otherworld adventures in an icelandic saga

Otherworld Adventures in an Icelandic SagaAuthor(s): Jacqueline SimpsonSource: Folklore, Vol. 77, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. 1-20Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1258916Accessed: 22/09/2009 13:12

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FOLKLORE * VOLUME 77 - SPRING 1966

Otherworld Adventures in an Icelandic Saga

by JACQUELINE SIMPSON

AMONG the less-known sagas of Iceland is the short porsteins saga bojarmagns,l which is richly varied in material and has affinities with myth, folk-tale, and several works of medieval literature. Among its episodes there is one, the longest, which is derived from myths about Thor, and it is this episode alone which has hitherto been considered in discussions of the saga. However, the work as a whole is worth examination in its own right, and not merely as a re-handling of older mythological material.

Its date cannot be fixed within narrow limits. It belongs to a type (the so-called Lying Sagas) which in the fourteenth century dominated Icelandic writing to the exclusion of the earlier, more realistic types; it survives in forty-eight manuscripts, of which five are vellums from the late fourteenth or the fifteenth centuries. Its freshness and vigour of style seem to belong to the earlier part of the fourteenth century rather than to its close.

The hero, Thorstein, is, as far as I know, a purely fictitious character, though the saga claims that he was a courtier of king Olaf Tryggvason of Norway; this, however, is probably just a device to make the tale edifying by linking it with the period of Norway's conversion and with Olaf's fame. The hero's nickname bojarmagn means 'Strength of the Farm', and is explained by saying that he was of huge size and strength. This may imply that there were other stories told about him, for in the existing saga his size is only relevant in so far as it makes it the more amusing that when he arrives in a world of giants he is mistaken by them for a mere child and is renamed 'Baby of the Farm'.

1 Iorsteins pdttr (or saga) boejarmagns, in Fornmannasogur, ed. Kongeligt Nordisk Oldskrift Selskab, Copenhagen, 1825-35, III, 175-98; also in Forn- aldarsogur Norcurlanda, ed. Gubni J6nsson and Bjarni Vilhjalmsson, Reykjavik 1944, III, 397-417. Transl. J. Simpson, The Northmen Talk, I965, 180-96.

A I

OTHERWORLD ADVENTURES IN AN ICELANDIC SAGA

The first of his adventures is a variant on an international folk- tale concerning fairies - or, as the Icelanders would call them, 'elves' or 'hidden people'. One day Thorstein came by chance to a forest clearing with a hillock:

Up on the hillock he saw a crop-headed boy who was saying: 'Mother, hand me out my crook-stick and my mittens, for today I want to go riding the magic ride. Today is a feast-day in the Lower World.' Then a crook-ended stick, just like a fire-poker, was thrust out of the hillock. The boy sat himself astride the stick and put the mittens on, and spurred off, as children often do. Thorstein went up to the hillock and spoke in the same words as the boy, and at once a stick and some mittens were thrown out, and a voice said: 'Who is taking these now?' 'Your son Bjalfi,' said Thorstein. Then he sat himself astride the stick and rode after the boy.

Following this boy (whose cropped hair is a mark of a young troll in Icelandic tradition), Thorstein comes to a great river, plunges into it, and so reaches a fair land beneath the waters, where in a fortress a king and his court are feasting. Thorstein notices that both he and the boy are invisible to these revellers, and that the boy is going to and fro stealing food from the tables. Thorstein himself snatches a ring and a jewelled tablecloth ;2 there is tumult, the fine food turns to dirt, and the Underworld revellers pursue him. In his haste he drops his stick, and is forced to fight for his life; but the crop-headed boy retrieves the stick for him, and together they escape back to the hillock in the clearing. It is standing open, and inside there are women weaving and rocking a cradle (typical occupations of fairy-folk in their own world). The boy tells of the adventure, and the hillock then closes itself. Thorstein goes home to Olaf's court with the treasures he has won.

This story finds a close parallel in a folk-tale that has often been recorded in Denmark and Sweden, which can be summarized as follows: a boy passing near a mountain hears trolls inside calling out 'Give me my cap!' (i.e. a cap of invisibility, a regular attribute of Danish trolls). The boy too demands a cap, and after some argument one is thrown out to him; he can now see the trolls, but

2 This tablecloth has a gold border and 'those twelve jewels which are the best of all' - details that are probably due to the popularity of the lapidaries, with their comments on the jewels of Aaron's breastplate. See Joan Evans, Magical Jewels, 1922, 72-80.

