Myths of the Norsemen

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Myths of the Norsemen Page 13

by Roger Green


  On a stone chair sat Geirrodur himself, an old Giant with a great gash through his body, and behind him the rent pillar and the chasm in the rock. Beside him sat his daughters, all huddled up since their backbones had never mended again, and they were now hideous with sores and tumours.

  Neither Geirrodur nor his daughters spoke, or even looked up; and King Gorm and his men were only too ready to turn and hurry out of that noisome place, while Thorkill reminded them how Thor had flung the white-hot iron through the Troll King and had broken the daughters’ backs when they tried to crush him against the roof.

  Suddenly, as they reached the hall door, they saw treasures laid out before them. There were barrels filled with jewels, belts of gold, the tusk of a strange beast tipped at both ends with gold, a huge stag’s horn decked with flashing gems, and a large golden bracelet most beautifully decorated with jewels.

  Then, forgetting all warnings, one man snatched up the bracelet and clasped it round his wrist; another stretched out quivering fingers and took up the horn; while a third could not resist raising the tusk and slinging it over his shoulder.

  But no sooner was the bracelet clasped in place than it turned into a snake and bit the man who had taken it with its poisoned fang; the horn lengthened out into a serpent, twined round the thief, and laid him dead on the floor; while the tusk turned suddenly into a sword and plunged through the body of the man who held it.

  In terror the rest of the warriors turned to rush out of the castle; but before they had passed the gate they came to an open door, and looking in they saw that it was Geirrodur’s treasure chamber. There lay rich cloaks and belts, golden helmets and wondrous weapons, many of them too large for ordinary men to wield.

  At the sight even Thorkill forgot his wisdom, and he reached forth his hand and picked up a rich, warm cloak. King Gorm and his men also began to take things, and would have loaded themselves with plunder. Then on a sudden the room seemed to shake, and there was a scream of ‘Thieves! Thieves!’

  The Trolls, who had seemed more dead than alive before and certainly as harmless as if they had been turned into stone, suddenly attacked from all sides. A furious battle raged, and King Gorm and all his men would have been killed if the brave warrior Buchi had not shot fast and well with his bow and kept back the Trolls until the King was out of the city. Even so only twenty men escaped, and with King Gorm and Thorkill, Buchi and his brother, hastened down to the riverside where they found Gudmund waiting for them with his boat.

  He ferried them across the river in safety, and took them back to his house.

  In the morning they made ready to set out overland towards where their ships were waiting for them. But then they found that brave Buchi the archer was lost to them. For he had fallen in love with one of Gudmund’s daughters who had tended him after the battle, and asked her to be his wife. She had accepted: but no sooner did they seal their betrothal with a kiss than Buchi’s brain began to whirl, and by the morning he had lost his memory and was raving mad.

  Sadly King Gorm and Thorkill set out from Gudmund’s hall, reached their ships in safety, and sailed away. But even then they had storms to endure on their way down the Vimur river and across the seas, so that few indeed of them came back to Denmark.

  And after that not even Thorkill the great traveller dared ever again to visit that fearsome land where Geirrodur the Troll King sat in his loathsome castle, maimed and silent from the terrible blow which Thor had dealt him.

  10

  The Curse of Andvari’s Ring

  While it was still the custom of Odin to wander through Midgard in disguise, he came one day in company with Honir and Loki to a beautiful river which ran swiftly through a deep valley.

  As they followed it up towards its source they found a big waterfall in a deep and solitary glen; and on a rock beside the fall they saw an otter blinking its eyes happily as it prepared to eat a salmon which it had caught.

  Loki at once picked up a stone and flung it at the otter with such good aim that a moment later it lay dead upon the dead salmon.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ cried Loki. ‘Two at a blow! Trust me to get both an otter and a salmon with one stone!’

  He picked up his double catch, and the three Æsir went on again until they came to a house set in the midst of rich farm-lands and walled about strongly as if it were the home of some great lord.

  The three travellers came up to the gateway, and finding it open, went in to the great hall where sat a dark man with flashing eyes alone on a seat beside the fire.

