Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read online

  Horror yelled through the hall. Men snatched weapons and boiled toward Bjarki. He thrust Hott behind him. His sword Lövi he did not draw, but he rested hand on hilt, knocked over the first few attackers with his fist, and thundered that he wanted to see the king.

  Word came to Hrolf in his tower room. That was a broad chamber, paneled in different woods, giving on a gallery which overlooked the courtyard, more simply furnished than might have been awaited from so rich a lord. He had eaten, and sat quietly drinking and talking with Svipdag, Hvitserk, Beigadh, a few others who had been along on this summer's faring.

  A pair of troopers thudded up the ladder and panted their news: that a bear-sized warrior had come into the hall and killed one of their number. Should they cut him down out of hand?

  Hrolf stroked his short coppery-gold beard. "Was the man slain without cause?" he asked.

  "Yes ... yes, so to speak," said the talebearer.

  In the same mild tone, King Hrolf wanted to know just what had happened. The whole truth came forth.

  Then he sat straight on the bench, winter came into his eyes, and they remembered that this slight, soft-spoken man was the son of Helgi the Bold. "By no means will you get leave to slay him," he said; they flinched at each word. "Here you've given yourself back to that foul habit of casting bones at harmless folk. It's to my dishonor, and the worst of shames. Often have I scolded you, but you would not heed. By Mimir's hewn-off head, the time is overpast that you got a lesson. Bring the man before me!"

  Amidst bristling steel, Bjarki entered. He seemed quite unruffled. "Greeting, my lord," he said proudly.

  Hrolf looked at him for a while. "What is your name?" he asked.

  "Your guardsmen call me Hott-fence," laughed the Norseman, "but I hight Bjarki, son of Björn who was son of the Upland king."

  "What do you think you should give me for my follower whom you killed?"

  "Nothing, lord. He fell on his own deed."

  "M-m-m, I must deal with his kinfolk. . . . Well, will you become my man and take his place?"

  "I'd not turn that down, lord. Not in itself. However, Hott and I must not be parted because of it, and we must both be seated closer to you than the other fellow was. Else we'll fare off."

  The king frowned. "I see no gain to be gotten from Hott," he said. After looking anew into the face above him: "Still, he can always have food here."

  Bjarki took oath at once on the sword Skofnung. No one thought to demean this by asking Hott to do the same. The Norseman went back to the hall, beckoned the youth to him, and looked for a place to sit. He did not choose the best; nor did he take the worst. Nearer to the high seat than was intended for him, he pitched three men sprawling off the bench, and put himself and Hott there. When angry words arose, he shrugged and said, "I've seen how good the manners are hereabouts." King Hrolf likewise told the men they could not gripe if they too were bullied.

  Thus Bjarki and Hott abode for some weeks in the hall. None dared do anything against them, and slowly the boy put on weight and began to stop flinching. But none would be their friends either.

  V

  As it drew toward Yule, folk grew fearful. Bjarki asked Hott what this came from. Hott shivered: "The beast."

  "Stop clapping your teeth and talk like a man," Bjarki said.

  The tale stumbled forth. "For two winters, a great and horrible beast has come hither, this time of year, a winged and flying thing. Widely it harries, killing among herds and flocks; nobody can build byres for all they may own. That was what wrecked my parents' livelihood and sent me here."

  "This hall is not as well manned as I thought, if a beast can freely work harm on the kingdom and the holdings of the king."

  "The men have tried to kill it. Their weapons didn't bite, and some of the best of them never came home. It's no beast, really, we think. It's a troll." Hott glanced around and brought his lips to Bjarki's ear. "I've overheard Svipdag and his brothers wonder if it's not a sending of the witch-queen Skuld. They say she broods bitterly over being wed to a mere scot-king, there by Odin's Lake where thralls are drowned to honor the One-Eyed."

  Afraid to speak further, he scurried away to work. He had become the Norseman's groom, scrubber, fetch-and-carry knave. Between tasks he got bruising training in the use of weapons, which he hated and tried vainly to beg off.

  At Yule Eve the offerings were ill-attended, since none dared be out from under a roof after dark. The feast in the royal hall was glum. King Hrolf stood forth and said: "Hear me! My will is that everyone keep still and calm tonight. I forbid my men to go against that fiend. Let it do with the kine whatever luck may choose; but I do not want to lose any more of you."

