Six Sagas of Adventure (48 page)

[38]
   The motif of two weapons that are outwardly identical, with the inferior copy given to a king who demands it and the genuine one concealed by the man who will need it, appears in the tale of Velent in
Þiðreks saga af Bern
(ch. 67; transl. Haymes,
The Saga of Thidrek of Bern
, p. 47)

[39]
   The encounter with Hreggvid is a clever inversion of the
haugbrot
or “Gravemound Battle” seen in
Hrómundar saga Gripssonar
(ch. 4) and in several other sagas. Instead of selfishly fighting to keep his treasure, Hreggvid generously gives it to the man whom he wants to make his heir. A foul stench is usual in encounters with the undead, but in this case it’s not the fault of the undead man. And in
Hrómundar saga
and several other “Gravemound Battle” episodes, a necklace is specifically mentioned as an item whose attempted theft causes the dead man to attack (Stitt,
Beowulf and the Bear’s Son
, pp. 149, 155, 168)—whereas here, the undead man makes a special point of giving it freely. This episode especially resembles the first
haugbrot
in
Gull-Þóris saga
(ch. 3), in which the mound-breakers also face a terrible storm, and one of them has a vision of the mound-dweller, who turns out to be his kinsman and who offers him gifts.

[40]
   Several sagas mention kings who are discerning judges of craftsmanship; Olaf Haraldsson, for example, is described as skilled at judging handicrafts, “whether he himself had made them or others.” (
Óláfs saga helga
ch. 3; see Russom, “A Germanic Concept of Nobility,” pp. 7-9)

[41]
   In “Gravemound Battle” episodes, retainers are often charged with holding the rope that the hero descends on. When the fighting begins, the helpers are terrified by the noise, or else they assume that the hero has been killed, and they abandon their posts, leaving the hero to climb out on his own. (Stitt,
Beowulf and the Bear’s Son
, pp. 129-156) Icelandic audiences, who presumably knew very well how such episodes were “supposed to go”, no doubt found Vilhjalm’s bold brazenfaced lie amusing.

[42]
   The story of Hedin the son of Hjarrandi is told in full in
Sörla þáttr
, a story preserved in
Flateyjarbók
, which makes Hjarrandi the king of Arabia. The story is also told or alluded to in several other Norse sources and even Old English and Middle German texts. Hedinsey is probably the Baltic island of Hiddensee, off the coast of present-day eastern Germany.

[43]
   The name
Sóti
means “soot-colored.” Berserks and other sorcerous villains in the legendary sagas sometimes sport black skin or other unusual color schemes. Villains named Soti also appear in the legendary
Ketils saga hængs
(ch. 5) and
Hálfdans saga Brönufóstra
(ch. 1), and in the nominal “saga of Icelanders”
Harðar saga ok Hólmverja
(chs. 14-15), although the name appears neutrally in
Sturlaugs saga starfsama
(ch. 1). See the comments on
blámenn
in
Sturlaugs saga
, note 27.

[44]
   The resemblance to the story of Achilles is striking, but it’s not uncommon in legendary sagas for a warrior, usually a sorcerous and villainous one, to be enchanted so that blades cannot cut him. (Beard, “
Á Þá Bitu Engi Járn
,” pp. 13-16)

[45]
   In the mythology,
Norðri
(“northern”) is the name of a dwarf, one of the four who are said to hold up the sky (
Gylfaginning
8; Snorri Sturluson,
Edda
, ed. Faulkes, vol. 1, p. 12). The connection between the mythological dwarf and Soti’s standard bearer is unclear, if indeed there is one.

[46]
   Sagas and poems refer to swearing an oath by a stone, sometimes while standing on a stone. In
Guðrúnarkviða
III
, 3, Gudrun swears her innocence on or by a sacred white stone (transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, p. 203);
Helgakviða Hundingsbana
II 31 mentions oaths sworn
at úrsvölum Unnarsteini
, “on the ice-cold Unnar-stone” (transl. Orchard, p. 141);  and
Atlakviða
30 mentions an oath
at Sigtýs bergi
, “on Sigtyr’s (Odin’s) rock.” (transl. Orchard, p. 213). Men swear oaths at a feast while placing their feet on a stone in
Hænsa-Þóris saga
ch. 12. Saxo Grammaticus claims that the ancients stood on a stone to choose their kings, “as though to augur the durability of their action through the firmness of the rocks beneath them” (
History of the Danes
I.11, transl. Ellis Davidson and Fisher, p. 14, n5). The fact that Vilhjalm swears his oath while standing on a stump—which unlike stone is subject to fire and decay—may have connoted to readers and listeners that his oath is not trustworthy.

