Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read online

He cuffed her. The hooded head snapped to one side and she fell. "This for my father!" he shouted, hauling her back up. Blow after blow: "This for my mother! This for Elk-Frodhi! This for Thori Hound's-Foot!" When she was dead, he tied her by the ankles and dragged her around for everyone to see. Afterward, lest she walk again, he cut off her head and burned her.

  In this wise died Hvit the Finn-King's daughter, far from her homeland in miles and years. Most in the royal household said her doom was not too harsh.

  Later Bera showed Bjarki the cave. He took the rest of the treasures, which were the largest part; and for him the longsword came easily out of the stone.

  The runes on its blade said it hight Lövi and was among the best of weapons, for it was not forged by hand of man. It must never be laid under one's head nor rested on the hilt; nor need it be honed more than thrice in an owner's lifetime. Whenever drawn, it would give a death, and no second blow would have to be landed. Following his mother's word—she remembered the elves —Bjarki made for it a sheath of birchbark.

  Old King Hring did not long outlive his wife. When he sickened and died, men hailed Bjarki in his stead.

  He ruled for three years, and did well at healing the harm that had come under the witch-queen. Yet he was restless as his brothers had been. The Uplands were no home for a young man like him. Here were tall mountains and good hunting, and very little else. Men grew stale on their wide-scattered homesteads. At best, they might fare abroad as traders or vikings. Why not seek something this country could never give?

  First he saw to his mother's welfare. Valsleif Jarl was a widower, a man of standing whom Bera had come to like. Bjarki got them married, and himself helped lead groom to bride. Thereafter he called a Thing, told the folk he was leaving, and led them in choosing a new king.

  Then at last he was free to ride off.

  He had a horse of size to bear him, and no other company. Most gold and silver he left behind, though with weapons and clothes he was well outfitted.

  Off he rode, and suddenly after this long time he could let his glee break loose. Far up in heaven, the larks heard him singing.

  Of his trek naught is told until one day, like Thori before him, he came to the lair of Elk-Frodhi. He took his horse to the stall end of the house and settled down. He knew some of the things he saw in the piled hoard— they were akin to those he had taken from the elven chest—and felt he had a right here to whatever he might need.

  Toward sundown Frodhi came home and glowered at the newcomer who sat in his chair, hat pulled down to mask face in shadow. Even to him, a guest was a guest, thus holy. He brought his own horse to the stall, and found it could not get along with the other.

  Turning, he said: "Well, this a froward and worthless fellow, who dares sit himself down without leave."

  Bjarki kept his hat low and did not answer.

  Seeking to frighten him away, Frodhi drew shortsword from sheath so it screamed. Twice he did this; but Bjarki paid no heed.

  The robber drew blade a third time and rushed in. Huge though Bjarki was, Elk-Frodhi overtopped and outweighed him. Still the guest sat calmly. Frodhi growled and slavered. "Would you like to wrestle?" he got out. His thought was that he could break the man's neck in that game and so become free to cast him out.

  Bjarki laughed, sprang to his feet and seized Frodhi around the rough-haired waist. Mighty was that fight, wrenchings and tramplings till the walls shuddered.

  Then the hat fell off. Frodhi knew his brother, let go, and rasped: "Welcome, kinsman! Why didn't you tell me? Too long have we fought."

  "Oh, no need to end it yet," said Bjarki, albeit he breathed hard and sweat sucked his clothes to his skin.

  Elk-Frodhi grew grave. "Scant luck would you have had, kinsman, if we really strove," he rumbled. "I can only be glad that I saw in time. . . . Come." He hugged his brother; the woodland smell of him filled Bjarki's nostrils. "Let's drink and eat and, oh, you must tell me everything!"

  Bjarki stayed for some days, talking when they did not go hunting. Frodhi asked him to abide here and own half the wealth. Bjarki said no; he did not like killing folk in order to win his goods.

  'Frodhi sighed in the firelit gloom: "I've given ruth to many when they were small and weak."

  "I'm happy to hear that," Biarki answered. "Best would be if you let everyone go by in peace, whether or not you think you can win aught bv slaying them."

  "I have gotten a doom that is heavy in all ways," said Elk-Frodhi.