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is himself invisible. He follows them to a human wedding feast, and watches them steal the food. Eventually he is discovered by the guests, either because he loses his cap in a scuffle or because he deliberately takes it off; in some versions he has been stealing food in imitation of the trolls, but more usually he helps the human beings to drive the trolls away.3

A more elaborate version of this motif occurs in the folk-tale 'Blue Cap', where the hero is caught by the angry feasters and is about to be hanged for the theft when one of the trolls appears in the crowd and restores his magic cap; he asks, as a last request, to be allowed to die with his cap on, but as soon as this request is granted he vanishes, and makes his way safely home over land and sea.4

A related tale is Aubrey's well-known story of the Laird of Duffus who heard fairies crying 'Horse and Hattock!' as they passed in a whirlwind, imitated their cry, and was whirled away with them over land and sea to carouse in the King of France's cellar.5 Aubrey says that he was caught red-handed, but forgiven, and that the King gave him a fine cup; in a Cornish variant quoted by Hartland, the hero steals a cup as proof of his journey.6

The similarity between these stories and that of Thorstein provides clear proof that the motif was already known in Scan- dinavia in the fourteenth century; the only major differences are the use of a stick instead of a cap, and the fact that the feast which is raided is explicitly stated to be one in the Otherworld.

It is interesting to find from this saga that the motif of riding a magic stick had already reached the North. A curious phrase is used in this connexion: rida gandreid, 'to ride the magic ride'. The element gand-, the precise meaning of which is not known, often appears in words and phrases denoting magical activity; for instance, ggndum renna, 'to run by gand,' which is the term used

3 W. A. Craigie, Scandinavian Folklore, I896, II9; E. Hartmann, Die Troll- vorstellungen in den Sagen und Mdrchen der Skandinavischen Volker, Stuttgart, I936, 73-4, and refs. there given; cf. R. Th. Christiansen, Irish and Scandinavian Folktales, 1959, 134.

4 I owe this reference to Dr K. M. Briggs. 5 J. Aubrey, Miscellanies upon Various Subjects, I857, I49-50. 6 E. S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, I89I, 148; cf. R. Bovet, Pandae-

monium, or the Devils Cloyster, I684, 173, for the story of the Drummer-boy of Leith who would join the fairies beneath the hills and be 'carried' with them to France or Holland 'to enjoy all the pleasures the country doth afford'.

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when sorcerers' souls leave their bodies in a trance. In Njdls saga, Ch. 125 (c. i280), there is a vision of a figure riding furiously through the skies on a grey horse, hurling a firebrand; the man who sees this vision is told: 'You have seen thegandreiJr, and that is always a portent of disaster.' By the fourteenth century the concept developed into something nearer to the general European belief in the ridings of fairies on straws or sticks; not only is there Thorstein's elf-like boy and his stick, but in Ketils saga hoengs, Ch. 5, there is a troll-woman who rides out to sea to a gathering of trolls, and though her means of transport is not specified, it is said that 'there was continuous gandreiJr all that night'. Finally, modern Icelandic folk-belief provides full and gruesome detail on the making of a gandreiJ-bridle: you must flay skin from a corpse for the reins, take the scalp for the headpiece and bones for the bit, recite a charm, and then, 'if you lay this bridle on any man or beast, stock or stone, it will rise in the air at once with whoever is sitting on it and go faster than lightning wherever you will. It makes a loud whistling in the air, which some men believe they have heard, as well as the rattling of the bridle.'7

Thus it seems that in Iceland, as in the British Isles, the riding of a stick was in the late medieval period as much part of the traditions about fairies, elf-like beings or trolls as about human witches, though in later times the chief association was with witch- craft. It would also seem that in both areas the idea makes its first appearance at roughly the same period; in Ireland in I334 Dame Alice Kyteler was accused of keeping a staff 'on which she ambled through thick and thin, when and in what manner she listed' ;8 and it was probably at much the same period that the author of porsteins saga bcejarmagns sent his hero riding on a crook-stick to the Underworld.

Thorstein's second adventure is briefer. One day he comes on a dwarf wailing because an eagle is carrying his child off; Thorstein shoots the eagle, catches the child as it falls, and accepts magical

7 J6n Arnason, Islenzkar PjdcsQgur og Aefint35ri, Leipzig i862-4, I, 440-I. He also gives two stories (pp. II0-I4, 44o-I) about men who were forced by this bridle to act as horses and carry a woman across vast distances; in the first case the woman is an elf revisiting her own land, while in the second she is a witch riding to a sabbath.

8 Camden Society, Dame Alice Kyteler, I843. Cf. the confession of Isobel Gowdie in i662 (R. Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, III, ii, 603-4).