  ‘Greetings, strangers!’ he cried. ‘Tell me who you are and why you come hither to the hall of Hreidmarr the master of magic?’

  ‘We are poor pilgrims journeying through the world,’ answered Odin, doffing his broad-brimmed hat politely as he leant on his staff and surveyed Hreidmarr with his one eye, ‘and seeing your strong house set amidst such fruitful fields of corn, we turned aside to visit you.’

  ‘Poor though we may be,’ added Loki quickly, ‘we are strong and clever in our own ways. Look here at this otter and salmon which I laid low with the cast of a single stone!’

  When he saw what Loki carried in his hands Hreidmarr rose to his feet and shouted:

  ‘Come hither, my sons Fafnir and Reginn! Come and bind these evil men who have slain your brother Otter!’

  Then, while he held them powerless by his magic, two strong youths came into the hall and bound them securely with iron chains.

  ‘And now,’ said Hreidmarr grimly as he sat gloating over his three captives, ‘it remains only to decide how you shall die.’

  ‘For what reason would you kill us?’ asked slow Honir, hoping to win out of danger by the smooth power of argument.

  ‘You must know,’ answered Hreidmarr, ‘that I am a master of black magic such as is known among the Trolls and Swart Elves. And my three sons share my art, but in addition have the power of changing their shapes at will. My eldest son Otter chose to pass his time in the shape of an otter so that he might catch the fish in which he delighted as they sprang down the waterfall not far from here which is called Andvari’s Force. The otter which you slew is this very son of mine, and justice demands a life for a life.’

  ‘But justice allows also of wergild,’ Honir replied stolidly, ‘that is a payment for a slaying if it be done by chance. My companion here flung a stone at what seemed but a common beast of the riverside. Come now, decide on the wergild that shall pay for the death of your son.’

  Then Hreidmarr consulted with Fafnir and Reginn, and at last he said:

  ‘Strangers, we will take wergild, and it shall be this: enough good red gold to fill the skin of the otter which was my son, and to cover it so that not a hair may remain showing. Two of you shall stay here in chains, while the third goes forth to fetch the golden payment.’

  The three Æsir consulted apart, and the end of it was that cunning Loki was sent out to find the golden ransom. ‘Go to the Black Elves and to the Dwarfs,’ Odin instructed him. ‘Use all your arts, for we are in the hands of wizards who must not know who we are. Therefore I cannot send to Asgard for help.’

  ‘Depend upon me,’ answered Loki with a cunning smile. ‘I know where the gold is to be got – though it will indeed require all my arts to win it for our use.’

  So, while Odin and Honir remained in chains, and Fafnir and Reginn skinned the dead otter to measure out the wergild, Loki set forth in search of treasure.

  He went straight back to Andvari’s Force, from which the otter had taken the shining salmon, and sat himself down beside the rushing waters.

  Loki could see through the roaring arch of green and silver, and presently he perceived Andvari the Dwarf in the likeness of a pike hiding in the mouth of his cave which was behind the waterfall; and there was a glimmer of gold in the darkness of the cave behind him.

  ‘How can I catch him?’ thought Loki. ‘I could never take him with my hands, and he is far too wise to be caught by any hook however cunningly I might bait it …’


  Then Loki thought of Ran, the cruel wife of Ægir, the Giant who ruled the Sea, who caught shipwrecked sailors in her net and drew them down to the bottom of the ocean. Ran was not friendly to the Æsir, but she recognized the evil Giant blood in Loki, and willingly lent him her net.

  ‘But do not let the Æsir see it,’ she warned him, ‘nor yet the men who dwell in Midgard. For a day may come when you will wish to escape, and only a net such as mine could snare you.’

  Loki took Ran’s net and returned to Andvari’s Force. There he cast it into the water and drew it up so smartly that the great pike was entangled in its meshes and lay gasping on the bank.

  Loki grasped him in his hands and held him until Andvari returned to his own Dwarfish shape and asked sulkily what he wanted.

  When Loki told him, Andvari to save his life was forced to give up all his treasure. He carried it up out of the cave behind the arch of falling waters and stacked it on the bank – and it was a very great pile indeed, such a treasure of rich gold as had never before been seen in Midgard.

