Part 3

Saxo relates in regard to Gram that he carried away the royal daughter Groa, though she was already bound to another man, and that he slew her father, whereupon he got into a feud with Svipdag, an irreconcilably bitter foe, who fought against him with varying success of arms, and gave himself no rest until he had taken Gram's life and realm. Gram left two sons, whom Svipdag treated in a very different manner. The one named Guthormus (Gudhormr) who was a son of Groa, he received into his good graces. To the other, named Hadingus, Hading, or Hadding, and who was a son of Signe, he transferred the deadly hate he had cherished towards the father. The cause of the hatred of Svipdag against Gram, and which could not he extinguished in his blood, Saxo does not mention but this point is cleared up by a comparison with other sources. Nor does Saxo mention who the person was from whom Gram robbed Groa, but this, too, we learn in another place.

The Groa of the myth is mentioned in two other places: in Gróugaldur and in Gylfaginning. Both sources agree in representing her as skilled in good, healing, harm-averting songs; both also in describing her as a tender person devoted to the members of her family. In Gylfaginning she is the loving wife who forgets everything in her joy that her husband, the brave archer Orvandel, has been saved by Thor from a dangerous adventure. In Gróugaldur she is the mother whose love to her son conquers death and speaks consoling and protecting words from the grave. Her husband is, as stated, Orvandel; her son is Svipdag.

If we compare the statements in Saxo with those in Gróugaldur and Gylfaginning we get the following result:

In this connection we find the key to Svipdag's irreconcilable conflict with Gram-Halfdan. He must revenge himself on him on his father's and mother's account. He must avenge his mother's disgrace, his grandfather Sigtrygg's death, and, as a further investigation shows, the murder also of his father Orvandel. We also find why he pardons Gudhorm: he is his own half-brother and Groa's son.

Sigtrygg, Groa, Orvandel, and Svipdag have in the myth belonged to the pedigree of the Ynglings, and hence Saxo calls Sigtrygg king in Svithiod. Concerning the Ynglings, Ynglingasaga remarks that Yngvi was the name of everyone who in that time was the head of the family (Ynglingasaga 10). Svipdag, the favourite hero of the Teutonic mythology, is accordingly celebrated in song under the name Yngvi, and also under other names to which I shall refer later, when I am to give a full account of the myth concerning him.