Fridthjof's Saga

Fridthjof Succeeds To His Father’s Inheritance.

Soft now in th’ earth were laid ag’d Thorstein and Bele his Sovereign,

Where they themselves and bidd’n; one on each side the firth rose their barrows,

Shielding beneath their round two breasts, now death-sundered ever.

Halfdan and Helge then, as the people decreed, were successors

After their sire in the realm; but Fridthjof divided with no one;

Peaceful he heir’d, sole son of his father, and settled in Framness.

Far to the right, and the left, and behind his homestead ascended

Hills and low valleys and rocks, but its fourth side fronted the ocean.

Forests of birch crown’d the mountain-tops, while their sides smoothly sloping

Flourish’d with golden corn, and with man-high, bright-waving rye-crops.

Lakes full many their glitt’ring mirrors held to the mountain,

Held to the wood, too, above, in whose depths had high-branching elk-deer

Range as they royally trod, or drank of a hundred fresh streamlets.

Pasturing herds were seen in the valleys, cropping the greensward,

Or with sleek sides standing, and bags which long’d for the milk-pail.

‘Mid them were spread, here and there o’er the meadows, white-woolly sheep flocks,

Wand’ring careless and free; as (when soft winds herald the spring-time)

Heav’n’s blue vault small far-scatter’d cloudlets flockwise besprinkle.

Rang’d in their stalls, like winds close fetter’d, and proud and impatient,

Pawing there stood twice twelve chain’d coursers, sweet grasses champing;

Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs shone brightly with steel shoes.

Wide, and a house by itself, was the drinking hall, built of tough heart-fir;

Not five hundred men (though then twelves went to the hundred)

Fill’d that spacious hall, when at Yule they gathered to banquet.

Right through the hall’s whole length ran the board, of scarlet oak timbers,

Polish’d and bright like steel; the two high-seat pillars of honor

Stood at its upper end, god-shapes both carv’d from hard elm-wood,

Odin with lord-like features, and Frey with the sun on his bonnet.

Lately, between them, thron’d on his bear hid, (th’hide was all coal-black,

Red like to scarlet its jaws, but the sharp claws shodded with silver,)

Thorstein sat there ‘mong his friends, hospitality sitting with gladness!

Oft, while the moon flew along through the sky, th’ old chief would tell, cheerly,

Marvels which out in strange lands he had seen, and his viking a-rovings

Far o’ver the Baltic’s waves, and the western seas, and in Gandvik. (1)

Mute sat the list’ng guests, their looks firm fixing on th’ old man’s

Lips, like the bee on its rose; but the skald thought, silent, on Brage

As, with silvery beard and runes on his tongue, he sits calmly

Telling, beneath some thick-spreading beech tree, as saga by Mimer’s

Fount, whose waves ever murmur, himself a saga undying.

Midst, on the straw-strewn floor, shot the fire flame ceaselessly upward,

Glad in its stone-wall’d heart; while down through the wide-stretching chimney

Heav’nly friends, blue twinkling stars, glanc’d bright on the hall guests.

But round the wall, on nails of hard steel, all in rows were suspended

Helmet and mail alternate, — while here and there from among them

Lighten’d a sword, as in winter ev’nings a shooting star lighteneth.

Yet, more bright than or helmet or sword, in the hall shone the war-shields,

Clear as the sun’s bright orb or the pale moon’s silvery surface.

Went there at times a fair maid round the board, upfilling the mead-horns;

Blush’d she, with downcast eye, — in the mirroring shield her image,

Even as she, blush’d too; — how it gladdened the deep-drinking champions!

Rich was the house; wherever thou lookedst, still met thy gazings

Close-filled cellars, and crowded presses, and well victualed store-rooms.

Many a jewel there, too, was hidden, the booty of conquest,

gold carv’d o’er with runes, and silver artfully graven.

Three things yet, among all this wealth, most precious were valued.

First of the three, that sword which from father to son went an heir-loom;

Angervadil the brand was hight, and the brother of lightning.

Forg’d had it been in some eastern land (saith ancient tradition),

Harden’d in dwarf-fires red; and at first Bjorn Blue-tooth had borne it.

Bjorn, nathless, (2) both the sword and his life lost soon at one venture —

Southward, in Groning’s Sound, when he fought ‘gainst the powerful Vifil.

Vifil had but one son, hight Viking. Now, old and decrepit.

Dwelt there at Woolen Acre a king with a fair blooming daughter.

Just thereupon, from the wood’s deep shades, came a grim-looking giant,

Taller by far than other men, and all hairy and savage;

Fierce from the old chief, then, he combat claims, or his daughter and kingdom.

None could accept his challenge, for steel was not in the country

Edg’d that it bit on his iron-hard skull; so they nam’d him Grim Iron-head!

Viking alone, who his fifteenth winter newly had finish’d,

Brav’d the wild foe — on his arm and Angervadil depending;

Then, at one blow, he the foul fiend clave, and the fair one delivered.

Viking to Thorstein, his son, this falchion gave; and from Thorstein

Went it to Fridthjof his heir. When in wide hall drawn it giltter’d

Like quick lightning flash there through, or a sky-streaming northlight.

Hammer’d gold was the hilt, but the blade was cover’d with runics

Wonderful, all unknown in the North, but known at the sun’s gates —

There, where our fathers dwelt, till th’ asas led them up hither.

Dead-pale flickered those runes, when blest peace rul’d in the country;

But, should Hild (3) begin her sport, then burn’d every letter

Red as the comb of the fighting-cock; quick lost was that hero

Meeting in battle’s night that blade high-flaming with runics.