  When at last it was all there, Andvari the Dwarf turned sulkily away. But as he did so he put out his hand and swept quickly under it one little golden ring.

  Watchful Loki saw this, however, and sternly bade him fling it back on to the pile.

  ‘Let me keep just this ring,’ begged Andvari. ‘If I have it, I can make more gold: but the charm will not work for any who is not of the Dwarf race.’

  ‘Not one scarp shall you keep,’ said Loki viciously, and he snatched back the ring and held it firmly in his own hand.

  ‘Then,’ answered the Dwarf, ‘take with it my curse. And know that the curse goes with the ring and brings ruin and sorrow upon all who wear it until both ring and gold come back into the deep waters.’

  So saying Andvari turned himself into a pike once more and dived to the bottom of the river.

  But Loki collected the gold and carried it back to Hreidmarr’s dwelling where Odin and Honir were waiting anxiously for him.

  When they saw the gold, Hreidmarr filled the otter skin full of it and set it up on end. Then they piled gold round it until the skin was completely hidden – and the gold was all used up.

  As the gold was being stacked, Odin noticed Andvari’s Ring and it seemed so fair to him that he took it out of the pile and slipped it on to his own finger. When the gold was all heaped up, he exclaimed:

  ‘Now, Hreidmarr, our wergild is paid. See, the skin of the otter is altogether hidden under the gold.’

  Hreidmarr examined the heap carefully.

  ‘Not so!’ he exclaimed. ‘One hair on the snout is still showing. Cover that also, or the wergild is not paid and your lives are forfeit.’

  With a sigh Odin took the ring from his finger and covered the last hair with it; and so the wergild was paid and they were set at liberty.

  When they were free, and Odin held his spear once more and there was no longer any danger, Loki turned to Hreidmarr and said:

  ‘With the ring of Andvari goes Andvari’s Curse: evil and sorrow upon all who wear it!’

  Then the three Æsir returned to Asgard. But they left behind them the curse of Andvari’s Ring which had already begun to work on Hreidmarr and his two sons.

  ‘You must give us some part of the wergild,’ Fafnir and Reginn told their father. ‘Otter was our brother as well as your son.’

  ‘Not one gold ring shall either of you have,’ answered Hreidmarr, and he locked up the treasure in his strongest room.

  Then Fafnir and Reginn made a plot together, and the end of it was that Reginn murdered their father Hreidmarr for the sake of Andvari’s gold.

  ‘And now,’ said Reginn when the evil deed was done, ‘let us share the treasure between us in equal portions.’

  ‘Not one gold ring shall you have,’ answered Fafnir. ‘Little do you deserve it indeed, seeing that you slew our father for its sake. Now go hence speedily, or I will slay you also! A life for a life is the law: and your life is forfeit for the murder of Hreidmarr.’

  So Fafnir drove Reginn away, and he himself set Hreidmarr’s Helmet of Terror on his head and carried all the treasure which had been Andvari’s hoard to Gnita Heath far from the haunts of men and hid it in a cave. Then he took upon himself the form of a terrible dragon and lay down upon the gold and gloated over it after the custom of dragons.

  But Reginn, vowing vengeance in his heart, went to the court of Hialprek, King of the Danes, and became his smith. There he received into his charge the young hero Sigurd the Volsung, the son of Sigmund to whom once on a time Odin had given a magic sword.

  For once in the hall of King Volsung, as all the warriors sat over their mead, a stranger came out of the darkness, a one-eyed man wearing a long cloak and a broad-brimmed hat. Up the hall he went until he came to the trunk of the great oak tree round which the hall was built.

  When he reached it the stranger drew a great, shining sword and plunged it into the hard wood so that it sank to the very hilt.

  ‘Who so draweth this sword from this stock, shall have it as a gift from me, and shall find that never a better sword was borne in hand by mortal man in Midgard!’ he cried.

  Then he went out from the hall and vanished into the night: and King Volsung and his warriors knew that their visitor had been Odin.