[47]
  
Möndull
means the handle or axle of a hand-mill (in modern Icelandic it means “axis”). Why a dwarf should be named this isn’t clear; the name may be a joke, implying that dwarves, like hand-mill axles, are thick and stumpy. Given Mondul’s sexual appetite, the name could also be a phallic joke—something like “Shaft” or “Johnson” in modern colloquial English. That said, several other attested dwarf-names relate to various tools (
Fíli
, “file”;
Heptifíli
, “file with a haft”;
Kíli
, “wedge”;
Dóri
, “auger”;
Viggr
, “axe-bit”; etc.), and all are probably connected with dwarves’ reputation as skilled craftsmen.
Patti
is a pet name for a baby boy, derived from a word meaning “teat” (cf. Danish
pattekarl
, “baby at the breast”), but figuratively meaning something like “little shaver.” Presumably this is a joke based on dwarves’ short and stout build. (Gould, “Dwarf-Names,” pp. 951, 953, 962-963)

[48]
   The implication is that the food and drink have been enchanted by Mondul to cause friendslips to be forgotten. This motif may have come from the Volsung legend (e.g.
Völsunga saga
ch. 2
5
), as may the drink that Mondul offered Bjorn’s wife, and the “memory-draught” that he will give her in the next chapter.

[49]
   The motif of a couple maintaining chastity by sleeping with a naked sword between them was probably borrowed from
Tristrams saga og Ísöndar
and/or
Völsunga saga
. It’s parodied in
Sturlaugs saga starfsama
(ch. 9, see note 22).

[50]
   The sleep-thorn (
svefnþorn
) is mentioned in
Sigrdrífumál
in the
Poetic Edda
(transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, p. 170) and
Völsunga saga
(ch. 20), in
Hrólfs saga kraka
(ch. 8), in as well as in later Icelandic folklore—and, of course, in “Sleeping Beauty” and allied tales (Grimm,
Teutonic Mythology
, vol. 1, p. 419).

[51]
   This method of keping severed body parts alive appears in several sagas. In
Ynglingasaga
ch. 4, Odin preserves Mimir’s head with herbs to keep it alive; in
Egils saga ok Asmundar
, a troll-woman keeps the hero’s severed hand alive in a linen cloth with herbs; and in
Völsa þáttr
, a severed horse penis is preserved in the same way.

[52]
   The combination of blue color and a swollen body is typical of decaying corpses, and several undead in the sagas show this combination of features (Þórólfr bægifótr in
Eyrbyggja saga
ch. 63; Glámr in
Grettis saga
ch. 32). Ingibjorg is not merely sick and deranged; she is essentially a
draugr
, an undead corpse.

[53]
   Hollander (“The ‘Faithless Wife’ Motif,” pp. 71-73) points out similarities of this episode with medieval German stories of Salman and Morolf, and German and Slavic references to the hero Walther—all of these contain the “Faithless Wife” motif, in which a man is forced to witness his own wife’s infidelity. In the stories of Salman and Morolf the seducer uses herbs to put the wife into a swoon. See also AT 1511, “The Faithless Queen,” in Aarne,
The Types of the Folktale
, p. 430.

[54]
   The ability to both heal and cause illness is universal for Germanic dwarves, even more so than their skill as smiths; it appears in Old English medical texts, in medieval German romances, and in Norse sagas. (Battles, “Dwarfs in Germanic Literature,” pp. 74-75)

[55]
   “Master Galterus” is Walter of Châtillon, or Galterus de Castellione, author of the 12
th
-century Latin epic
Alexandreis.
The poem was known in Iceland in a prose translation,
Alexanders saga
, made in 1262–3. (Wolf, “
Alexanders saga
”, pp. 7-8)

[56]
   A similar incident appears in
Hrólfs saga kraka
ch. 34, in which the hero Böðvarr-Bjarki defends the timid Höttr from a flung bone by catching it and throwing it right through the man who flung it, terrifying everyone in the hall. Some of the legendary material in
Hrólfs saga
is very old, but the surviving saga text dates from the 17
th
century, and it’s not clear which saga might have borrowed this episode, assuming that it was borrowed at all.

