Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read online

  Since that time, skalds have often called gold "the seed of Kraki" or "the sowing on the Fyris Wolds." If riches were left behind, honor was brought home which would never be forgotten.

  King Hrolf and his twelve came into the woods. Tall and thick were those pines; level sunbeams that struck between them only deepened the gloom everywhere else. The air was too cold for smelling of any sweetness. The trail was free of snow and windfalls but covered with duff, so that the horses traveled in an eerie quiet. They were tired out and often stumbled. The riders felt the same weariness upon themselves.

  Then the way brought them to a clearing. They could barely see a house under the trees, though little of its shape or how big it was. A tall old man stood outside, leaning on a spear, decked with a blue cloak and a broad-brimmed hat

  The king halted. "Good evening, Hrani," he said.

  "Good evening, Hrolf Kraki," answered the yeoman.

  "How does he know that nickname?" whispered Vögg. "And I. .. I've been on this path ... no garth was ever here."

  "Hush," Hvitserk the Swede told him. "We've met this being before—whoever or whatever he is."

  "Be welcome under my roof," said Hrani.

  "You are most kind," said tie king.

  "I think your faring was not unlike what I foresaw."

  "That's right. You were not smoke-blinded."

  The yeoman stabled their horses and brought them inside to the long, remembered room of fire and shadows. Again they were taking things as these happened, as if in a dream; but however guest-free the old one seemed, they felt something nightmarish.

  Hjalti muttered about that to Bjarki. The Norseman nodded. "Aye, me too," he said in his fellow's ear. "Well, after what we saw at the hall of Adhils, we're bound to be wary of what comes from beyond our world."

  Hrolf himself must strive to show politeness. Hrani's hand was bony on his elbow, leading him toward a table. Thereon lay a sword, a shield, and a bymie. They were black and strangely made.

  "Here are weapons, lord, which I will give you," said Hrani.

  Hrolf frowned. "Those are some ugly weapons, yeoman," he answered.

  Hrani let go of him. Beneath the hat, an eye caught the flickering bloody fire-glow like a leap of lightning. Within the long gray beard, his mouth drew into a line. "What do you mean by that?" he snapped.

  "I would not treat my host rudely—" the king began.

  "But you think my gift unworthy of you?"

  Hrolf stared upward into the half-hidden face, braced himself, and said: "We're newly come from a lair of witchcraft and trolls. There may well be spells working against us yet, or traps set to catch us in an ill doom. The sword Tyrfing goes about in the world, and each owner gets victory from it, but he becomes an evildoer and in the end the sword is his bane."

  "Do you hold that these also are accursed things I have made?"

  "I know not. Therefore I cannot take them."

  Cold as a wind off the Swart Ice blew Hrani's words: "Little do you reckon me for, when you spurn my gifts. I deem you will get woe as great as is this demeaning of me."

  "I meant no such thing, friend." Hrolf tried to smile.

  The yeoman cut him off. "Call me no longer friend. You are not as wise in this as you believe, King Hrolf—" his glare stabbed each man to the marrow—"and none of you are as lucky as you think."

  "It seems best we leave," said Hrolf slowly.

  "I will not hinder you," answered Hrani.

  No further word did he speak. He fetched their horses back out, saddled and bitted to go, and leaned on his spear in the murk. Grim was he to see beneath his brows. The men thought nothing was to be won by bidding him farewell. They mounted and rode hastily off, to get as far as they could before night was altogether upon them.

  But they had gone barely a mile, enough for the mist to lift in their heads, when Bjarki stopped. The rest did likewise. Dim in twilight, he told them: "Too late do the unwise come to understanding. So is it with me. I have a feeling we did not behave very sagely when we said no to that we ought to have said yes to. We may have bidden victory go from us."

  "I begin to believe the same," spoke King Hrolf. "That could have been old Odin. Truly—only now do I know what I saw—he was a man with one eye."

  Svipdag's own single light glimmered. "Let's hurry back," he said, "and find out about this."

  They trotted under the spearhead pines and the first wan stars. Save for muffled thuds of hoofs, faint creak of leather and clink of metal, the whimper that Vögg could not wholly quell, they went in silence. Dark though the way was, they knew the place when they reached it. The garth and the yeoman were gone.