  "Aye, lord, aye, aye," said the relieved voices. Bjarki sat quiet, unheeded.

  The fires guttered low. The king and the leman he then had went to his tower. The guardsmen stretched out on the benches, wrapped in blankets. They had been drinking hard to quell their fears, and soon the gloom was loud with snores.

  Bjarki arose. He prodded Hott, who slept on the floor below him. "Follow me," he whispered.

  He had marked where in the foreroom his battle gear was, and fetched this in the dark. Outside, the night stretched cold and silent, clear and starry, a crooked moon casting wanness over hoarfrost and the smoke of breath. Bjarki laid his mail and underpadding on the flagstones. "Help me into this," he bade.

  Hott smothered a wail. "Master, you don't mean to—"

  "I do mean to tie your backbone in a knot if you wake anybody. Stop that whining and give me a hand!"

  By the time Bjarki was armored. Hott was too frightened to walk. "You, you, you'll lead me into danger of my life," he moaned.

  "Oh, belike it'll go better than that," Bjarki said. "Move along." The youth could not. Bjarki picked him up, slung him over a shoulder, and strode from the garth. Getting a horse would have made too much noise. .

  They heard racket enough shortly after they had gone out a gate of the burg. Cows bawled in terror, from one of the king's own meadows a mile thence. Bjarki broke into a hammering trot over the frozen ground, along the darkly sheening stream. Near the meadow, this broadened somewhat into a bog, where dead reeds poked stiffly out of ice.

  Above the pen, a shadow blotted out stars. Through the cattle-clamor beat a leathery rustle and a rushing as of mighty winds. "The beast, the beast!" Hott shrieked. "It's coming to swallow me! O-o-o-oh—"

  "Belay that yammer, you cur," Bjarki snapped. He peeled the clutching fingers loose from his ring-mail and pitched his burden into the bog. Hott crashed through the ice and huddled down to hide under the water and mud beneath.

  The Norseman unslung his shield and went to meet the monster.

  It saw him, swung on high and readied itself to stoop: a featherless thing of huge sickling wings, cruel claws and beak, tail like a lashing rudder, scaly crest above snaky eyes. Bjarki planted his feet and laid hand on sword hilt.

  His weapon would not leave the sheath.

  "Witchcraft!" he groaned. The monster hissed athwart the bleak-bright Bridge. Wings thrust air, and down it came.

  "Elven sword—" Bjarki hauled on Lövi till the sheath creaked. Then it broke loose to flash under the stars.

  The troll-being was almost upon him. A rank smell overwhelmed his lungs. He held his shield firm and struck from behind it. The heavy body smote, a thud and clang, a boom of air and a whistle out of grinning sharp-toothed jaws. Bjarki stumbled back. Any other man would have been flattened, broken-boned. His blade had already bitten. In it went between wing and leg, through hide and flesh and ribs to the heart.

  The monster swerved and crashed. A while it threshed around. The earth quivered under the blows of its wings. When most of its cold blood had run out onto the rime, it lay dead.

  Bjarki gusted a breath and went after Hott.

  He must pluck the fear-blinded, shaking, whimpering wretch out of the bog, carry him over to where the beast lay still twitching, and set him down. Pointing to the wound, from which bloo
d welled black, he said: "Drink of that."

  "No, oh, no, I beg you," Hott blubbered.

  "Drink, I said! Have I not told you what my brother Elk-Frodhi did for me? Whoever called this thing forth, out of whatever hell, wanted strength in it."

  Hott crawled and sobbed. Bjarki clouted him and promised worse if he did not obey. The boy shut his eyes and put his mouth to that cup which the sword had made. However much he gagged, Biarki made him swallow two long draughts. Thereupon the Norseman cut the heart out of the beast, handed it over, and said, "Take a bite off this."

  Hott did. He had stopped shaking. When he had chewed the meat, he bounded up. "Why—" He looked around in wonder. "Why, the world is beautiful."

  "You feel better, eh?" said Bjarki as he settled the elven blade back in its birchbark sheath.

  "I feel... as if I'd wakened from death."

  Bjarki felt Hott's arms. "I knew there were good thews in you, since I got you rightly fed," he grunted. "What you needed was to tauten them." He unbuckled his sword belt. "Let's try you out."

