Two Sagas of Mythical Heroes, page 14
Chapter 34
Then Bođvar made his way to Lejre, and he came to the king’s hall. He led his horse inside the stable next to the king’s best horses without asking anyone about it, and then he went into the hall where there {105} were few people present. He sat toward the outside, and after he had been there a little while, he heard a rustling noise in a certain corner. Bođvar looked that way and saw a human hand come up out of a big pile of bones lying there. The hand was very dirty.
Bođvar went over, and asked who was in the pile of bones.
He was answered, and not in a courageous voice: “My name is Hott, friendly fellow.”
“Why are you here,” said Bođvar, “and what are you doing?”
Hott said, “I’m making myself a shield-wall, friendly fellow.”
Bođvar said, “You’ve got a poor one.”
Bođvar reached for him and plucked him out from the pile of bones. Hott screamed out loud in response and said, “Now you’re going to kill me! Don’t do it! I’ve done so much work on it already, and now you’ve broken up my shield-wall, and I had just now made it high enough that it protected me against all your assaults, so that no bone had hit me for a long time. But it still wasn’t as complete as it ought to have been.”
Bođvar said, “You won’t be able to work on your shield-wall any longer.”
Hott began to cry and said, “Are you going to kill me now, fellow?”
Bođvar told him to hush up, and picked him up and took him outside the hall to some water that was nearby and washed him all over. There were few people in the vicinity who paid any attention. Then Bođvar went back to the seat on the bench that he had taken earlier, and he brought Hott with him and set Hott there next to him. Hott was so afraid that he was trembling in every limb. But he seemed to understand that this man wanted to help him.
After the evening came and men began to file into the hall, Hrólf’s champions saw that Hott was sitting up on a bench. They thought the man who had done this had a share of courage. Hott had an ominous look on his face when he saw these men he recognized, because he had experienced only evil at their hands. He wanted badly to go back into his pile of bones and live, but Bođvar held on to him so that he could not go away. Hott thought that he wouldn’t be as vulnerable to the thrown bones if he got there, as he would be where he was now.
The warriors kept up their usual habit and threw bones across the hall at Bođvar and Hott, small bones at first. Bođvar acted as if he did {106} not see this. Hott was so terrified that he neither took food nor drink, and he thought he would be struck at any moment. He said to Bođvar, “Friendly fellow, there’s a big piece of bone coming your way, and it’s intended to cause us real harm.” Bođvar told him to shut up.
Bođvar held up an open palm and caught the bone in this way, and it was the bones of a whole leg. Bođvar threw it back, aiming at the man who threw it, and he threw it at him so straight and hard that he killed him. Then a great fear came over the king’s warriors.
Now the news came to King Hrólf and his champions up in the castle, that an imposing man had come to the hall and killed one of his warriors, and the men wanted to kill this man. King Hrólf asked whether this warrior of his had been killed without cause. “Nearly so,” they said.
And now when all of the truth about this was revealed to King Hrólf, the king said that he was far from thinking Bođvar ought to be killed. “You have taken up a bad habit here of beating innocent men with bones. There is dishonor for me, and shame for you, in doing this. I have always said this about it in the past, and you have given it no heed. I think this man you have accused must be very far from inconsequential. Summon him to me that I might know who he is.”
Bođvar went before the king and greeted him courteously. The king asked him for his name. “Your warriors call me ‘Hott’s lackey,’ but my name is Bođvar.”
The king said, “What repayment will you offer me for my warrior?”
Bođvar said, “He dealt out the same as he got.”
The king said, “Do you want to be my man and take over his seat?”
“I won’t refuse to be your man, but Hott and I won’t part in that case. And we will both take seats nearer to you than this man sat, otherwise we will both depart.”
The king said, “I see no honor in him, but I won’t grudge him food.”
Now Bođvar went to the seat that he pleased, as he did not want the one the other man had. He displaced three men with the room he needed to sit, and then Hott and he sat down there within the hall in better seats than they had been assigned. Men did not enjoy dealing with Bođvar, and they had great hate of him.
{107} Chapter 35
As it neared Yule, the men became uncheerful, and Bođvar asked Hott what this was about. Hott told him that a large and terrifying beast had come there two winters in a row. “It has wings on its back, and it is always flying. For two autumns now it has been coming and doing terrible harm. No weapons bite it, and even the champions of the king who are greatest of all never come home after meeting it.”
Bođvar said, “This hall here isn’t as well managed as I thought, if one animal can destroy the kingdom and the property of the king.”
Hott said, “It isn’t an animal, but more like the greatest troll.”
Now it came to Yule Eve, and the king said, “I want you men to be calm and quiet tonight, and I ban all of my men from getting into danger with the creature—but as for the cattle, it will go as fate wills. I don’t want to lose my men.” All the men gave the king their promise about this.
Bođvar hid himself at some distance away during the night. He made Hott come with him. Hott did this unwillingly, and said he was being steered into his death. Bođvar said it would go better than that.
