Hrolf Kraki's Saga

by Poul Anderson

  Garb was harsh gray wadmal, patched and tattered. Children went barefoot in summer, at best had birchbark shoes in winter. But they grew hardy and seldom minded the weather. Food was rough and sometimes scant. But gruel, black bread, a bit of goat cheese, hoarded leeks kept one going until the seasons came for fresh-caught fish, oysters, cormorants' eggs, the harvest of woods and moors. The dwelling was a single murky room, if Yrsa did not count the part wherein goat, geese, and pig were penned. Yet those beasts breathed forth warmth as well as smells, and she knew closeness to her dozen foster-siblings, and when in the dark she heard Father and Mother thresh about, she could hope to welcome a small newcomer next year.

  She knew terror. Gales whirled from the north while Father was out in the fishing boat he shared with his neighbors. Did he never come home—or did he come home a strandwasher, a staring bloated eel-eaten thing such as drifted ashore now and again—it could mean not only sorrow but hungering to death, or going into thralldom for lack of any other help. Ran grinned on the sea bottom; nicors lurked in the fen-pools; the Elmwife brewed fog; drows rode the ridgepole at night, thatch acrackle beneath their drumming heels; the least thing done wrong might bring deadly-bad luck. Or, when a ship drew close as if to make landing, or strangers came afoot, it was into the underbrush and hide, for the poorest of girls still owns what a robber will want!

  Yet she also knew friendship and merrymaking, both at home and among the neighbors. Neighbors could backbite, dreadful squabbles could hatch, but in the end everybody stood together against the world. There were the four great holy times: Blessing, Midsummer, Harvest, Yule, times to be awed and afterward rejoice. Someday she would be grown, and for a year or two steal off in the light nights with youth and youth, until one of them married her and she as housewife would offer milk to the elves and beer to her guests in the sight of all. Meanwhile the children watched ships pass by, miles off, ships that clearly would never land here (oh, but if they only would!)—striding oars or boldly striped sail, a far, far spark of sunlight off metal; who knew, maybe a king was aboard, maybe a god?

  Winter brought cold and darkness and tightened belts . . . likewise lessened work, ice to crunch underfoot and ice to slide across, snowballs and snowmen, time for the beloved old stories. Spring brought toil and spilling rains, likewise white hawthorns and a sky full of birds returning from none knew where. Summer was green, everywhere green, dizziness of smells, honeybees abuzz, sunlight in blinding hot torrents—save when a thunderstorm came, but that was wonderful: flash! flew Thor's hammer, and crack! it smote trolls, until the wheels of his goat-car rumbled away, down and down the reaches of heaven. Fall blazed, gave fruits with both hands, bellies got filled to bursting, heather bloomed purple, long-lived full moons drenched night in brightness which glistened on hoarfrost and on the dew over spiderwebs, and made a rocking roadway across the waters from here to world-edge; and high overhead sounded the wild goose wander-song. ...

  Yrsa did not understand why her foster-siblings paid no heed to such things. Well, they were dear, but they were different.

  V

  "I'd like to see for myself how this land has fared," said Helgi, "but somehow don't think I'd be very welcome under my own name." None could talk him out of his wish to tramp alone about Als. His ship let him off in a cove he remembered and would call there daily, beginning a week hence.

  He looked for no trouble. Who would attack as big a fellow as him, especially when he went in rags? Besides, his staff was the shaft of a spear whose head and pins he carried next his skin, along with a dagger. He waved a cheery farewell and strode off under the trees.

  The news dashed him a bit, that Olof was not at her lodge. Her overseer gave him a sour stare, but a hireling filled a bowl and let him sleep in a haymow, in swap for his songs and tales. He gave out that he was a homeless Himmerlander in search of work. "Here we've no need for you," his host told him. "If you go further, though, to the north coast, you'll find a clutch of poor folk who do some fishing. I daresay they'd be glad of stout arms on a pair of oars."

  Helgi shrugged and followed the rede, mainly to spy out those beaches. Now that he had Fyn, he needed close knowledge about this side of the Little Belt.

  And thus he topped a high dune, and from afar saw a girl who walked along the strand. Last night had been stormy. She was out after driftwood, amber, or whatever else might have come ashore.

