them. But they
had loosened the chest so much that, though
with some difficulty, I got out. Then I threw
chest and coffin again into the grave, and made
all much as it was before: after which I slunk
away home. That was the greatest danger I ever
was in: and so ends my story.'

The king's son answered, 'You were indeed
in such danger that it is hard to imagine a
greater; and indeed you hit on a strange sort of
sweetheart, if her love could change so soon to
murderous hate. But I will tell you my story,
which also begins with a sweetheart, though she
was not to blame for what happened. She lived
not far from a certain abbey belonging to the
Benedictines. I used often to ride over that way.
Now it happened — as such things will — that my
father's judges had condemned to the gallows
three of the worst robbers that ever were known;
and the three gibbets stood not far from the
road that I used to ride. The night after they
were hanged I rode that way, for I thought

198 THE NORTHERN SAGA

myself brave enough not to be afraid of dead
men. Now, when I came right opposite the
gibbet of the worst robber of the three, he sud-
denly called out to me, and said, "O kind sir,
release me from this torment! I was condemned
on a false charge, and therefore I cannot die:
come then and cut the rope with your sword."
The villain spoke in so honest a tone that I
thought he must be telling the truth; and so I
went nearer. But when I saw his face, it was so
devilish that I was sure he must be lying; and
so I turned away. But he called after me, and
told me not to be afraid. "What shame", he
said, "it will be if you let an innocent man die!"
To cut a long story short, I went back again, and
a second time drew away from him; but the
third time I went and cut the rope over his head.
Then he fell down, and I set spurs to my horse
to ride away; but a little after I heard a horrible
sound behind me, and looking back saw that
the demon had torn up the gallows and flung
it over his shoulder, and was pursuing me at a
great pace and with terrific howls. I spurred my
horse to his fastest, and rode for dear life; but I
soon saw that it could not be long before I was
overtaken. Now my course brought me to the
churchyard of the abbey. I threw myself clean

THE THREE COMPANIONS 199

off the saddle and over the wall; and, as I knew
the church well, I found the door and slipped
in, locking the door behind me. Here I thought
I was safe; but the fiend soon came to the door,
and banged so furiously at it that it seemed to
me as if it must soon fall. "Unlock the door", he
cried; "your flight shall serve you ill; I will pay
you out for that blow before we part." But, in
spite of everything, I would not unlock it. When
he saw that, he cried with a loud voice, "Com-
rade, lying in the church, rise up and help me
to catch him!" At this I was ware that a dead
man lay near me; and at the call of the fiend he
rose up and opened the door. Then both began
to seek me; but I, knowing that to resist would
have been useless, took to flight. I held my
sword in front of me, and cut off great pieces of
their strange weapons; for one had the gallows
and the other the board on which he had been
lying. I ran right along the nave and into the
choir and at last to the high altar. I was so tired
that I could do no more. The church was well
windowed; and the night was moonlit, so that
I could see plainly. I gave myself into the hands
of God, threw away my sword, and leant my-
self backwards against the altar. Nor did our
Saviour Christ abandon me in my misery: for

2OO THE NORTHERN SAGA

the fiend that had sought me longest sank down
into the ground, and the other gathered together
the pieces I had hewn off his board and lay down
again on his tombstone. And soon thereafter I
stole from thence, and found my horse, thanking
God for all His mercies, and purposing thence-
forward to live a pure and good life. And that
was the worst danger that ever I was in. And so
ends my story.'

All agreed that of the three perils this was the
worst, and the one wherein God's favour was
the most clearly shown.

(From Gering's Islenzk Aeventyri.}

This story and the preceding are examples
of later Icelandic tale-telling.

APPENDIX

FOR the benefit of any who may desire to carry their
studies further, the following brief notes, which do
not pretend to be exhaustive, are subjoined.

Those who have time and inclination to learn the
language might begin with Sweet's Icelandic Primer.
Noreen's very comprehensive Grammar will follow
later. As reading-books, Heusler's %wei Islander-
Geschichten (Hen-Thorir and Bandamanna Saga) and
Mogk's Gunnlaug's Saga are excellent. These mastered,
Vigfusson and Powell's Oxford Reader or Mobius's
Analecta Norroena will be found useful. After them the
student can roam at pleasure.

For the English reader, Craigie's Icelandic Saga (in
the Cambridge Manuals), followed by the admirable
Prolegomena to Vigfusson and Powell's Sturlunga
Saga, will supply a full history of the literature.
Ker's Epic and Romance is, as might be expected,
learned, accurate, and judicial. Chadwick's Heroic
Age, discussing the 'Homeric' literature of all nations,
inevitably takes in the Icelandic. Du Chaillu's Viking
Age gives copious translated extracts from the sagas,
and both text and illustrations are very informative.

