The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (Penguin Classics)

by Jesse L. Byock

  earliest accounts of the characters in Hrolf’s Saga come from Anglo-Saxon England, where writing in Roman letters had been adopted in the seventh century, several centuries earlier than in Scandinavia. For the Anglo-Saxons, the kings of Norse legend represented the heroic era of their own history. This trans-North Sea connection is made especially clear in the poem Widsith, written perhaps as early as the seventh century, though it may be later. Widsith is shaped to resemble the song of a wandering Anglo-Saxon bard, unfolding his knowledge of the Germanic heroic age. The poet tells of Hrothgar (Hroar) and Hrothulf (Hrolf) and, in agreement with the genealogy of Hrolf’s Saga, calls them uncle and nephew. According to the poem, these chieftains ruled for many years in peace at Heorot, overcoming their foes.

  Both Hrothulf/Hrolf and Hrothgar/Hroar also appear in Beowulf, and a comparison shows some differences between the Old English and Icelandic stories. In Hrolf’s Saga Hroar is a notable figure, though a secondary one, ruling over the northern English kingdom of North-umberland until forced into a disastrous conflict. In Beowulf, King Hrothgar is a character of central importance. He is the builder of the magnificent hall Heorot, the object of the monster Grendel’s depredations. Moreover, Hrothgar, as in Widsith, is king of the Danes. The poet of Beowulf hints darkly, however, that there will be strife among the kinsmen: ‘their peace still held, each one to the other was true’. When Hrothgar’s wife, having no real choice, commends her sons to her nephew Hrothulf, she fears that he will do them harm. Although the stories are somewhat different, the theme of betrayal and danger in the uncle–nephew relationship exists in both the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian stories.

  Other figures in Hrolf’s Saga also appear in Beowulf, attesting to the extent of the common legendary tradition. Halga (the Old English equivalent of Helgi) is noted in Beowulf as a son of Healfdeane and the brother of Hrothgar. These relationships agree with the saga, where King Halfdan is Helgi’s father and Hroar is his brother. But it is the central character of the Anglo-Saxon text, the young champion Beowulf, who, in his similarity to the Old Norse champion Bodvar Bjarki, offers the most intriguing agreement between the Old English poem and the saga.

  Beowulf and Bodvar Bjarki: The Bear Warriors

  Scholars have long noted similarities between the stories of Bodvar Bjarki and Beowulf. The parallels, ranging from shared details to broad plot-resemblances, are significant enough to warrant the supposition that the two stories are somehow related. For example, the stories of both heroes begin in the land of the Gotar (Old Norse Gautar, Old English Geatas) where each hero is related to the king. Both heroes have names that approximate to the word ‘bear’: Bjarki means ‘little bear’, and Beowulf is a compound that may mean ‘bee-wolf’, a plausible description for ‘bear’, the animal that shares with man a liking for honey. Less likely is the possibility that the name is formed from the words beorn ‘bear’ and ulf ‘wolf’. Each hero journeys across water to come to the Danish court, ruled by a member of the Skjoldung dynasty. In each instance the warrior who comes from outside the society acts as a ‘land cleanser’, removing a non-human threat to the king’s authority. In both stories the Danish court is being threatened by a monster who conducts raids in the night and against whom the king’s retainers are helpless. Reflective, perhaps, of the many centuries separating the writing of the Old English and the Icelandic texts, the monsters are described differently. In the fourteenth-century saga the attacking creature is called a ‘great troll’, but is described as a winged dragon breathing fire, a later type of medieval monster. The Anglo-Saxon epic contains a more chthonic creature, a human-hating monster who lives underground in the dangerous marshy outlands.

  Such similarities suggest that Beowulf preserves strands of some of the legends that eventually coalesced to form Hrolf’s Saga. But what was this narrative legacy? The answer is found in part in Bodvar’s overt connection with the bear, an animal with many human characteristics. Bears can walk upright on two feet and have eyes similar to those of humans, giving the impression of intelligence and a capacity for human emotions. The connection between bear and man, which is an old one, is intensified by the fact that the two traditionally live on the borders of each other’s realms and share part of each other’s space. Man, who claims the agricultural fields and grazing meadows, makes hunting and gathering incursions into the forest. The bear, who lives in the wild of the forest, makes incursions into the world of men, especially into areas where livestock are kept. If the forest line, the boundary between nature on the one hand and culture on the other, separates the home regions of bear and man, it does not limit the activity of either. The bear, supreme in his world, and man, the master of his, frequently meet. The resultant unavoidable contest, almost between equals, traditionally has bred a relationship of respect and fear. On the part of men, at least, there is a long tradition of psychological curiosity and confused identity. From this uneasy relationship arose an ancient and varied narrative legacy.

