Six Sagas of Adventure (25 page)

be ripped from its mount,

may the sails be shredded

and slammed to the deck,

and all your tackle

be torn to pieces,

unless you give up your hatred

of Herraud,

and seek to settle

with my son Bosi.

If you go riding out,

may the reins tangle,

the horses hobble

and the hacks break down,

and may all the streets

and straight pathways

carry you right into

the clutches of trolls,

unless you offer shelter

to my son Bosi,

and give up your hatred

of Herraud.
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May your bed burn you

like blazing straw,

and your high seat

heave like the waves;

yet for you it will

be worse by far,

if you want man’s pleasure,

playing with maids:

you’ll lose the way—

do you want more?

The king answered, “Shut up and go away, you demon, or else I’ll have you maimed for your curses.”

“Now that we’ve met,” said Busla, “we won’t part before I get my way.”

The king wanted to stand up, but he was stuck fast to the bed, and his pages didn’t wake up. Busla spoke the second third of the prayer, and I’ll pass on writing it down, because no one has any need to repeat it, and it’s least likely to be repeated if it’s not written. Still, this is the beginning of it:

May trolls and elves

and treacherous norns,

bogies and bluff-giants

burn your halls,

storm-giants hate you,

stallions hump you,

straws sting you,

storms madden you,

woe be to you,

unless my will is done.

When her recitation was done, the king said to her, “Rather than having you curse me any longer, I’ll spare Herraud’s life, but Bosi is to leave the country and be killed when I get my hands on him.”

“Then I’ll do you one better,” said Busla. She began the verse that’s called “Syrpa’s Verse.”
[14]
The most powerful magic is hidden in it, and reciting it after sunset is not allowed. This appears near the end:

Six men come here.

Say their names to me,

all unbound,

as I will show you.

If you don’t solve this

so it seems correct,

then hounds from Hell

shall harry you,

and your soul

sink into torment.

“Interpret this name correctly, or else all the worst things I have prayed for will take effect on you, unless you do my will.”
[15]

When Busla had finished the prayer, the king hardly knew how to respond to her persuasions. “What is your will now?” said the king.

“Send them on a dangerous mission,” said the old crone, “where it’s doubtful whether they’ll succeed, and let them answer for themselves.”

The king ordered her to leave, but she wouldn’t do that until the king swore an oath to her in good faith that he would keep his promises, and then Busla’s Prayer would have no effect on him. Then the old crone went away.

CHAPTER VI

The next morning, the king got up early and had the assembly summoned, and Herraud and Bosi were led there. The king asked his counsellors what he should do with them. Most of them begged him to spare Herraud.

Then the king said to Herraud, “You don’t respect me, but I will now do as my friends ask, so that Bosi shall be assured of safety for both life and limb. He must leave this land, and not return before he has brought me a vulture’s egg, inscribed all over with golden letters on the outside. Then we two will be reconciled. If he does not, he is to be called worthless by everyone. Let Herraud go wherever he wants, travel with Bosi or make whatever plans for himself he wishes, because we will not be living together.”

Bosi and Herraud were both set free. They went to Thvari’s home and stayed with him over the winter. When spring came, they prepared to leave the country. They had one ship and a crew of twenty-four men. They traveled in much the way that Busla suggested, and headed for the Eastern realms and arrived at Bjarmaland,
[16]
where they anchored alongside a desolate forest.

CHAPTER VII

Harek was the name of the king who ruled over Bjarmaland at the time. He was married and had two sons; one was named Hraerek, and the other was Siggeir. They were mighty champions, retainers of King Godmund of Glaesisvellir and guardians of his lands. The king’s daughter was named Edda. She was lovely to see, and quite knowledgeable about most things.

Now we must tell how the sworn brothers reached Bjarmaland and the forest called the Dvina Forest. They pitched their tents on land, very far from the traveled regions. In the morning, Bosi told his men that he and Herraud would go ashore and search the forest and find out what they could. “You should wait for us here for a month, and if we don’t come back, you should sail wherever you want to.” Their men felt this was terrible, but it had to be as they wanted.

Then the sworn brothers went to the forest. All they had for food was the animals and birds that they shot, and sometimes they had nothing but berries and tree sap. The forest quite ruined their clothes.

One day they came to a certain farmstead. There stood an old man outside, splitting planks. He greeted them and asked their names. They told him their real names and asked his name, and he said that he was called Hoketil. He told them that a night’s lodging awaited them if they wanted it, and they accepted. The old man went with them to the main room of the house, and there weren’t many people there. The lady of the house was rather elderly. They had a beautiful daughter; she took off their guests’ clothes, and they were brought dry clothes. Then washbasins were set out, and the table set for them. They were given good ale to drink, and the farmer’s daughter served them. Bosi often glanced and smiled towards her, and touched his feet to hers, and she played the same game with him.

In the evening they were shown to their rest in soft beds. The husband slept in a bed-closet, and the farmer’s daughter in the middle of the house. The sworn brothers were shown to a bed at the gable-end of the house, up against the doors. But when the folk were asleep, Bosi stood up and went to the farmer’s daughter’s bed and lifted the covers off her. She asked who was there. Bosi told her his name.

“Why have you come here?” she said.

“Because my bed wasn’t comfortable”—and he said that he wanted to get under the covers next to her.

“What do you want to do here?” she said.

“I want you to battle-harden my jarl,” said Bow-Bosi.

“What jarl is that?” she said.

“He’s young, and has never been put to the test before. But a jarl should be tested at a young age.”
[17]

He gave her a gold ring and got into bed next to her. She asked where the jarl was. He asked her to reach between his legs, but she pulled her hand back and said to hell with his jarl, and asked why he was carrying that frightening thing with him, as hard as a log. He said that it would soften up in the dark hole. She asked him to go on in any way he wanted. Now he set the jarl between her legs. The path there wasn’t very wide, but he succeeded in his journey, all the same.