[57]
   Literally
hvern dauðadag hann skyldi helzt hafa
, “what death-day he should have most,” but the sense seems clear from the following sentence.

[58]
   The Winternights (
Vetrnætr
) were several days in mid-October marking the start of the winter season. An important holiday in pagan times, they continued to be marked as secular holidays after Christianization of Iceland.

[59]
   An evil sorceror takes the form of a huge walrus in
Hjálmþes saga
ch. 11, while a witch appears as a walrus and attacks a ship while her body lies on land in
Kormáks saga
ch. 18.

[60]
  
Seiðr
(translated as “sorcery” here) could encompass several kinds of magical effect, but often it involved altering others’ mental states, creating illusions or desires.
Seiðr
usually has a wicked reputation in the sagas, and it is said to be especially degrading for men to use (
Ynglinga saga
ch. 7 in Hollander,
Heimskringla
, pp. 10-11). Thus the presence of no fewer than twelve male
seiðmenn
in this episode is especially outrageous.

[61]
  
Seiðr
is commonly worked from a high place, sometimes a roof, but often a specially-built platform or scaffolding, the
seiðhjallr
or
hásæti
(e.g.
Eiríks saga rauða
ch. 4;
Friðþjófs saga
ch. 5). See Heide, “Spinning
Seiðr
,” p. 166.

[62]
   In the Eddic poem
Hávamál
(stanza 151; transl. Orchard,
The Elder Edda
, p. 37), the god Odin states that if someone tries to cast a harmful spell on him, he can turn the spell to strike its caster. The poem implies that Odin carves rune letters to work this and other magic spells that he knows; evidently Mondul is doing much the same thing.

[63]
   The Norse is
kómu í opna skjöldu
, literally “they came into open (hollow) shields”. An attack from behind and to the left would be directed against the rear of a shield held by a right-handed opponent, and would be especially dangerous to him.

[64]
   A similar buttock amputation appears in
Örvar-Odds
saga ch. 23. Aside from the gross humor of the situation, a blow on the buttocks (
klámhögg
) was considered shameful; it was symbolically equated with forcing the recipient to submit to sexual penetration and loss of manhood. See Meulengracht Sørensen,
The Unmanly Man
, pp. 68-70, and note 11 to
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
.

[65]
   Legendary and historical sagas usually depict berserks in groups of twelve, especially when they form part of a royal household (e.g.
Hervarar saga
chs. 1-3;
Hrólfs saga kraka
chs. 16, 37;
Grettis saga
ch. 19;
Egils saga
ch. 9).

[66]
   According to Cleasby and Vigfusson’s dictionary, a “bonejack” (
beinserkr
, literally “bone shirt”) is an abnormal bone growth between the lower ribs and the spine.

[67]
   The text has
Herkir
here, presumably an error for Haki.

[68]
  
Þórsteins saga Víkingssonar
(ch. 23) also depicts dwarves helping a hero in battle by shooting arrows from a distance.

[69]
   At least three
riddarasögur
mention a coat or other garment that is impervious to poison (see Matyushina, “Magic Mirrors, Monsters, Maiden-Kings”, for an overview).

[70]
  
Snákr
means “snake”; unlike its English cognate, it’s a poetic term not used in ordinary speech.

[71]
   A sorceress raises those killed in battle to fight in
Hrólfs saga kraka
(ch.
51) and in
Sörla
þ
áttr
; this is evidnetly what Grim has in mind.

[72]
   The motif of a magic bag of winds or gases is common in folklore, best known from the
Odyssey.
Magic bags with various properties appear in the
riddarasögur
; see Matyushina, “Magic Mirrors, Monsters, Maiden-Kings”, for an overview.