  Preserved in an Icelandic saga, the story of Bodvar Bjarki may represent one version of a folktale type distributed throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and America. In the late nineteenth century, the German scholar Friedrich Panzer called this folktale type the Bear’s Son Tale. Today it is more commonly identified as the Three Stolen Princesses, after a motif present in some versions but not in the story of Bjarki. The hero of this type of tale is frequently the offspring of a human woman and a bear. He is exceedingly strong and he may have some bearlike traits. In some versions, as in the saga, he wins a weapon of extraordinary power as an heirloom from his father. As he travels throughout the world, he acquires companions who possess remarkable strength and helpful capabilities. Together, the hero and his companions come to an empty house. Its owner, a monster of some sort, returns home and mistreats one of the hero’s companions. The hero wounds the monster, follows it to the underworld and kills it.

  It is clear that Bjarki’s origins and childhood resemble the Bear’s Son Tale. Bjarki’s brothers, or his comrade Hjalti, may also be seen as the companions from the folktale, although they can likewise be interpreted in the light of epic companionship. If Bjarki’s story displays traditional folktale elements, his character as developed in the saga has larger epic proportions than those normally attributed to a folktale hero. This larger dimension is seen in Bjarki’s later adventures, which less closely parallel the folktale type. Nevertheless, the distinction between epic and folktale hero is often unclear, and it is likely that Bodvar’s heroic character has roots in the two related forms of oral narration. The monster who raids Hrolf’s hall may be identified in several ways: on the one hand, as the demonic owner of the house; and, on the other, as one of the epic forces of chaos. Beowulf likewise has been interpreted as a version of the Bear’s Son Tale. Although Beowulf’s youth lacks the Bear’s Son motifs, his battle with Grendel follows the tale-type much more closely than does Bjarki’s dragon-slaying exploit. Since the stories of Beowulf and Bodvar share so many similarities, in both overt detail and underlying structure, it is possible that the origin of their affinities lies in an older Scandinavian version of the Bear’s Son Tale.

  Whatever the ultimate origin of Bjarki’s story, a number of additional factors connect him with the bear. Indeed, Bodvar Bjarki, the offspring of a bear, is primarily distinctive because of his intimate connection with the animal. The names of Bodvar’s parents, Bjorn and Bera, mean ‘bear’ and ‘she-bear’, and ‘Bjarki’ means ‘bear-cub’ or ‘little bear’. It is quite possible that Bjarki was his original name and Bodvar, derived from the Old Norse word böð meaning ‘battle’, is a nickname carrying the meaning ‘warlike’. If so, the hero’s full name means something like ‘Fierce-’/‘Battle-Bjarki(-Bear)’.

  One thing that is certain is that the saga’s eerie story of Bodvar’s mother coupling with a doomed bear is ancient. The story of the woman who has offspring by a bear is rooted in the storytelling and the ceremonial practices of bear hunters throughout the northern hemisphere. In such s
ocieties the hunted bear is usually treated as a human or a superhuman being. Just as Bjorn in the saga, the bear is assumed to foresee its own death and is often thought of as voluntarily surrendering to the hunters. In Lapland, a brass ring sometimes played a role in the ceremonies of bear hunters; and in the saga Bjorn is loved by a magical Lappish princess and then identified by a ring hidden in his flesh. Further, in keeping with the story presented in the saga, Scandinavian bear stories sometimes reveal a sexual connection between the hunted bear and a human woman. Sometimes great families among bear hunters trace their lineage to a marriage between a human and a bear.