  Long they wrestled before Biarki got Hott to one knee, longer than he would have taken even for Svipdag. Raising the other, he panted gladly: "You've a bit of strength now. I don't think you need fear the guardsmen of King Hrolf any more."

  Hott lifted hands to heaven and cried in young heat, "From this night, I'll never fear them—or you either, or anyone or anything!"

  "That's well, Hott, my friend." said Biarki. "I think I've paid off a debt of mine." He grinned. He was no oldster himself. "Help me set up this carcass so they'll think it's alive."

  Laughing like drunkards, they did. Thereafter they stole back to the hall, lay down, and acted as if nothing had happened.

  In the morning the king asked whether aught had been marked of the fiend, whether it had shown itself during the night. He got the answer that livestock around the burg seemed unharmed. "Look further," he ordered.

  The watchmen did. Erelong they came pounding back, to gasp that they had seen the beast and it was bound hither.

  Men clattered to arms. The king bade them be brave and each do his best to get the life out of this thing. He took the lead in the dash to meet it. When they spied the great brown shape, propped on stiffened wings in the wintry dawn, they drew together in a shield-ring, and a hush fell over them.

  After a while the king said slowly, "I don't think it's even moving. Who'll take a reward to go and see what it's about?"

  Bjarki spoke aloud: "It'd indeed be something for a bold man to carry that out before witnesses." He clapped the back of the youth who had followed him. "Hott, my fellow!" he said. "Here's where you can wash off that slander they've put on you, that you've neither strength nor courage. Go slay yonder pest! You can see that none of the others are minded to."

  Stares went to the fair-locked head which suddenly was borne so high. "Yes," said Hott, "I will."

  The king lifted his brows. "I see not where you've gotten this boldness from, Hott," he said. "You must have changed in a very short while."

  "I have no weapon of my own," was the answer. Pointing to one of the two swords which King Hrolf wore: "Give me that Goldhilt of yours, and I'll fell the beast or get my bane."

  Hrolf looked at him for a time before he said, "It's not seemly that this sword be borne by any save a brave and trustworthy lad."

  "You'll soon see that I am like that."

  "Who knows if there's not been even more of a change in you than we thought we saw? It's as if you were altogether a different being. . . . Well, take the sword, then, and if you can do this deed, I'll find you worthy to own it afterward."

  Few had followed these words. They were too aware of the hideousness before them. But all saw Hott bare the steel and run toward it. In a single blow, he knocked it flat.

  "Look, lord," cried Bjarki, "what a mighty work he's done!"

  Stunned at first, the men broke into cheers, brandished their weapons, clanged blade on shield, rushed to hug Hott and lift him on their shoulders. Hrolf stayed behind, as did Bjarki. The king said low: "Yes, he has become something else from what he was. Nevertheless, Hott alone has not slain the beast. Rather, you did."

  The Norseman shrugged. "Could be that's so."

  Hrolf nodded. "This I saw at once when you came here: that few could be like unto you. Yet I think your best work is that you've made a man out of this hitherto luckless Hott."

  The troop were nearing. Hrolf raised his voice: "Now I want him no longer to be called by a thrallish name like Hott. Let him be named for the sword Goldhilt he has earned." Turning to the flushed young warrior, he said, "Henceforth you shall be Hjalti."

  That means "Hilt," and the hilt he became of the king's household, as Bjarki was the blade and Svipdag the shield.

  VI

  From that day onward, Bjarki and his friend had the goodwill, or the outright worship of the guards. At first the lad was not seen much in the hall. After bringing goods to help his parents, he made up for lost time by mowing a swathe through all the women to be had for many miles around. Bjarki stayed graver. He won the close fellowship of the king, who made great gifts to him, and of eye-patched Svipdag. Together those three held long talks about how to widen and strengthen the kingdom and what might be done for its welfare.

  Bjarki also began to see a good deal of Hrolf’s oldest daughter Drifa, who was becoming a handsome lady. And, being more among the warriors then was possible for the king—who must go to Things, hear out the troubles and quarrels of folk, give judgments, play host to visitors, watch over his own broad landholdings, and on and on—Bjarki strove to make the troop mend its ways.