  When he grew up, Sigmund, Volsung’s son, was alone able to draw the sword out of the tree; and many mighty deeds he did with it, for none could stand against him.

  At last, however, the day came when Sigmund was fated to die. As he fought his last battle he found none who could withstand him, till Odin came suddenly against him in his blue cloak and broad-brimmed hat and caught the swinging sword against the staff which he carried in his hand. At once the sword blade broke into pieces, and very soon afterwards Sigmund fell mortally wounded.

  All the race of the Volsungs were killed in that battle except King Sigmund’s wife Hiordis. When the battle was over she went amongst the slain and found her husband yet living. With his last breath he bade her take the pieces of the sword and keep them carefully.

  ‘For when our son is born,’ he gasped, ‘he will become the noblest and most famous of all the Heroes of Midgard. From the pieces of this sword shall be made another weapon called Gram, and greater deeds shall Sigurd do with it than ever I performed.’

  Then Sigmund died, and presently Hiordis became the wife of King Hialprek, who proved a kind and generous stepfather to young Sigurd.

  Reginn was made his guardian and tutor, and he taught him well and honestly all those things which a warrior should know. He did, however, try to make him discontented with his lot, for he did not wish Sigurd to remain quietly in Denmark: but he did not succeed in turning him against his stepfather or his adopted home.

  ‘Surely you know how much wealth your father had?’ said Reginn. ‘Why, he was a king, and yet you are content to be without importance in your stepfather’s house.’

  ‘I am not without importance,’ answered Sigurd. ‘I have but to ask and I shall receive.’

  ‘You must prove that,’ replied Reginn. ‘Ask the King for a horse, the best that he has – and see what happens!’

  ‘He will grant it!’ cried Sigurd hotly. ‘Willingly! And anything else for which I ask!’

  Nevertheless he went to the King and asked for the gift of a horse.

  ‘Take whichever you like,’ answered the King, ‘and anything else of mine no matter what it be.’

  Next day Sigurd went to the wood where the royal horses grazed to choose one for himself. As he went he met an old man with a white beard and only one eye, who wore a long blue cloak and a broad-brimmed hat.

  ‘Whither away, young sir?’ asked the old man.

  ‘I come to the wood to choose a horse for myself,’ answered Sigurd. ‘But you, honoured sir, seem old and full of wisdom: advise me, I beg, how to choose my steed.’

  ‘Come with me,’ answered the old man, ‘and we will drive them into the swift waters of the Busil Tarn.’
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br />   They did so, driving the horses down a steep bank into the swift river. Then all of them were afraid and turned back to the land except one horse, a great grey stallion young and fair to see, on which no man had yet ridden. And this horse Sigurd chose.

  Then the old man said: ‘From Sleipnir’s kin is this horse come: you must tend him well, for he will be the best of all horses,’ and having said this he vanished, and Sigurd knew that it was Odin.

  Sigurd led home the horse, which was called Grani, and soon became a good and fearless rider.

  Seeing that he was now full grown, and a man of great strength and courage, Reginn told him about the dragon Fafnir who lay upon the great hoard of gold in the cave on Gnita Heath.

  ‘So large and fierce is that dragon,’ ended Reginn, ‘and so deadly is the poison which pours from his mouth, that no man has dared to go up against him to slay him and take the treasure.’

  ‘If I had but a good enough sword,’ cried Sigurd, ‘I myself would venture against the dragon Fafnir and seek to be his bane!’

  ‘I will make you a sword,’ answered Reginn the master smith, and he went to his forge and fashioned a shining blade which he gave to Sigurd.

  ‘Behold your smithying, Reginn!’ cried Sigurd, and he smote the anvil with the sword so that the blade was shivered into fragments. ‘Go, forge me a better!’ he said, and flung down the handle.

  Then Reginn put all his knowledge and cunning into the forging of a fresh blade, and he brought the new sword to Sigurd who gazed on it with admiration.

  ‘Maybe this will satisfy you,’ Reginn said, ‘though you are indeed a hard task master for any smith.’

  Sigurd smote the anvil with the new sword, and once again the blade broke into pieces and he flung down the hilt, crying:

 

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