Helheimr

by Fynn F Gunnarson

  Introduction

  Many years after the exploits of all the ancient Norse heroes, tales of their adventures were still being told to children across Norway and its neighbouring lands.

  Storytellers plied their trade in countless villages each evening. As they spoke, children would sit transfixed, sometimes for hours on end, listening intently to their accounts of the strange events which had taken place centuries before, throughout the Nine Worlds.

  This was the storyteller’s role.

  Each evening, in those villages, storytellers kept the old Norse legends alive, passing them on to the next generation for safekeeping and, in doing so, making sure those legends would never be forgotten.

  This was the storyteller’s responsibility.

  Some tales were known to all storytellers.

  Other tales, however, were known to but a few.

  This is one of those tales…

  Prologue

  ‘Gather round, children, gather round! There’s plenty of room around the fire! That’s it, that’s it; sit down on the ground here and warm yourselves.’

  The old storyteller fussed and bustled about, organising the children into a rough semi-circle around a lively fire, which crackled and hissed, sending thick grey smoke and bright red sparks up into the night air. When, at last, he was finally satisfied with the seating-arrangements, he settled himself down in front of the children, with his back to the fire and looked around at their expectant faces.

  ‘Now… ‘ he sighed, contentedly, ‘… who can remember what last night’s story was about?’

  Several hands were immediately raised, the faces of their owners straining eagerly, each hoping to be the one chosen to supply the answer.

  ‘Hmmm,’ teased the old storyteller, a grizzled, rather dishevelled old specimen, who possessed a face with the consistency of a well-worn leather boot and a voice not dissimilar to that of a corncrake, the familiar call of which the children would hear every day, coming from their nests in the nearby fields of long grass. ‘I think… I’ll choose… Maeva!’

  Maeva started at the sudden mention of her name and the surprising force with which it had been spoken; she froze for a moment. The other children, sensing that their chance to show the storyteller how attentive they had been the previous night had not, after all, disappeared, now turned their attention back to the old man and renewed their efforts to be noticed by him.

  ‘Well, Maeva… ?’ said the storyteller in a rather gentler tone, not yet prepared to abandon the young girl in favour of one of her peers.

  ‘It was… ’ croaked Maeva, ‘… the story of Thor’s hammer, Mjøllnir… ’

  ‘Yes… ?’ coaxed the old man, nodding encouragingly.

  ‘… And… and how… ’ continued Maeva, uncomfortably, all too aware she was being stared at with mildly-contemptuous jealousy by the other children, ‘… how it was stolen from Thor and how the man called Erik Sharp Axe and his band of brave warriors were set five tasks by Kolfinna the Crimson Witch, to find things which she would use in her magic to tell them where the hammer was… and… how they succeeded in bringing her everything she needed… and… how Erik’s brother, erm... Erik… found Mjøllnir… and how Thor took it back.’

  There was a unanimous groan of deep disappointment from the other children, as Maeva finished her short and rather accurate synopsis of the storyteller’s offering from the previous night.

  ‘Very good,’ said the storyteller pursing his lips, and giving Maeva a single, sharp nod of satisfaction. ‘Well done, Maeva.’

  Maeva smiled modestly, looked down shyly and blushed profusely.

  ‘So!’ said the old man suddenly, clapping his hands together and causing his audience to jump with a start in perfect unison. ‘What shall I tell you all about tonight?’

  There was silence, as the children racked their brains for a suitable topic.

  ‘Have I ever told you… ’ began the storyteller cautiously when, eventually, it became clear to him that none of the children was brave enough to make a request, ‘… about the god... Baldr... about Ragnarøkkr… and about what became of Erik Sharp Axe, after his quest to find Mjøllnir?’

  ‘Who is Baldr and what is Ragnarøkkr?’ came the response from several quarters, which more than sufficed as an answer as far as the old storyteller was concerned.

  ‘Ah!’ smiled the old man. ‘Then we have our story for tonight! Oh, but there’s such a lot to get through! You’d better make yourselves comfortable: this story is even longer than the one I told you last night.’

  This suited the children and they shuffled around on the ground obligingly, eventually settling themselves for what stood every chance of proving to be a very long evening’s entertainment.