  King Hrolf sighed. "No use searching for him," he said, "for he is an angry wraith."

  They turned around again, and at length found a meadow to camp in. None wanted food or drink, and it was now too murky to gather sticks and tinder for a fire. They slept badly or not at all.

  In the morning they fared on. Nothing is told of them until they reached Denmark.

  Surely, though, they were quick to lift up their hearts anew. They were bold men, homeward bound from mighty deeds. As for their weird, they had never supposed they could escape that, whatever it was and whenever it would find them. Meanwhile, in leaf and blossom, bird-song and the bright glance of maidens when they rode by, spring was coming to birth.

  But in Leidhra, Hrolf the king and Bjarki the marshal talked long under four eyes. It was Bodhvar-Bjarki who gave the rede that henceforward the Danes should hold away from battle. Both felt they would not be attacked while they themselves stayed at peace. However, the Norseman said he was afraid the king would not be the winner as hitherto, should war seek him out; for Odin is the Father of Victories.

  Hrolf answered: "His own doom sets the life of every man, and not yonder spook."

  "You would we lose last, if we might have our way," Bjarki said. "Nonetheless I have a heavy feeling that things will be happening to us."

  So they ended this talk, but were most thoughtful thereafter.

  Yet high stood their name. Low had they brought the murderer of King Helgi. The troll he served and the best of his men were fallen. The hoard he had withheld was lost to him, borne off the Fyris Wolds in a hundred different saddlebags. Shamed and lamed, lonelier than one who has been wrecked on a reef, at night in the hollowness of his hall King Adhils wept.

  VII

  THE TALE OF SKULD

  I

  Now for seven years there was no warfaring out of Denmark or into it.

  This does not mean that everything was quiet.

  Upon his homecoming, Bjarki was gladly greeted by his wife Drifa—who had a little son to show him—and by the folk, not just on the lands he owned but widely around. They knew that, as the king's right arm, he was their warder against outlaws and outlanders. Those guardsmen who had been sent back were less happy; they felt their honor had suffered. Hrolf found words to ease the pain: Eldritch powers had been at work, and their manhood was not less because the Norns had cut no runes above their cradles to say they should fare outside the bailiwick of mankind. Thereafter he gave them such gifts of gold and weapons that the whole kingdom could know how well he thought of them. Meanwhile Bjarki's bluff mirth got them to smiling again.

  Twelve could not be soothed: the berserkers. Besides being mostly too dim-witted to grasp that no man is fitted for all tasks, they were restless. For them was nothing in life but fighting, guzzling swilling, and swiving. The peaceful three soon palled, and Hrolf Kraki no longer sent them forth to battle.

  Late in the summer, Agnar their headman flared up at Bjarki, one eventide in the hall at Leidhra. Hrolf stopped the quarrel and chided the berserker before the whole company. Agnar went off to brood. At last he slouched back to seek out the king. For the shame that had been put on him, he grumbled, no amends would do save that he got Hrolf’s daughter Skur to wife, and the kind of dowry that befitted her.

  In horror, the girl fled to her sister Drifa, who gave comfort a
nd spoke to her husband. Bjarki trod before the king. Hrolf was sorely puzzled as to how to keep the peace on one hand, without breaking any oaths to his men, and on the other hand how to keep that clod out of his kin. "Lord," said the Norseman, "you have rightly forbidden fights when we are met in a body. But nothing was said about holmgangs, was it? I'd rather be dead than have this son of a mare for my brother-in-law; and surely he'll oblige me."

  Agnar bellowed. Hrolf tried to mend the breach, mostly because he feared he would lose his marshal, but it could not be done. In the end, Agnar and Bjarki rowed to a small island and set out the wands.

  The berserker got the first stroke. His sword that he called Hoking crashed on Bjarki's helmet, broke the rivets and sent iron plates screaming from each other. Barely did it stop short of the wearer's skull; blood ran past the noseguard. Ere it could be withdrawn, the other blade was up, left hand gripping right wrist and one foot on a stump to give more strength.