  Remnants of the Scandinavian tradition of the bear found in the saga survived well into modern times in the Trondelag region of northern Norway. In the 1920s and 1930s Anton Röstad, a resident from the inland district of Verdal, collected local folktales and legends with the assistance of Professor Nils Lid and published them in a volume called Frå gamal tid (From the Past). Several of the tales of this region, which borders on the forest, display elements of Hrolf’s Saga, among them the story of Bjorn and his love for Bera, an episode that the saga places in Norway. One tale describes how a woman named Beret, afterward called Bjorn-Beret (‘Bear-Beret’), was carried off by a bear:

  One time there was a young woman, who was called Bjorn-Beret. She was taken by the bear. He took her with him into his lair and there she lived for a long time together with the bear. She had a child with the bear and he treated her well. Each day, a bowl of milk was passed in to her. But one day the bowl was full of blood. The bear had been shot and so she went back to the inhabited areas.

  Another tale collected by Röstad, omitting the story of the bear’s sad demise, presents the woman and her ursine consort as the progenitors of a local family:

  There was a girl from Vuku who was taken by the bear and lived for a time with him in the lair. She also had a child with the bear, and it is said that there is still a family descended from them.

  The folk memory of Verdal also included notions of men transformed into bears and the association of such bears with women. The following story is of especial interest because Bodvar’s father was changed into a bear by a spell:

  The bear never touched pregnant women. Some bears liked to follow such women but by no means all bears did that. Those who were inclined to follow the women were men who had been transformed into bears.

  However one interprets the Bear’s Son material, the Bear’s Son motif exists in legend and myth as well as folktale. It is this type of folkloristic material that inspires saga and epic and comes from a deep wellspring of cultural tradition.

  Berserkers

  Berserkers, so prominent in Hrolf’s Saga, are the remnants in Christian times of older stories. In pre-Christian Scandinavia berserkers seem to have been members of cults connected with Odin in his capacity as god of warriors. Snorri Sturluson in Ynglinga Saga, recalling numerous elements of ancient lore, describes Odin’s warriors in this way:

  His men went to battle without armour and acted like mad dogs or wolves. They bit into their shields and were as strong as bears or bulls. They killed men, but neither fire nor iron harmed them. This madness is called berserker-fury.

  The berserkers of the saga, who often appear as the core of the king’s warband, are at times reminiscent of the retinue of warriors surrounding Odin and may ultimately derive from ancient bear cults. Debate has centred on the meaning of the word itself. Berserker could mean ‘bare shirt’, that is, naked; berserkers, as a mark of ferocity and invincibility, are said to have fought without needing armour. The word, however, may also mean ‘bear-shirt’, reflective of the shape and nature of the bear assumed by these warriors. More literally, it may refer to protective bearskins that such warriors may have worn into battle. When the ‘berserker rage’ was upon him, a berserker was thought of as a sort of ‘were-bear’ (or werewolf), part man, part beast, who was neither fully human nor fully animal. Although not specifically so called, Bodvar Bjarki is a berserker of sorts. He appears at Hrolf’s final battle in the form of a huge bear, invulnerable to weapons. In both his invulnerability and his ability to change shape, Bodvar also displays preternatural abilities resembling those of Odinic champions.

  Myth in the Saga

  Hrolf’s Saga contains many traces of the mythology of Odin. In Eddic poetry Odin is called both Sigtýr, ‘god of victory’, and Sigfaðir, ‘father of victory’. It is in this capacity – as the giver of victory – that Odin appears in the saga. That is the role which Odin plays in Hrolf’s struggle with the miserly King Adils of Sweden. Calling himself Hrani, the god repeatedly tests Hrolf’s men, as if Odin is determining in advance which ones will be able to withstand the ordeals awaiting them at Adils’ court. The warriors who fail are successively sent home so that in the end only Hrolf’s finest champions accompany their chieftain into the hostile court of Adils. Not surprisingly, the heroes chosen by Odin have characteristics similar to those displayed by the god himself. For instance, Svipdag, one of the more mysterious characters in the saga, resembles Odin in that he controls the destiny of a certain group of warriors. Svipdag is also one-eyed, like Odin, who in Norse myth sacrificed an eye for a drink of wisdom from Mimir’s well at the foot of the world tree.