  He knew that if she saw him coming she would dash toward a hut, unseen behind dwarf pines, whose smoke smudged the sky. It would be pleasant to chat alone if she was not too ugly. Anyhow, when he had shown by laying no hand on her that he meant well, her kinsmen should open up to him. Else they might fear he was an outlaw, or a thrall-catcher looking them over.

  Helgi crouched back down behind the dune while his eyes scouted a path. He could zigzag from thicket to bush to boulder, he could use his hunter's tricks to sneak through the ling, until he was almost upon her.

  And so he did. But when he peered from behind a scrub oak, the heart soared in him.

  This was a windy day. Sunlight speared through hurrying clouds, sheened on the waters, then was gone again as shadow swept across the world. Waves boomed inward, burst white over skerries, tumbled back and rushed in afresh, gray, green, and steel-blue. To one side, misty as a dream, lifted mainland hills. The wind whistled up white-caps, roared in boughs and soughed in heather. Gulls rode upon it, mewing. It was cold and tasted of salt, it thrust and slid. It tossed the hair of the maiden who picked her barefoot way over the sand between the sprawled brown strands of kelp.

  She was not tall; standing straight, which she did, she would reach halfway up his breast. A drab gown strained across small breasts, slim waist and limbs, suppleness overlaid by an endearing coltishness. Beneath soot and suntan, her skin was fair; freckles dusted a tilted nose. That face was broad and high in the cheekbones, tapering to a strong little chin, mouth wide and soft, lips parted a bit to show good teeth, eyes huge, wide-set, long-lashed under arching brows, the gray-blue of her seas. She had woven herself a garland of yellow dandelion flowers. The locks beneath flowed to her hips. When the fleeting sunshine touched them, they shone as if burnished.

  Helgi trod forth. "Why, you're lovely!" he cried.

  She sprang back with a stifled shriek, dropped the wood she had gathered, and ran. He loped alongside her. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I'd never harm you. I want to be your friend."

  Grimly, she ran. He put on speed, got ahead of her, barred the way. She snatched a stick, spat like a wildcat and jabbed at him. He liked that grit. Spreading his arms, he gusted forth laughter. "You win," he said. "I yield me. Do whatever you will."

  She lowered the stick. Her breathing slowed. He could overwhelm her—but he merely stood and smiled. What a big and handsome man he was, too! That frame did not belong in those foul, flapping tatters. His face went with the body, craggy-nosed, eyes heaven-blue, flaxen mane to the shoulders and beard closely cropped. Scars lay white among the golden hairs on his arms.

  "What's your name, lady," he asked with an outlander lilt, "and of what folk do you hail?"

  She pointed to the smoke. "I'm yonder crofter's daughter," she whispered through wind and surf. "Well, no, really, I... my mother was a thrall. I hight Yrsa."

  He stepped to her. She stood as if under a spell, hearing her heart knock. He took both her hands in his, which were hard and warm. Gazing for a long time, he said thoughtfully: "You do not have the eyes of a thrall."

  They sat down, backs to the blast, and talked. She had never imagined a stranger would care about the day-today life which was hers. "Who are you?" she kept asking. He would put her off: "Tell me more of yourself, Yrsa."

  "There's something hidden about you," he said. "How old are you?"

  "Why, I ... I never counted," she answered, astonished.

  "Think." He took her fingers. "This year; last year—" After a good deal of finger-play, she was flushed and half dizzy, and guessed maybe she had thirteen or fourteen winters.
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  "I was that age when—Well, no matter," he said. "We both come of fast-growing stock."

  They shared cheese and hardtack from his wallet. Later, when he laid an arm about her waist, she did not shrink, but sighed and leaned her head on his breast.

  A gull wheeled low, milk-white in a shaft of sunlight

  "I'm head over heels with you," said Helgi. "I am."

  "Oh, now," breathed Yrsa.

  He must grin. "You being a crofter's daughter," he said, "it's fitting that a poor beggar should get you."

  She jumped from him in horror.' What? No, no, no!"

  He rose to loom above her. "Yes, oh, yes." Taking a careful, unbreakable hold: "Come away with me, Yrsa. You must. A Norn stood here today."