Now they lay for a while, as they pleased, before the farmer’s daughter asked whether the battle-hardening had succeeded for the jarl. He asked whether she wanted to harden him again, and she said that she’d like that very much, if he felt that he needed it. It isn’t said how often they played that game that night, but it’s said that Bosi asked whether she knew “where they should search for the vulture’s egg, with golden letters written on the outside, which we sworn brothers have been sent to find.”

She said that the least she could do to repay him for the gold ring and the night’s excellent entertainment was to tell him what he wanted to know. “But who was so angry with you that he wanted you dead and sent you on this dangerous mission?”

“Not everything goes badly, and no one wins fame from doing nothing,” he said. “And many things often turn out to bring good fortune, though they begin perilously.”

CHAPTER VIII

“Here in this forest there stands a huge temple. King Harek, who rules over Bjarmaland, owns it. The god named Jomali is worshipped there,
[18]
and there’s plenty of gold and treasures. The king’s mother, who’s named Kolfrosta, rules over the temple. She’s been made so powerful by sacrifices that nothing takes her unawares. She knows by her magic arts that she won’t live through the month. For that reason, she shape-shifted and traveled to Glæsisvellir, and stole away Hleid, the sister of King Godmund, intending that she should be the temple-priestess after her. But that’s a terrible thing, for Hleid is the loveliest and most courtly of all maidens, and it would be better if she could be spared.”

“What sorts of dangers are in the temple?” said Bosi.

“There’s a vulture there,” she said, “so baleful and fierce that it kills everything that gets close to it. It directly faces the doors and notices anything that comes in, and whatever encounters its talons or venom has no hope of surviving. There’s a slave in the temple who sees to the priestess’s food. She needs a two-year-old heifer every time she eats. Under this vulture is the egg that you’ve been sent to get. There’s a bull in the temple that’s received so many sacrifices that it’s been turned into a monster. It’s fettered with iron bands. It’s supposed to mount the heifer, and venom will be mixed into her, and everyone who eats her meat will be turned into a troll. She’s going to be fed to Hleid the king’s sister, and then she’ll turn into a troll just like the temple-priestess had been. I don’t think you’re likely to beat these monsters, with such powerful sorcery as you’ll have to deal with.”

Bosi thanked her for her story, and banged her one more time
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as a reward for her entertainment. It was good for them both. They slept until daylight. In the morning, Bosi went to Herraud and told him what he had heard. They stayed there for three nights, and the farmer’s daughter told them how to get to the temple, and she wished them well when they left. They went on their way.

Early one morning, they saw a tall man walking, wearing a gray cloak and leading a cow. They realized that that must be the slave, and they crept up on him. Bosi struck him with a club, so hard that it killed him. Then they killed the heifer and flayed off her skin and stuffed it with moss and heather. Herraud put on the slave’s cloak and dragged the cowskin after him, and Bosi spread his own cloak over the slave and carried him on his back until they saw the temple. Then Bosi took his spear and stuck it up the slave’s arse and all the way through his body, so that the point was left sticking out between his shoulders.

Now they went to the temple. Herraud entered the temple wearing the slave’s outfit. The priestess was inside, asleep. He led the heifer into a stall and turned the bull loose. The bull mounted the heifer, but the moss-stuffed skin wasn’t weighted in front, and the bull drove his head into the wall and broke off both horns. Herraud gripped him by both ears, and by the lips, and wrenched his neck until it broke.

The ogress awoke and leaped to her feet. At that moment, Bosi entered the temple, carrying the slave on the spear up over his head. The vulture reacted quickly and plunged out of its nest, wanting to gobble up the man who’d come in. It swallowed the slave all the way to his waist. Then Bosi thrust the spear so that it went up the vulture’s neck until it stuck in its heart. The vulture dug its claws into the slave’s buttocks and battered Bosi about the ears with its wingtips, knocking him unconscious. Then the vulture collapsed onto him, and its death-struggles were dreadful.

Herraud attacked the priestess, and their fight was the fiercest. The old crone had wicked nails and tore his flesh to the bone. They fought all the way to the spot where Bosi had fallen and the floor was covered in blood. The vulture’s blood made the floor slippery for the old crone, and she fell on her back. She and Herraud wrestled so hard that first one and then the other was underneath.
[20]
Bosi woke up and seized the bull’s head and smashed it into the ogress’s nose. Then Herraud cut off her arm at the shoulder, and her wrestling ability began to weaken. But her death struggles caused a massive earthquake.
[21]

Now they went through the temple and ransacked it. In the vulture’s nest they found the egg, inscribed all over with gold letters. They found so much gold that they had quite enough to carry. They came to the altar that Jomali was sitting on. From him they took a golden crown set with twelve gemstones, and a necklace worth three hundred marks of gold. From his lap they took a silver bowl, so large that four men couldn’t drink it dry, and filled with red gold.
[22]
The velvet hangings around Jomali were worth more than three cargoes from the richest galleon that sails the Mediterranean. They took them all for themselves.

They found a side room in the temple, in a well-hidden location. There was a stone slab in front of it, firmly set, and it took them all day to break it up before they got in. They saw a woman there, sitting on a chair. They had never seen another woman more beautiful. Her hair was tied to the chair-posts and was as fair as threshed straw or gold ingots. An iron fetter was securely fastened around her waist. She was crying hard. When she saw the men, she asked what had caused the commotion that morning—“and why do you find your lives so wretched that you have any desire to come here, into the clutches of trolls? Because the ones in charge here will kill you as soon as you’re spotted.”