  Svipdag told him: "I think our twelve berserkers are the root of the ill behavior here. They browbeat most of the men, who then have to take it out on somebody weaker. I wish we could get rid of them, and I'm sure King Hrolf wishes likewise, useful though they can be in a fight. But they are his sworn followers and have given him no real cause to dismiss them."

  "Where are they now?" the Norseman asked.

  "They've been at the head of a band which harried about in Saxon lands. See you, the king doesn't want to bring those under him. They've too many ties further south. But they have been bothering us—egged on by the Swedish jarl of Als is my guess. And we can't well haul the Jutes into Denmark, as we hope to, till it's been pounded into the Saxons that they'd better leave us alone. Our raiders decided to winter there. They'll be back in spring."

  Later Bjarki asked Hjalti what to await from these berserkers. The younger man told of the way they had on arrival of bracing everyone in the hall and asking if he reckoned himself as doughty as them. "They've learned to make this only a token as far as the king goes, or those three brothers from Svithjodh; but the rest must needs humble themselves."

  Said Bjarki: "Small is the number of bold men here with King Hrolf, if they bear words of scorn from the berserkers."

  Time flowed on. The evening came when, as the household was settling down to its meal, the door flew open and in came the twelve huge men, gray with iron, shining to look on like icefields.

  Bjarki whispered to Hjalti, "Do you dare match yourself against any of them?"

  "Any or all."

  The dozen lumbered to the high seat and questioned King Hrolf in their wonted words. He answered in such wise as he found prideful while keeping the uneasy peace. Next they went along the benches. One by one, in hate-filled voices, the warriors called themselves the weaker.

  Agnar, their headman, had seen Bjarki and thought this was not a little boy who had come. Nonetheless he hulked over the Norseman and growled, "Well, Redbeard, do you think you're as good as me?"

  Bjarki smiled. "No," he purred, "I do not. I deem myself better than you, you filthy son of a mare."

  He leaped to his feet, grabbed the berserker's belt, swung him on high and dashed him to the floor so that the crash resounded. Hjalti did likewise to the next.

  Men shouted. The berserkers howled. Bjarki stood holding Agnar down under his f
oot, a knife in his hand. Hjalti had drawn the sword Goldhilt, and from behind it grinned at the half score who milled and mouthed before him.

  Hrolf sprang out of the high scat and sped thither. "Hold off!" he cried to Bjarki. "Keep the peace!"

  "Lord," said the Norseman, "this knave is going to lose his life unless he owns himself the lesser man."

  The king gazed upon the pair who lay stunned beneath the two friends. "That's easily done," he said, not quite able to stay wholly earnest.

  Agnar mumbled something and Bjarki let him get up, as Hjalti did for the other. Everybody took his seat, the berserkers theirs with heavy hearts.

  Hrolf stood forth and talked sternly to his troopers. Tonight, he told them, they had seen how none was so bold, strong, or big that his like could not be found. "I forbid you to awaken more strife in my hall. No matter who breaks my ban, it shall cost him his life. Against my foes you can be as angry and raging as you wish, and so win honor and fame. Before as goodly a flock of warriors as you are, I need not keep still. I say to you, make yourselves worthy of yourselves!"

  All praised the words of the king and swore friendship.

  It was but skin deep on the part of the berserkers. They kept their hatred for Bjarki and Hjalti, losing no chance to backbite these and giving them never a word which was not surly. However, they dared not make real trouble. After they stopped pestering and humbling the rest of the men, the latter soon lost their own overweening ways toward others. In a while, not only hirelings but the very thralls said that King Hrolf’s garth was a happy place to be.

  The warriors were much away from it, however, for in those days he was bringing the Jutes under him. Great were the deeds done on strands, hills, and heaths, in woods and dales; and wily, too, were the schemings which Hrolf set forth. The tale of his warfaring would get overly long, for it is only a tale of victories.

  At home he dwelt in splendor. This is how he seated his men: On his right was Bjarki, acknowledged the foremost among them and therefore the marshal. They had come to call him Bodhvar-Bjarki, Battle-Bjarki, which fitted so well that today he is often spoken of as Bodhvar, as if that were the name his father bestowed on him. But Bjarki is right, and more than one lay calling men forth to fight is known as a Bjarkamaal. However terrible in war, he was a cheerful and openhanded soul, always spared the lives of foemen who yielded, never took a woman against her will, and loved to make small children laugh.