FOR THE SEPARATE SAGAS. — Njala, the greatest,

201

202 THE NORTHERN SAGA

and a work worthy of comparison with Homer or
Herodotus, is almost an English classic in Dasent's
version. TheEveryman edition is cheap and accessible;
but the reader should, if possible, procure the original
edition from a good library.

Laxdaela — translated byMrs.Press,Temple Classics.
Straightforward and sound. William Morris's Lovers
of Gudrun (in the Earthly Paradise) tells a large portion
of this story.

Gisli — translated by Dasent (hard to obtain).
Beatrice Helen Barmby's excellent dramatic poem,
Gisli Sursson, should be read. (Beatrice Barmby, con-
fined to her couch by illness for many years, found
consolation in a close study of the sagas.)

Gretti — rough and uncouth in places, translated by
Morris. There is a useful paraphrase, with personal
comments based on knowledge of Iceland, by Baring-
Gould (Grettir the Outlaw}.

Such sagas as bear on English history (Orkney,
Harald Hardrada, Heming — including one setting
of the William Tell myth — Earl Ronald, etc.) were
edited and translated by Vigfusson and Dasent for
the Rolls Series, but are not easily accessible. (From
this I have taken the tale of Lodin. The Norse story
of Stamford Bridge is given by Freeman in his Old
English History.}

Some of the greater sagas (Eyrbyggja and Faerey-
inga among them) have been translated by Sephton
and York Powell in more or less expensive publica-
tions.

APPENDIX 2O3

Volsunga, the most famous of the mythical sagas, is
not in itself of high merit. It is really but a prose para-
phrase of the short epics contained in the so-called
Elder Edda, some of which it quotes verbatim. These
poems are, in their way, of the highest order. The
prose saga is translated by Morris in the Camelot
Classics (Walter Scott): cheap and good. On this
saga, with help from the poems, Morris based his
great epic The Story of Sigurd', and Wagner, blending
this setting of the tale with the High-German Nibe-
lung poems, made the whole into the libretto of his
operatic cycle.

Several of the smaller sagas (Hen-Thorir, Howard
the Halt, Bandamanna Saga, and others) translated by
Morris and Magnusson. The style of these, however,
in my opinion at least, is somewhat unfortunately
affected by that love of an antiquated vocabulary
which marks so many of Morris's later writings.

Vigfusson and Powell, in their Origines Islandicae
(Oxford Press: a monumental work in two large
volumes), give text and translation of a very large
number of the sagas. The reader will notice here the
occasional emergence of that perverted ingenuity
which somewhat mars the enormous learning of
Vigfusson, and which appears also in the Corpus
Poeticum Boreale. But the work is of immense value.

A few of the less-known Icelandic stories have been
rendered by Nora Kershaw (Mrs. Chadwick) for the
Cambridge University Press.

The Lives of the Kings of Norway, largely the work

2O4 THE NORTHERN SAGA

of Snorri Sturluson (on which Carlyle based his last
work), translated by Laing.1

Frithjof's Saga (a 'skrok-saga5, or spurious tale) was
chosen by the modern Swedish poet Tegner as the
theme of an epic. This poem has been issued in
English under the same title. I am told by Swedish
scholars it is a fairly successful version.

One of the two settings of the saga of Eric the Red
(narrating the story of the discovery of America) is
versified in Lowell's Voyage to Vinland.

The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (from
which, at one or two removes, Shakspere drew the
plot of Hamlet2) was written in Latin; but it perhaps
concerns us here, as it contains an immense and inter-
esting collection of the old mythical and legendary
tales of the North. The best portion (books i.-ix.),
translated by York Powell and Oliver Elton, will
repay the closest study.

The selections in this book, omitting as they do the
greatest works, should be read in connection with
some of these translations. They do, however, give a
fair idea of the saga style from the mythical days,
through the historical times, down to the time of the
skrok-saga and the borrowed tale of the class of the
Gesta Romanorum. Thus Rolf Kraki is mythical, Kormak
rough and barbarous, Hallbjorn anecdotal, Bjarni
historic, Viglund spurious, Piers a specimen of the
universal folk-tale.

1 See Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn.
* See also Gollancz's Hamlet in Iceland for the history of the
Hamlet saga.

APPENDIX 205

In reading these, or any of the sagas (indeed in
reading any ancient work), it is well to remember that
printing and typographical aids to style did not exist.
Much that would now go into notes and appendices
had then to find a place in the text: hence an abrupt-
ness which modern writers easily avoid. (There are
whole passages, e.g. in Njala, as in the Bible and in
Thucydides, which the student should mentally con-
sign to brackets or small print.)

Aj, which is often in the manuscripts written i,
should be pronounced as English^.

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