They walked away from the hall, and Hott became so afraid that Bođvar had to carry him. Now they saw the animal, and Hott immediately screamed as loudly as he could and said the creature was going to swallow him. Bođvar called him a cur and told him to be silent, and threw him down into the moss where he lay not at all unafraid, and did not dare to go home either. Now Bođvar faced the creature, but it so happened that his sword was lodged firmly in his sword-belt, and now he drew off the sword-belt, so that the sword came out of its sheath, and he immediately put it under the beast’s shoulder so hard that it hit the heart, and then the beast dropped dead to the ground.
After this Bođvar went to where Hott was lying, and then picked him up and took him to where the dead animal lay. Hott shivered uncontrollably. Bođvar said, “Now you will drink the blood of the beast.” Hott was reluctant for a long while, but of course he dared to do nothing else. Bođvar made him drink two large gulps, and then he made him eat a little of the beast’s heart. Then Bođvar grappled him, and the two wrestled a long time, after which Bođvar said, “You have {108} certainly become strong, and I don’t expect that you’ll fear the warriors of King Hrólf now.”
Hott said, “I won’t fear them, and I won’t fear you, after this.”
“Then that’s well done, Hott my companion. Now let’s go and pick up the creature and prepare it in such a way that others will think it is alive.” They did so, and after this they went home and were quiet, and no one knew what they had accomplished.
Chapter 36
In the morning the king asked what the men knew about the beast, and whether it had visited them at all during the night. He was told that all the livestock animals were doing well inside their pens and were uninjured. The king told men to investigate whether anyone had seen a sign that the creature had come there. The watchmen went out to do so, and they came back soon after and told the king that the animal was on the move, and dangerously close to the town. The king told his men to be brave and told every man to be as much use as he had courage for, and to kill this monster. And it was done as the king commanded, and they prepared themselves for this.
Then the king looked at the animal and said, “I don’t see that it’s moving at all. Who wants to earn a reward and go against it?”
Bođvar said, “That would certainly be a prize for a bold man. Hott my companion, take this chance now to get rid of your bad reputation, since men say there is no spirit and no good in you. Go now, and kill the beast. You can see that none of the others are eager to do this.”
“Yes,” said Hott, “I will do this.”
The king said, “I don’t know where this boldness in you comes from, Hott, and a great deal has changed about you in a short while.”
Hott said, “Give me the sword Gullinhjalti, which you are holding, and then I will kill the creature or die.”
King Hrólf said, “This sword cannot be held except by a man who is virtuous and a brave warrior.”
Hott said, “You will see that I have those properties.”
{109} The king said, “Who knows, maybe more has changed about your behavior than meets the eye. But only vanishingly few observers would recognize you as the same man. Now, take the sword and be most fortunate in using it, if this is well done.”
Then Hott went at the creature very daringly and struck it when he came into reach, and the beast fell down dead.
Bođvar said, “You see now, lord, what he has done.”
The king said, “He has certainly changed a great deal, but Hott has not killed the animal alone. It was you instead who did that.”
Bođvar said, “It may be that it is so.”
The king said, “I knew when you came here that few men would be equal to you. But I think that your greatest deed is that you made me another champion from Hott, who seemed unlikely to win much good fortune. And now I don’t want him to be named Hott any longer. He will be named Hjalti from now on, after the sword Gullinhjalti.”
And here ends the tale of Bođvar and his brothers.
Part 5: The Tale of Hjalti
Chapter 37
Now the winter passed, until it was nearly time for King Hrólf’s berserkers to come home. Bođvar asked Hjalti about the habits of the berserkers, and Hjalti told him that it was their habit, when they came home to the hall, to walk up to every man and ask him if he thought he was a match for them. And first of all they would ask this of the king.
But then the king would say, “It would be difficult to say, such equally manly men as you are, when you have made yourselves famous in battles and bloodshed against various peoples in the southern half of the world as well as in the northern,” and the king would answer in this way more from courtesy than humility, because he knew their state of mind, and because they had won him great victories and great wealth.
{110} Then the berserkers would leave that man and go and ask the same of each man who was in the hall, and none would say he was a match for them.
Bođvar said, “There aren’t many real men here, if they all let the berserkers call them such cowards.” Then they ended this conversation.
Bođvar had now been with King Hrólf for one year. And now the next Yule Eve came, and one moment King Hrólf was sitting at his table when the doors to his hall sprang open, and twelve berserkers strolled in. They were so gray with all the iron arms and armor they wore, that looking at them was like looking at shattered ice.
Bođvar whispered to Hjalti and asked him whether he’d dare to test himself against one of these berserkers. “Yes,” said Hjalti, “and not just against one. Against them all—because I don’t know how to feel fear, not even if all their numbers are brought against me alone. One of them won’t make me tremble.”
Now the berserkers came into the hall, and they saw that King Hrólf’s champions had multiplied since they had left. They looked carefully at the newcomers, and thought that one of them certainly wasn’t little, and the one who walked first wasn’t a little surprised at that. Now, as they were accustomed to do, they came before King Hrólf and asked him the same question in the same words as they usually did. And the king answered as he usually did, and then they went before each man in the hall. And the last men they approached were the two companions. The first one asked Bođvar whether he thought he was an even match for him. Bođvar said he didn’t think he was an even match, he thought he was even more of a man than the berserker—no matter what the test was. And, Bođvar added, this foul son of a mare in front of him didn’t need to prattle on about it like these other geldings. And with this said, Bođvar shot forward at the berserker and got a hold on him from beneath (though he was in all his armor), and drove him down to the floor in a heavy fall, so that the berserker lay as if all his bones were broken.