  ‘Is everyone sitting comfortably?’ enquired the storyteller, to which the children all nodded. ‘Very good… ’ he continued, even before some had started to nod, ‘… then I’ll begin.

  ‘Now, Baldr was God of Light... Joy... Beauty... and Peace; the son of the Chief God, Odin and his wife, Frygga. He was the fairest, kindest and most patient god there ever was and he was loved by all the other gods… well… almost all of them, anyway.’

  The children gazed at the storyteller, totally transfixed, as they always were at this stage of proceedings. He allowed himself the merest trace of a self-satisfied smile and continued with his story.

  ‘You’d think Baldr would be happy, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course you would, but he wasn’t… oh, no. He was very sad and very worried…

  ‘You see, Baldr had been having terrible dreams – nightmares in fact – which were terrifying him!

  ‘These dreams seemed so real to Baldr, he became convinced that the dreadful events he could see in them would actually come true!’

  The children were horrified by this prospect and desperately wanted to know what Baldr’s dreams were about, although they knew better than to interrupt the old man when he was in full flow.

  ‘Baldr told his mother and father all about his dreams and explained to them how he was convinced that they were foretelling the future.

  ‘Now… this would be bad enough, wouldn’t it? Yes, of course it would, but it was actually much worse than you could possibly imagine! Do you know why? No? Well, I’ll tell you.

  ‘Odin was very wise… after all, he had sold one of his eyes to gain wisdom – unimaginable wisdom – and what he didn’t know, he could usually find out… one way or another,’ added the storyteller with a wink and a tap to the side of his nose with an index finger.

  ‘Anyway, Odin knew that the Nine Worlds would, one day, be completely destroyed in what would be called… who knows?’

  ‘Ragnarøkkr?’ came a small, tentative voice from somewhere amongst the children.

  ‘Ragnarøkkr! That’s it exactly!’ confirmed the storyteller, with a smile and a nod. ‘Well done, Broddi! Yes, Ragnarøkkr, indeed! The time when the gods of Asgard and Vanaheimr would do battle with giants and monsters… and none who took part in that terrible, terrible war was destined to survive.

  ‘Oh, yes, Gulli; I see that you are shocked by this,’ said the storyteller, raising his grey-white eyebrows and focusing on an open-mouthed, frightened-looking younger boy, ‘but Odin knew it was coming… he knew that no-one – himself included – could escape it… and… he knew something else… something very important...

  ‘He knew that there would be certain… signs… which would indicate when the beginning of Ragnarøkkr was close at hand… ’

  ‘And do you know what the first of those signs was to be? Hmm? Can anyone guess?’

  No-one could.

  ‘All right… I’ll tell you,’ continued the old man, appearing not in the least disappointed by the absence of speculative ideas. ‘The very thing about which Bald
r was dreaming!’ he announced triumphantly, though not altogether helpfully.

  He was greeted with a sea of blank looks from his audience, but he ploughed on, guiltlessly.

  ‘Now, Odin was so disturbed that Baldr’s dreams might come true and, therefore, that Ragnarøkkr would soon be upon the gods, that he decided to make the perilous journey to consult the one entity he believed might be able to interpret the true meaning of his son’s dreams.

  ‘Why was this journey so perilous, I hear you ask?’ demanded the old man, not altogether truthfully. ‘Well... the one with whom Odin wanted to speak was… a seeress – that’s a woman who knows things the eye cannot see. But... this particular seeress, whose name is not known... had long since been… ’

  Here, the storyteller paused, with the express objective of raising the tension in his story to new, previously-untested heights.

  ‘... dead!’

  The children immediately jumped back as one, as the old man finally hissed the word at them, after a near-eternal pause. They looked at one another, puzzled.

  ‘But how, you are wondering, could mighty Odin speak with this seeress, if she were no longer alive? Hmm? I’ll tell you… Odin had to travel to Helheimr: Realm of the Dead and home of Hel, hideous monster-daughter of the Trickster God, Loki and the ogress, Angrboda.

  Some of the children let out quiet, frightened gasps. Others looked at one another again, nervously this time, remembering previous unwelcome references to the Goddess of the Dead.