  She started to weep and plead. He stood a while, in noise and chill and hasty shadows, before he said: "I could bear you off against your will. But your tears would hurt me too much. That's a word few women have ever had from me. I ask you, then, if you'll freely be mine."

  She looked at him, and recalled the neighborhood louts she knew; and suddenly the headlong blood overran her. Crying and laughing, she came to him.

  They sought shelter together. She knew a spring where trees gave murmurous lee and summer had mellowed the grass into hay.

  Helgi abode in the woods, not wanting anybody to pry and leer. She sought him daily, smuggling along food which neither of them truly tasted. They in the hut marked that something had come over her, but she slipped free of their watchfulness. Not that that was very much; nobody hereabouts would take to wife a girl whose belly did not show she would give him children.

  At the right time, Helgj went away. He told her not to be frightened if a ship came. When that happened and everyone else fled, she stayed. The richly clad man who leaped ashore told her he was the Dane-King. "I wouldn't have cared if you were only a gangrel," she gasped, and fainted.

  Afterward she found her foster-folk and coaxed them back. Helgi gifted them lavishly before he sailed off with Yrsa.

  He could not leave his fleet, which he had told to stand by at Fyn. Men would scorn him, did he give up his yearly faring and moon lovesick ashore. So he turned Yrsa over to his brother Hroar and then put out to sea. For him and her alike, the next months were weary.

  Said Queen Valthjona to her husband: "I think she'll be more than just another of Helgi's doxies."

  "Maybe." Hroar tugged his beard and scowled. "HI is this. A thrall-born crofter-brat!"

  "No, now, she's a sweet girl," Valthjona said. "Besides, for the good name of the Skjoldungs, I'll have to take her in hand."

  There was much that a lady must know: everything about the running of a big household; arts such as weaving and brewing; good dress, good manners, good speech; the lore and rites of the high gods and the ancestors; who her man's friends were, who his unfriends, and how to deal with each. Yrsa could not learn it all in a day.

  "Yet she's willing," said Valthjona to Hroar, "and had I begun that lowly, I'd have mastered what I must slower than she does."

  Aside from missing Helgi, Yrsa was a gladsome soul, every day singing while she flitted about her tasks. She kept many beasts, dogs and horses and birds, and made much of them. She did not like to go hunting. On the other hand, in a boat she was as deft and gleeful as any boy. Young herself, she frolicked amongst the youngsters at Hart. Humbly reared, she was friendlier toward hirelings and thralls—even listening to their long-drawn tales of woe and trying to help—than Hroar or Valthjona, though these were reckoned kindly.

  "And yet," said the queen to the king, "she knows their work so well, having done it herself, they don't twice try cheating or slacking on her. Not that she has them whipped. She asks in the mildest tone if they'd rather serve someone else. Of course they wouldn't."

  "Hm, yes, I've come to like her myself," Hroar said.

  "She's of good stock," Valthjona said. "Her mother may or may not have been a thrall as was told her. But if so, I swear she was a highborn woman taken captive. And her father, why, he may have been a king."

  When Helgi came home and saw Yrsa in linen and furs and gold, the keys of his household at her belt, graciously greeting him, he stood as if hammer-smitten. Toward dawn of that night, he said that being his bed-mate was not good enough for her. He would make her his queen.

  And thus he did. Their wedding feast was talked of for years.

  Hroar took that chance to befriend his new-caught islander chieftains. He invited them, and by gifts and fair words he bound them to the Skjoldungs. "Yrsa's brought us this, at least," he remarked to Valthjona.

  "Do you hold it against her that she stands in the way of Helgi making a more useful marriage?" she asked. "Why, he can take as many wives as he pleases."

  "None other do please him," said Hroar. "He doesn't even keep lemans any more." He smiled at Valthjona. "Ah, well, I'm like that myself."

  Yrsa kept on learning how to be a lady, until folk said that young though she was, Leidhra had seldom had so fine a queen. They marked, too, that Helgi grew more and more mild. He began to spend his summers in Denmark, doing Hroar's kind of work. If less patient than his brother, he was equally just. Men became happy to give their lawsuits into his hands. They thought he talked things over with Yrsa and that she softened his sternness.

  Young she was, however. For two years she got no child. In the third year she had a boy.