  Odin is also a fickle god, whose complex and vengeful nature plays a crucial role in Hrolf’s Saga. Bjarki curses Odin for his treachery, but the god is simply acting in character. Odin’s propensity to betray even his most beloved heroes, especially those to whom he had previously granted a long string of victories, is well known. Saxo Grammaticus’s telling of the tale of another early Danish king, Harald Wartooth, helps to explain both the motivation attributed to Odin and Hrolf’s acceptance of the god’s actions. One day Harald Wartooth went into battle only to find his opponent using the wedge formation, a battle tactic that was Odin’s special gift to Harald. Aware of the danger of gods and shape shifters, the king suddenly looked at his charioteer Bruni, realizing that here was his old friend Odin. Harald entreated the god, reminding Odin of his earlier kindly acts toward the Danes. The king asked the god to grant him this final victory. In return, Harald promised to dedicate to Odin the souls of those slain in the fighting. Unmoved by the king’s prayers, Bruni suddenly knocked Harald from his chariot, grabbed the king’s mace and struck Harald his deathblow. Thus Odin killed Harald Wartooth with the king’s own weapon.

  Although the author of Hrolf’s Saga seems to delight in chronicling the dark nature of the pagan god, it does not follow that the accusation that Odin is guilty of treachery is only a mark of Christian influence. Odin’s actions in the saga make sense in the context of pre-Christian myth. The god collects dead heroes because he needs them to fight on his side at Ragnarok, the great battle at the end of time when monsters will destroy the world and the demonic Fenris Wolf will kill Odin himself. Scenes from another heroic text, Eiriksmál, a lay memorializing a tenth-century Norwegian Eirik Bloodaxe, king of Norway for a time and then the Viking king of York, help to explain the Norse cultural understanding of both Odin’s motivation and Hrolf’s fate. When Odin is challenged in the poem to explain why he has denied victory to so splendid a warrior as Eirik, the god of war replies: ‘Because a grey wolf glares at the dwellings of the gods.’

  The saga author seems to have had uneasy feelings concerning Odin as the arbitrator of victory. In the view of fourteenth-century Scandinavians, the Christian God was the only true god of victory. This Christian perspective is apparent when the saga writer uncharacteristically moralizes: ‘Human strength cannot withstand such fiendish power, unless the strength of God is employed against it. That alone stood between you and victory, King Hrolf… you had no knowledge of your Creator.’

  Christian Influence

  Even though Hrolf’s Saga, like other Icelandic mythic–heroic texts, preserves remnants of the cult of Odin, it is, as noted above, infused with Christian values. Uneasy at times, this mixture is not surprising, for the saga was written three or four centuries after
Iceland’s conversion to Christianity in 1000. When, for instance, King Adils of Sweden is condemned as an idolater and a practitioner of magic, the author’s convictions become clear: Adils was not simply bad; he was evil in all ways possible. Whatever the saga author’s convictions, Adils appears to have been a historical king of the Swedes, one who was known for his attachment to pagan belief. Snorri Sturluson recounts in The Saga of the Ynglings that Adils died from a horse fall while taking part in a pagan sacrifice-ritual.

  But the saga author may have had conflicting emotions toward his subject matter. There is no doubt that the writer was aware that the material came from the pre-Christian past, and it may be that a penchant for old stories, especially stories intimately connected with Odin, was potentially controversial. Almost as an afterthought, perhaps out of conscience or to protect himself from accusation, the saga writer attempts to separate Hrolf and the king’s champions from too close a pagan connection by writing: ‘It is not mentioned that King Hrolf and his champions at any time worshipped the old gods. Rather, they put their trust in their own might and main. The holy faith, at that time, had not been proclaimed here in the northern lands and, for this reason, they who lived in the North had little knowledge of their Creator.’

  Conclusion

  The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki is both a treasure of fourteenth-century Icelandic prose writing and a significant repository of often ancient legend, epic, myth, cultic memory and folktale. At almost the very last moment in the Middle Ages when the earlier ideas about King Hrolf, his ancestors and his champions still formed a vigorous and active part of living memory, a saga writer turned his attention to the material. As a result the memory of an important chapter in the oldest ages of Scandinavia’s past was preserved. Around the year 1200 Saxo wrote, ‘The diligence of the men of Iceland must not be shrouded in silence.’ His words are as true today as they were then, when he turned for inspiration to many of the same Icelandic stories included in Hrolf’s Saga.