  After a while he added: "As for you, well, I know somewhat of the world, alone though I am here. Wayfarers and—and others—tell me things. If you want riches and renown, seek out King Hrolf in Denmark. The best warriors fare to him, for he's the most bold, wise, openhanded and splendid of kings in the Northlands."

  More did he have to say, until Bjarki agreed.

  Next morning Frodhi followed his brother a ways along the road, doing his clumsy best to talk. At last they must speak their goodbves. Bjarki dismounted to clasp hands on the same footing. Frodhi shoved hard at him, and he stumbled backward. A smile stole across the robber's ugly lips. "You don't seem as strong as you ought to be, kinsman," he said.

  Drawing his knife, he gashed his own elk-thigh. "Drink of this blood," he said, pointing to what welled forth. Like one in a dream, Bjarki knelt and obeyed. "Rise," ordered Frodhi. When Bjarki did, he shoved him again. This time the man younger by an hour stayed in his tracks.

  "I think you got good from that drink, kinsman," said Frodhi. "Now you should stand above most, as I heartily wish for you."

  He chopped his foot into the bank beside him, through ferns and soil, down into rock till the hoof was lost therein. Withdrawing it, he said: "Daily will I come to this spoor and look. If you die of sickness, there'll be mold in it, and water if you drown at sea. But if you die by weapons, there'll be blood, and then will I come to avenge you ... dearest to me of all men."

  And Elk-Frodhi fled away up the wilderness road.

  Bjarki shook himself free of sorrow and rode on. Naught worth telling happened before he crossed the ranges to Lake Vener. King Thori Hound's-Foot was away, whether on war or hunt is not said. Folk wondered to see him come riding back by himself—for, shod and mounted, he looked just like Bjarki.

  Unsure what was going on, the latter thought best to play along till he could learn. He let them bring him to the royal hall, serve him in the high seat, and at night lead him to bed by the queen.

  When they were alone, Bjarki said to her, "I'll not lie under the same blanket." She was taken aback until he told her how matters stood. Thereafter she too thought it wisest to pretend; a witch or a Norn might be in this.

  Things went so for a time. While they did not become lovers, Bjarki and the queen became friends.

  When Thori did get home and found his brother, that was a meeting of embraces. Having heard the full tale, the king said there was no other man in the world whom he would have trusted to rest beside his wife. He wanted him to stay on and to share in everything.

  Bjarki said that was not his wish. Thori offered him men instead, to follow him wherever he might go. This likewise Bjarki refused. "I'm bound for King Hrolf in Denmark," said he, "to learn if it's true what they tell me, that more can be won as a man of his than as a king anywhere else."

  "That may be," said Thori; dryly: "Though I'll stay where I am." And earnestly: "Remember, those birds which wing highest are most likely to be struck down by the hawk."

  "Better that than to be a mole," said Bjarki.

  Thori started to answer, but curbed himself. At leave-taking he rode a ways with his brother. They parted in friendly wise, though keeping thoughts of their own.

  Now once more is little to tell save that Bjarki got to the Sound, bought passage across, and at last had not far to go before he would reach Leidhra.

  IV

  The year had run on to fall, each day more short and chilly than the last. Toward the end of Bjarki's trek, rain fell from dawn till dusk and gave no sign of sto
pping to sleep. He had pushed on hard in his eagerness, and at nightfall found himself on a lonely stretch of heathland, soaked through. His horse was badly wearied under him. It slipped and plopped about in fetlock-deep mud. Still the downpour brawled, icy through an ever deeper blackness. At last he lost the road.

  A bit later, his beast stumbled against what seemed like a mound. Bjarki got off, groped forward, and made out that this was a house, one of the poor little sort built from turf and peat over a pit dug into the earth. The smokehole was covered, but light glowed dull red through cracks around a door. Bjarki knocked.

  A man half opened it. Grizzled and ragged, he carried a bill. The Norseman wondered what in the gloomy hole behind him might draw robbers. Even the wife was not much to look at, seen by a clay lamp over which she huddled for some warmth.

  "Good evening," said Bjarki. "May I shelter here for the night?"

  The crofter, who had gulped at the great size of him, now felt safe and said, "Aye, I'd not send you on in this foul weather and murk, outlander though I can hear you are." He helped unharness and tether the horse. It must wait outside, no room being within where his one cow was stabled. Bjarki got a shabby coat to wrap around himself after his drenched garments were off, a dish of roots and hardtack, a place to lay himself on the rushes in that smelly gloom. Everybody was soon asleep.