  That was a long and hard birth, upon Yule Eve to boot. Helgi sat in his hall, drinking, hearkening to a skald, talking to his men. What he said made scant sense; and ever he turned his head doorward, as if to strain through the storm outside to hear cries of pain in the lady-bower.

  At last the midwife came. In a huge hush, save for the roaring of fires and gale, she walked, bearing a bundle which she laid on the earth before the high seat. Helgi sat still. Sweat gleamed on his brow and cheeks, reeked from his clothes.

  "I bring you your son, King Helgi," said the midwife.

  "And Yrsa?" croaked from him.

  "I hope she does well, my lord."

  "Give me our son." The hands shook which Helgi lifted, to take the baby and put him on his knee.

  Next day, being sure Yrsa would live, he slaughtered a herd of horses and oxen in the holy shaw, and called men to a feast only less mighty than his wedding. Himself he poured water upon the boy and named him Hrolf. Warriors who had fared beside him from end to end of the known world, clanged blade on shield and hailed their atheling.

  Yrsa was slow to get back her full health. She never bore another child. Nonetheless she and Helgi stayed happy together. They rejoiced in their Hrolf. He was small but handsome, merry, quick on his feet and quick of wit.

  Those were quiet years for Denmark. Still, the brothers held a close eye on Gotaland and Svithjodh, where much was happening.

  The Göta-King Hugleik—maybe in search of fame to match Helgi's—took a war-fleet past Jutland and Saxland, to Frankish country. There he harried about; but the Franks trapped him and his, and he fell in battle, Among the few Götar to win free was Bjovulf, who swam in his byrnie out to their ships. Sad was his homecoming. For this doughtiness, the Götar would make him their lord. He refused, and himself raised Hugleik's son Hserdredh before the Thing. However, as the strongest headman after Ægthjof died, Bjovulf must needs steer the land in all but name.

  At that time, the Swede-King in Svithjodh was Egil. Like other Ynglings, he was a spendthrift offerer to the gods, and a wizard besides. Maybe a spell of his went wrong; anyhow, once a bull which he was about to give broke loose, gored its way past the thralls already hanged in honor of Odin, and escaped to the wilderness. Long did it roam, wreaking harm upon folk. King Egil led huntsmen after it. He rode from them in those leafy reaches, and suddenly came upon the beast. He cast his spear. The bull shook loose the barb, thundered forward, laid open the king's horse and tossed him to earth. Egil drew sword. The bull got in first. A horn stabbed him to the heart. Then the king's men arrived and did away with the brute. Afterward they bore Egil a
way and buried him at Uppsala.

  He had had a brother named Ottar. Now strife over the lordship broke out between Egil's son Aali, and Ottar's sons Asmund and Adhils. It raged in Svithjodh for years. Asmund fell, and a beaten Adhils fled into Götaland. The Götar, under King Hxrdredh. backed him. But when their host entered Svithjodh, Aali was again victorious and Hserdredh himself met death.

  The Götar took Bjovulf for their new king, as they had wanted to do all along. He called on his kinsman and friend Hroar, who sent warriors. In another fight, on frozen Lake Vanem, Aali died. Adhils rode to Uppsala and was hailed King of the Swedes.

  Hroar and Bjovulf thus had hopes of a lord in Svithjodh who would be thankful to them. Furthermore, this was no warlike man. Rather, Adhils went deeper into spellcraft than any Yngling before him. Having gained what he wanted, he left the world in peace as far as he was concerned.

  Even so, when the Skjoldung brothers helped him they made a mistake. They did not know this right away. Other sorrows came upon them first.

  Seven years had passed since the day that Helgi found Yrsa on the strand, when Queen Olof came for her revenge.

  VI

  The crofter dared do no otherwise than seek out Olof and tell her how a seafarer who said he was the Dane-King had borne off the girl she gave him. She sat unmoving until, very faintly, she quirked a smile. From then on she was always eager to hear news from Denmark. It did not come readily, because she never let on that anything had changed and folk still feared speaking to her of Helgi Halfdansson. But in this way and that, she learned how he and one Yrsa, whose parentage was unknown, were happily wedded,

  "You shall get grief and shame, Helgi, where today you have honor and gladness," she vowed, alone with her ghosts.