  ‘This was not a journey on which the Chief God embarked lightly!’ continued the storyteller. ‘Odin hated visiting the Lower Worlds – the scorched, flaming regions of the Fire Giants’ home, Muspelheimr; the icy, dark, misty wastelands of Niflheimr; silent, frozen Helheimr, home to the souls of those deemed unworthy to enter the halls of Valhalla! Oh, yes, children... of the three Lower Worlds, Helheimr was, indeed, the place which Odin hated to visit most of all.

  ‘To reach Helheimr, Odin had to ride his wild, eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, son of Loki, from his home in Asgard, across Bifrost – the Rainbow Bridge which leads to Midgard, home of men – and along the long, forbidding track to the Lower Worlds… past Nidhøggr, the terrible serpent-dragon, who feeds on dead bodies and gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, forever trying to destroy it… across Nastrondr, Shore of Corpses, awash with the venom of Nidhøggr and the nine other serpents which lived in the roots of Yggdrasil… past Gnipa, cave-home to Garmr, the howling, blood-soaked Hound of Hel… across the bridge spanning Gjøll the river of despair… then, at last, through Helheimr’s gates and into… the Realm of the Dead!’

  The storyteller could sense more than the occasional sign of fear and discomfort amongst his audience but, such was his style, he did not let this distract him from his tale in any way whatsoever.

  ‘Once inside the realm, Odin dismounted and led Sleipnir into the Great Hall of the Dead, through its East Door. The hall was decorated with gleaming gold rings and other gold ornaments. Close by, there stood a mound of earth, under which the seeress herself was buried. Odin fixed the grave with his one remaining eye and waited, patiently… he waited for many days and nights until, eventually, the spirit of the dead seeress rose up out of its burial place and surrounded him.

  ‘Why… ’ said the storyteller, in the eerie voice of a long-dead seeress reluctantly beginning a conversation with an unwelcome stranger (which did absolutely nothing to calm the already-tingling nerves of the children), ‘… have I been summoned from my long and tranquil sleep, into this foul place of sorrow and despair? Who is the stranger who inflicts this torture on my soul? Show yourself! I demand to know!’

  ‘It is I… ’ said the storyteller again, this time in the booming voice of a Chief God who was trying hard not to sound like one, ‘… Vegtam the Wanderer: son of Valtam. I have travelled through the other worlds and would have you give me news of Helheimr. Why is the Great Hall of the Dead decorated in this way, with so much gold? Whose arrival do you herald? It must be someone much loved, or of great importance!’

  ‘The Great Hall is adorned with gold,’ said the storyteller, pretending to be the seeress again, ‘to receive a new soul, which will soon be among us… one whose passing will be greatly mourned... which shall fill the gods of Asgard and Vanaheimr with unimaginable grief.’

  ‘Talk not to me in riddles, spirit!’ boomed Odin’s voice out of the storyteller. ‘Of whom do you speak? Whose soul will soon be here?’

  ‘The seeress, terrified by the nature of this sudden, unexpected outburst, told him... ’ continued the storyteller tantalisingly, having reverted to his own voice, ‘... and, his very worst fears confirmed, Odin made the long journey back to Asgard with heavy heart.

  ‘Upon his return there, Odin spoke immediately with his wife, Frygga, telling her where he had been and what he had learned from the seeress. When she heard that her beloved Baldr’s dreams were, indeed, destined one day to come true, Frygga was beside herself with anguish. Naturally, Odin shared her despair, although his thoughts were also on the bigger picture: Ragnarøkkr.

  ‘As Odin agonised over what – if anything – could be done to prevent, or even delay, the onset of Ragnarøkkr, Frygga became increasingly determined, with each passing day, to prevent her son’s dreams from coming to pass. Eventually, she set about devising a plan… a plan which would ensure that what Baldr had foreseen in his dreams would never happen.

  ‘And, oh, children... what a plan it was!’

  Book One

  Helheimr

  Chapter One

  Álfheimr

  ‘This time, Sharp Axe... ’ came the voice from above, straining with the effort its owner was employing to pin Erik Sharp Axe to the ground, ‘... you won’t escape so easily!’