For his part, Hjalti did much the same to another berserker. Then there was a terrible noise in the hall, and King Hrólf decided he was watching a dangerous portent if his own men were murdering each other. He leapt off of his throne, toward Bođvar, and told him to be at ease and in good form. But Bođvar replied that the berserker would {111} die, unless he said he was a lesser man. King Hrólf said it was easily done, and he had the berserker stand up, and Hjalti also did as the king instructed.
Then the men sat down, each one in his own seat, and the berserkers sat down in their own seats with great irritation. King Hrólf told them many stories, so that they could see that nothing was so great, or so strong, or so large that its equal could not be found. “So I forbid you to start any kind of trouble in my hall, and if you break this law, it will cost your life. But be as cruel as you like when I have need of you to fight my enemies—and you’ll win yourselves honor and glory. I have such a great selection of warriors here that I have no need to rely on you berserkers alone.”
Everyone received the king’s words well, and so they reconciled with whole hearts. The hall was now arranged in such a way that Bođvar was considered and treated as the greatest, and he sat up by the king’s right hand. And next to him was Hjalti the Righteous, a name that the king had given him. He was called “the Righteous” because he went every day with the king’s bodyguards, who had treated him in the way told of before, and he never did them any harm even though he had now become a greater man than they were. And yet the king would have forgiven him, if he had given them something to remember that bad treatment by, or had killed one of them.
And at the king’s left hand sat the three brothers, Svipdag, Hvítserk, and Beigađ, as they had become men of great repute. And next were the twelve berserkers, and then the best of the warriors on both sides down the length of the hall, men who are not named here. The king let his men carry on with all sorts of games and tests of skill, with joy and good fun for all involved. And it was Bođvar who tested himself the most of all his champions, whatever the test might be, and he came to be regarded so highly by King Hrólf that he was married to Drífa, the king’s only daughter.
And now some time passed, and they sat in their kingdom, and they were the most famous of all men.
{112} Part 6: Concerning Ađils, King at Uppsala, and King Hrólf’s Journey to Sweden with His Champions
Chapter 38
It is said that one day King Hrólf sat in his royal hall with all his champions and his best men with him, and he held a grand feast.
At one point King Hrólf looked all around him and said, “A spectacular force of men is gathered here into one hall.” Then Hrólf asked Bođvar if he knew any other king like himself, any who had such champions. Bođvar said he lacked one thing. The king asked what.
Bođvar answered, “What you’re still lacking, my lord, is that you haven’t claimed your inheritance from your father in Uppsala, where your in-law King Ađils unjustly holds it.”
King Hrólf said that it would be difficult to recover it, “Because King Ađils is not a simple man, but a sorcerer—and deceitful, and tricky, and clever, and cruel, and the hardest sort of man to fight.”
Bođvar said, “But it would befit you, my lord, to recover what’s yours and meet with King Ađils one time, to know how he might respond to this matter.”
King Hrólf said, “This is a serious matter that you bring up, because I also need to see about avenging my father, where the greedy and treacherous King Ađils is. I will dare it.”
“I will not speak ill of you for it,” replied Bođvar. “If you try for what’s yours, whatever might be in store where King Ađils awaits.”
Chapter 39
Now King Hrólf prepared for his journey with a hundred men, in addition to his twelve champions and twelve berserkers. Nothing is said of their journey before they came to the home of a certain wealthy farmer. The farmer stood outside when they arrived, and invited them all to stay there.
{113} King Hrólf said, “You are a good man! But do you have the capacity for it? We are not few in number, and we could not all be hosted on one small farm.”
The farmer laughed and said, “Yes, my lord. I have seen men no fewer in number come here, and you will not lack for drink or anything you might need the whole night long.”
The king said, “Then we’ll chance it.”
The farmer was glad at this. Their horses were now taken away, and the men were hospitably treated. The place was so accommodating, the men didn’t think they’d ever been in a more welcoming place. The farmer was extremely cheerful, and the men could not ask him any question that he could not answer in some way, and they thought he was the least stupid of all men.
Sleep now took them. And when they woke, it was so cold that the teeth shook in their skulls. They all struggled up and threw all the clothes and every kind of covering they could reach on themselves—except King Hrólf’s twelve champions, who got by with just the clothes they had on them from before. All of them were cold throughout the night.
In the morning the farmer asked, “How have you fellows slept?”
“Well,” Bođvar said.
Then the farmer said to Hrólf, “Your men found it a little cool here in the hall at night, and it was. But they cannot imagine that they can withstand the difficulties that King Ađils will test them with at Uppsala, if they thought this was so difficult. Send half your army home, my lord, if you want to keep your life. It won’t be by superior numbers that you defeat King Ađils.”