  Lövi smote home. Afterward Bodhvar-Bjarki made a stave:

  "This will I say you for sooth, the wildest of stags did I strike,

  starkly hitting in strife with the long lean weapon hight Lövi,

  winning a wealth of fame on the day when I brought him down,

  Agnar, the son of Ingjald; highly they hailed our names!

  Höking aloft he lifted and hurled it onto my helmet

  Well that that blade was worn so its wailing edge could not wound me!

  Bitterly would it have bitten if the steel had stayed on its road.

  Swiftly then did I swing, and my sword did cleave him asunder,

  hewing his hand off to right and leaving no foot on the left,

  while in the whirling between, it ripped out the roots of his heart.

  Truth will I tell: I never saw man more doughtily die.

  He sank but he did not swoon, and up on his elbow raised him,

  laughing let go of his life, unscathed in his scorn for death.

  Happily fared he hence to whatever home is for heroes.

  Boldness dwelt in that breast, and grinned at the gathering dark. Sorely I think he suffered, in both his body and soul,

  for that he had not felled me; yet stricken, he still could laugh."

  And Bjarki saw to it that Agnar got an honorable burial. This did not dampen the rage of the rest of the berserkers. They set upon him while he was homebound. Hjalti and Svipdag had come along as witnesses. The upshot was that two more berserkers lay dead and none of the others lacked wounds.

  For what they had tried to do, King Hrolf outlawed them. They left bawling vows of revenge. But unlike those who had been cast from Uppsala, they seemed to have nowhere to go for help, so strong were the peace at home and the awe abroad of Hrolf’s Denmark. Everyone agreed that not only the royal halls, but the whole land was better off without them.

  Skur later became the bride of Svipdag. They say she was happy enough, dour though he was.

  Next year came mighty tidings: King Adhils was dead.

  He had been taking the lead in springtime offerings to the female Powers. As he rode around their bloodstained shrines, his horse stumbled. No longer able to keep well the saddle, he was cast off and struck his head against a stone. The skull burst, the brains flowed forth. The strange gods they served were not overly kind to the Ynglings.

  The Swedes raised a mound over him and took for their king Eystein, his son by a leman of years ago. Yet they, and he, still felt love for Queen Yrsa; and was she not both mother and sister to the great Dane-King? Thus she stayed in the councils of the land, and had many men at her beck. She would fain have visited Hrolf, but age was beginning to weaken her. He, for his part, deemed it unwise to thrust himself upon a new lord of Svithjodh, as if to be overbearing rather than friendly. So he and Yrsa kept putting off a new coming together.

  One thing that had Hrolf Kraki busy a while was that he stopped making offerings of his own. "Odin has become our foe," he said. "Besides, I never did like the hanging and drowning of helpless men, and always gave only beasts. As for those, I can't see that the slaughters which Adhils held were of much use to him." At first the folk dreaded famine and worse, when their king would not even enter a temple. He had to talk down a number of their spokesmen. But one good year followed another; trade waxed and widened; the peace seemed unshakeable.

  Everyone could do what he thought best Aside from gifts at the graves of their forebears and to the little beings which haunt house and home-acre, the king and his men called no more on any Powers, but trusted in their own strength.

  Of course, this was not true of his under-kings—least of all Hjördvardh at Odin's Lake, husband of his sister Skuld the Elf-Child.

  In the years since their wedding, they had mostly kept to themselves. After Bjarki slew the cattle-raiding beast, Hjördvardh particularly grew anxious to show goodwill. A few seasons he went along in the Jutland wars, and he never failed to send men, as well as paying his scot of gold and goods. Otherwise he tended the lands he owned and the work of steering northern Fyn. He was somewhat of a sluggard, content to have things done for him, and might have ended his days happily as he was were it not for his queen.

  In all that mattered, the balding plump man was ruled by the black-haired slender woman whose eyes were like changeable green lakes in a snowfield. Because of her, his judgments were harsh. Folk soon learned that it was as unwise for them to protest as it was for Skuld's own thralls. Those who gave trouble to her or her husband

  were likely to have bad luck: sickness, a murrain on their

  livestock, a blight on their crops, a fire, or worse. She made no secret of her witchcraft, though none ever dared spy on her when she fared alone into the woods or out on the heaths. Some whispered they had seen her riding at night, on a gaunt horse which galloped faster than any live beast, and that a troop of shadows and misshapen things came after.