  In the morning the wife, Gydha, gave Bjarki the same food for breakfast since they had no other. Meanwhile Eilif, the man, asked for news. In his turn Bjarki asked about King Hrolf and his warriors, and if it was far to reach them.

  "No," said Eilif, "only a short way. Are you bound thither?"

  "Yes," answered Bjarki, "that's my thought, to see if he'll take me into his household."

  "It'd be fitting for you, aye, aye," nodded the crofter, "seeing how big and strong you are." He sounded oddly sad; and all at once, Gydha broke into tears.

  "Why, what are you crying about, goodwife?" asked Bjarki.

  She sobbed: "I and my man . . . had an only son . . . we called him Hott. Here was a lean enough living for him . . . and this past year none, after we lost our flock . . . Eilif and I can barely last on what's left. . . . Hott went to the king's burg to see if he could get work—and they made him a scullion but—" She must stop to master her grief. "The king's men make game of him. He has to help serve, and . . . when they sit and eat, as soon as they've gnawed the meat off a bone, they throw it at him . . . and if it hits him he's hurt, knows not if he'll live or die, though where else could he go?" She leaned forward in the dimness of the hut and said more steadily, "This reward do I ask for taking you in, that you cast small bones at him rather than big ones, if they've not already knocked him to hell."

  "Gladly will I do as you wish," said Bjarki, "but I think it's unmanly to throw offal at anyone or deal badly with children and weaklings."

  "Then you do well," said the woman, catching his hands in her own worn fingers, "for these look mighty to me, and my Hott could never stand before your blows."

  Bjarki bade the old couple farewell and rode on according to the way they had told him. The rain was past, the sky dazzling, sunlight asparkle on puddles in the brown earth and on wet boughs where a few leaves still flamed. Starlings flocked, robins hopped in fields, curlews whistled merrily through a cool damp breeze. Bjarki paid scant heed. A scowl was on his brow. He had not looked to find king's men who behaved like trolls.

  Heath and marsh gave way to richer country, where steadings stood plentiful and cattle drowsed rust-red behind fences. Here many folk went to and fro. Bjarki stopped to talk with some. Maidens smiled at the red-haired giant, but he was not in a mood for them today. The questions he asked in his thick Upland burr had to do with King Hrolf and the royal household.

  Aye, said the yeomen, this was a good king, a wise and righteous king, withal strong to fend off rovers from abroad or ride down outlaws and hang them. . . . Well, yes, his troopers were an unruly lot; he really ought to curb them, but no doubt he had too much else on his mind. . . . He'd been away this summer. Year before last, he'd brought King Hjördvardh of Fyn under him and (ha!) his sister under Hjördvardh. With his rear thus made safe, all the islands in his grip, he was going after the Jutish realms. Once he had those likewise, an honest man could till his fields and never dread outside onslaught. Of course, first the king must spy out the Jutland shores. So he'd only taken a few shiploads of warriors along this season. The rest had stayed home in Leidhra and, aye, in their idleness gotten above themselves. . . . The king should be home any day, now when the fall storms were come. Maybe he already was. A yeoman wouldn't know about that. Yeomen had their work to do, butchering time and so forth. Let the great folk see to their own, hey?

  Bjarki rode on along the stream. In the afternoon, Leidhra lifted before him.

  At this time of year, when little traveling was done, the stronghold lay quiet within its stockade, gates open and unwatched. Women, children, thralls, craftsmen were much about, but few warriors. Bjarki supposed most of those were off hunting or whatever. He rode through muddy ways to the richly carved wooden cliffsides of the royal hall. Flagstones in the courtyard rang beneath his horse's hoofs. He dismounted at the stables. "Put mine in beside the king's best," he told a groom, "give him oats and water, curry him well, and stow my gear in a clean corner till I send for it." The man gaped after him.