  Sharp Axe tightly gripped the hilt of his sword in his right hand which, unfortunately, was trapped under his own body and, therefore, not likely to be of much assistance to him in his current predicament. In the blinking of an eye, he had taken full stock of the situation and concluded that it would, indeed, not be easy for him to escape this time. In fact, in all probability, it would all be over in a matter of seconds.

  The swordsman pinning Sharp Axe to the ground had one hand on his own sword, the other hand around Sharp Axe’s throat and what felt like his entire body weight on Sharp Axe’s chest. By way of defence, all Sharp Axe could do was to maintain the hold he had with his left hand on the wrist of his opponent’s sword hand, but he realised, with growing dismay, that this was merely delaying the inevitable. All was surely now lost.

  ‘Yield!’ demanded the voice from above. ‘You cannot escape! Yield!’

  ‘Never!’ retorted Sharp Axe defiantly, through gritted teeth. ‘You’ll have to kill me, first!’

  In his mind’s eye, Sharp Axe transported himself back to the dangers he had faced whilst on his quest to find Mjøllnir, the lost hammer of Thor, God of Thunder. Never, in all that time, as far as he could recall, had he been this close to defeat, felt as helpless as he did now, seen no possible way out.

  What, thought Sharp Axe to himself, as a last resort, would Harald Wolf Wrestler do in this situation?

  Bad example, came the reply, also from Sharp Axe. My father would never have found himself in this situation in the first place.

  All right, then... what would Knut Cod Killer have done? he ventured, as his left arm trembled involuntarily, under the strain of keeping his assailant’s sword a safe distance away from his own throat.

  Now, Knut Cod Killer was an altogether different kettle of fish. Sharp Axe’s grandfather had been blessed not only with strength and courage but, just as importantly, with more than his fair share of guile and cunning.

  Knut, thought Sharp Axe, would have employed stealth and ingenuity... and if those attributes had failed, he would have resorted to good, old-fashioned trickery!

  It was his last chance – his only hope, in fact; Sharp Axe knew it and, in an instant, he had made up his mind what to do. He suddenly
stopped resisting the downward force of his opponent’s sword hand, quickly moved his head sideways to avoid being struck in the face by the blade, pushed both his feet hard into the ground, arched his back forcefully and sent his would-be conqueror up and forwards off his chest, into an undignified forward-roll.

  In one deft, smooth and rapid movement, Sharp Axe then rolled himself off his sword arm and leapt onto his feet, in pursuit of the other swordsman, who was now lying on his back stunned, partly by the impact with which he had hit the hard ground, but mainly by the sudden, complete and incomprehensible reversal in his fortune.

  Standing above his opponent, who stared up at him with wide, terrified, lucid green eyes, through the sweat-soaked meshwork of his long, blond hair, Sharp Axe raised his sword high above his head, ready to strike.

  ‘Yield!’ cried Sharp Axe, threateningly, although with a look on his face which suggested he might actually be disappointed not to be given the opportunity to strike.

  ‘All right! I yield!’ replied the vanquished one, resignedly. On seeing Sharp Axe’s unchanging, merciless expression, he tried again, this time with rather more feeling and with a definite sense of urgency: ‘I yield!’

  Sharp Axe lowered his sword in front of him, paused, then threw it up into the air a little way, caught it in a reverse grip, drew it back above his head again and drove it vertically and powerfully into the ground. On its way there, the tip of Sharp Axe’s sword had missed his opponent’s cheekbone by no more than the thickness of the blade itself.

  Sharp Axe was vaguely aware of a sudden gasp of shock and outrage coming from all around him.

  With slightly more interest, Sharp Axe noticed the wide, lucid green eyes of his opponent roll upwards in their sockets, as their owner passed out where he lay.

  His work done, Sharp Axe turned from his quivering sword and strode away from the scene, absently massaging the painfully-strained shoulder of his sword arm.

  *

  The late May sunshine of Álfheimr, home of the Light Elves, beat down pleasantly on Sharp Axe’s face. He lay back contentedly on the grass, hands behind his head, a satisfied smile on his face and, he told himself, he had every reason to smile, having just defeated the cream of Álfheimr’s Elven swordsmen, in one of the Light Elves’ highly-popular and inexplicably-frequent weaponry tournaments, in which he regularly participated and, equally regularly, triumphed.