  Yet she and Hjördvardh must stand well with the gods, for toward these they were lavish. At the holy times they would give to each of the Twelve lives of his or her own kind—goats to Thor, swine to Frey, cats to Freyja, bulls to Heimdal, horses to Tyr, and on in that wise until it came to Odin. He got men.

  They throve, keeping a big hall, a full household, stuffed coffers. If they did not show forth a splendor like Hrolf Kraki's, it was rather because Skuld was stingy than for lack of the wherewithal.

  Bitterly did she hate that her husband was her brother's underling. Each year when the scot went off to Leidhra, it was as if her heart's blood were in the cargo.

  Always she nagged Hjördvardh about his lowliness. This way of hers grew worse after the High King returned from Uppsala, to make war no longer and to stand aloof from the gods. "It must not go on," she said.

  Hjördvardh sighed, where he lay in bed next to her. "Best will be for us as for the others, to suffer this and let things stay calm."

  "Small manhood do you have," she spat through the dark, "seeing how you brook the shame that's put on you."

  "It's unwise to brave King Hrolf. None dare raise a shield against him."

  "You don't, so skimpy is the strength in you. He who risks naught, wins naught. Who can know before it's been tried, whether anyone can beat King Hrolf and his warriors? I think he's become altogether victoryless, and he himself knows that, and this is why he stays at home. Well, we can come to him!"

  "Skuld, he's your own brother—"

  "I'd not spare him on that account."

  "Be glad of what we have, my dear." He groped for her, feeling the cool smoothness of her skin, breathing the summeriness of her hair. She thrust him away and turned her back. Hjördvardh did not try to have her. He had long since learned he could only do that when she wanted it, and then it was oftenest her who bestrode him.

  She did not push the matter further for a while, aside from a growing shrewishness. Indeed, the overthrow of King Hrolf was nothing to undertake lightly. For four more years she busied herself in the deeper lore of witchcraft.

  "Have a care with those
spells," Hjördvardh begged her. "King Adhils was a great wizard. It did him no good."

  Skuld's laughter froze him. "Adhils? That poor wretch? He only thought he knew something; and few were the beings that heeded him. I have teachers—" She broke off and said no more.

  Then a Yule Eve came when she rode off alone as was her wont. Folk glimpsed her from afar, mounted on the ugly old nag she used at such times, her hair and a cloak of the same blackness tossing around her shoulders. She was armed only with a knife and a rune-carved staff; but from men she had nothing to fear. She vanished in twilight, and those who had seen her go by hastened indoors to their hearthfires.

  Some miles from Odense, on the shore of the bay, stood a hill. Wind-wrenched trees and brush, bare now in winter, grew around its bottom. Whins and ling decked the rest of it, up to the top where a dolmen squatted. Snowfall had been scant thus far in the year; the land lay dark, bushes snickering an answer to tie whine of a north wind. Clouds drove over heaven, rimmed in paleness by a crooked moon which flew between them. Waves clashed on the strand, making stones rattle. The air flowed raw. A taste of salt was on it, and the stench of a dead seal which had washed shore. Inland, wolves gave tongue.

  Skuld dismounted and went into the dolmen. There she had a kettle and firewood for the seething of spells. Something had already filled it for her; and she needed no toil with flint and tinder to kindle a blaze. Those were low flames, blue, heatless on the skin if not the water, making shadows move so monstrously on the stone walls that the murk was not lifted but came nearer.

  Crouched in the low, narrow room, Skuld held her rune-staff over the brew and cried certain words.

  A sound came as of sucking. She stepped forth. Any other horse than hers would have screamed and bolted at how the water bubbled down below, how something rose from it and moved ashore. Earth shivered at the weight of each slow footstep. He who climbed the hill dripped water which glowed coldly white. Chill breathed from his wet flesh, with a rankness of fish and undersea reaches. Like kelp were his hair and beard, and his eyes like lamps.