  In costly clothes, a knife and the sword Lövi at his waist, but wearing neither helmet nor mail, Bjarki strolled into the main chamber of the hall. However dim and smoky when he had trod straight in from beneath the sky, it was sunnier and airier than he had thought such a place could be. Bright shields, broad horns, fair skins, sconced rushlights, birch wainscoting lined the walls. The figures on panels and on the roof-pillars were of beasts, vines, and heroes; he saw no gods among them. The posts of the high seat bore Skjold and Gefion. A few workers moved over the juniper boughs on the floor, which lent their freshness to the air, and a few hounds lay about. Otherwise the reach of the room seemed empty. The Norseman sat down on a bench, near the door, and waited for whatever might happen.

  Soon he heard a rattling in a farther corner. His eyes used to the inside, he could make out a heap of bones over there. A hand was just coming above the top. Bjarki rose and strode close. The hand, he saw, was nastily black. He wrinkled his nose at the stench of rotting shreds of meat. "Who's in here?" he called.

  A youth's voice, thin and frightened, said, "I. . . I . . . I'm named Hott, wellborn lord."

  "What are you doing?"

  "I am m-m-making me a shield-burg, lord—"

  "Woeful is your shield-burg." Bjarki reached in, got hold of an arm, and in a clatter hauled forth the one who had crouched behind the pile.

  A skinny shape writhed, helpless in the big man's grasp. The voice yammered: "Now you'll slay me! Don't do that—not when I'd fixed it this well! You've pulled down my shield-burg—"

  Bjarki peered. Hott was about fifteen, he guessed, tall but wretchedly thin. His locks were so tangled and greasy that one had trouble seeing they were yellow; his face seemed to be all sharp nose and huge eyes; he shook in his kirtle. "I was laying it high around me to keep off the bones you'll throw," he sobbed. "It was almost f-f-fin-ished."

  "You'll need it no longer," said Bjarki. Hott shriveled. "Do you mean ... to slay me . . . right away, lord?"

  "Don't whimper that loud," said Bjarki. He must give a cuff or two before the starveling quieted down. Then he picked up the form, gone limp from dread, and bore him outside. It was not far to the nearest stockade gates. A short ways beyond, he had seen how the stream widened to make a pool. Few paid him any heed.

  Bjarki hauled the filthy tatters off the boy, pitched him into the pool, knelt and hand-scrubbed him till no boiled lobster could have been more clean or red. Rising, he jerked a thumb at the kirtle and said, "You wash that wipe-rag yourself."

  Hott obeyed, and trotted dripping after him when he returned to the hall. Biarki took the same place on a bench as before. He pulled th
e lad down beside him. Hott could speak no two words. He shuddered in every limb and joint, though he saw through the haze of fear that the stranger wanted to help him.

  Dusk fell. The king's warriors began to drift in. They spied the newcomer and hailed him well, for this household was proud of its hospitality. One asked Bjarki what he was here for. "I thought of joining your troop, if the king will have me," said the Norseman.

  "Well, you're in luck," said the guard, "for he's come home this very evening. He's tired and dines in his own tower along of a few best friends. Tomorrow you can see him, and surely he'll take on as stout a fellow as you." He leered at the cowering Hott. "Kick that sniveler aside, though," he warned. "Over-bold are you to set him . . . it.. . among men."

  Bjarki glowered. The guard looked up and down his bulk, decided not to press the matter, and swaggered off. Hott started to go. Bjarki clamped onto his wrist. "Stay," said the Norseman.

  "B-b-but they'll kill me—for sure—when they get drunk ... if I dare sit here," blubbered the stripling. "I've g-g-got to work and—let me go build up my shield-burg again!"

  "Stay," said Bjarki. He kept hold of the wrist. Hott might as well have tried to drag away a mountain.

  The longfires were stoked, the trestle tables brought in, food heaped on trenchers and horns filled with drink. Bjarki and Hott sat alone. None of the men would have that butt of scorn for benchmate. The more they drank, the more they glared at him, as did the kitchen servants he was supposed to help.

  At last the warriors began casting small bones his way. Bjarki acted as if he did not see. Hott was too frightened to take either meat or mead. Bjarki, who could now let go of him because he dared not move out into the open, ate and boused for two.

  Loud grew the uproar of voices above the fire-crackle; dogs barked and growled in the smokiness. Suddenly light flickered red on a huge thighbone which flew through the air. That was a thing which could kill.

  Bjarki hooked it in midflight, inches from the skull of shrieking Hott. Rising, he took aim at him who had thrown it, and cast it back. Straight to the head it went. There was a crack, and the guard toppled dead.