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gifts from the grateful dwarf. Grateful dwarves are fairly common in romantic sagas, and also in modern Icelandic folk-tales;9 usually their gratitude is won by a gold ring given to their child, and I know of only one other instance where the dwarf-child is saved from peril, the threat in that case being from an ogress.10 Is the eagle here due to the influence of some continental romance ? Or is it again a folk-tale motif? According to Elizabeth Hartmann, some Scandinavian versions of Type 531 ('Ferdinand the True and Ferdinand the False') open with the hero receiving gifts from a troll whose child he has saved from a wolf or eagle, or from drowning.12

Thorstein's dwarf gives him four gifts; the first three are merely what one writer called 'the customary magic bric-a-brac': a shirt of invulnerability, a ring bringing wealth, and a stone that makes one invisible when held in the palm of the hand. Parallels to these can easily be found in medieval literature,l3 and even more easily in folk-tales; the dwarf's fourth gift, however, is distinctly unusual:

He took a pebble (hallr)14 out of his pouch; there was a steel spike to go with it. The pebble was three-cornered; it was white in the middle,

9Egils saga einhenda ok Asmundar berserkjabana, Ch. 2I; Porsteins saga Vikingarsonar, Chs. 22-3; Hqralds saga Hringsbana, Ch. Io; Sigurdar saga pQgula, Ch. 6; Hektors saga, Ch. 7; J6n Arnason, op. cit., II, 3II, 413; A. Rittershaus, Die Neuisldndische Volksmdrchen, Halle, 1902, 10, 109, 171 ff., 227.

10 Ambales saga, Ch. 19; see I. Gollancz, Hamlet in Iceland, I898, 112-15. 11 Occasionally romances using the plot of the St Eustace legend may have a

child carried away by a griffin or eagle instead of the more usual land-beast. See G. H. Gerould, 'Versions of the Eustachius Legend', PMLA, XIX (1904), 335-448. The eagle motif occurs in Bcerings Saga, ed. G. Cederschiold, Forn- sogur Sudrlanda, Lund, 1884.

12 E. Hartmann, op. cit., 175. 13 Magic shirts that are proof against weapons and/or give tireless strength in

swimming occur in at least nine other sagas; see the notes to Egils saga einhenda ok Asmundar berserkjabana in A. Lagerholm, Drei LygisQgur, Uppsala, 1927, 69. A ring that provides riches is given to the hero of the French lay Desire. In Chretien's Ivain and the Welsh Lady of the Fountain there is a stone set in a ring which will make the wearer invisible when he turns it so that the stone is hidden in the clenched hand, and there is a similar stone, without the ring, in Peredur (The Mabinogion, trans. G. Jones and T. Jones, 1949, 164, 211-12). The 'stone of invisibility', hulinhjdlmsstein, is well known in later Icelandic folklore; it is said to be found in a raven's nest, a feature which shows the influence of the general medieval lore concerning magic stones (J6n Arnason, op. cit., I, 650).

14 The Cleasby-Vigfusson Icelandic Dictionary glosses it as 'jewel' with reference to this passage, and compares the modern Icelandic glerhallr, 'crystal'. But in all other passages the word refers to stones of various kinds, including a quern- stone and a boulder; from the context, the author seems to have visualized it as a flat object, small enough to be carried in a pouch, but not tiny; 'pebble' therefore is a preferable rendering.

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red on the other side, and a gold rim round it. The dwarf said: 'If you prick the spike against the pebble where it is white, there will come so heavy a hailstorm that nobody will dare look straight into it. But if you want to melt that snow away, then you must prick the part where the pebble is gold, and then there will come such sunshine that it will all thaw. But if you prick it where it is red, then there will come from it fire and embers and such a shower of sparks that nobody will be able to look straight into it. Also you can hit anything you like with the spike or the pebble, and it will come back to your hand as soon as you call it.'

The appearance of this stone, the method of rousing it to action, and the effects it produces seem to be quite unique; there are no references to anything comparable in the Stith-Thompson Motif- Index, and Dr Joan Evans has kindly informed me that there is nothing similar in medieval lapidaries either. There is indeed the stone by the fountain in Chretien de Troyes' Ivain, which rouses a hailstorm followed by sunshine, though by a quite different technique;15 this romance was translated in Norway in the fourteenth century, so it is conceivable that Thorstein's pebble might be inspired by this episode. However, there are parallels in Ice- landic tradition which make a native origin considerably more likely.

Thorstein, as will be seen when we come to his third adventure, is the hero of exploits originally ascribed to the god Th6r, so it would not be strange if the pebble which becomes his weapon had points in common with Th6r's famous weapon, the missile hammer MjQllnir.16 One such point is obvious at once: MjQllnir and the pebble both have the power of returning to the thrower's hand. Another similarity is with Th6r's hammer as it appears, not in myths, but in later magical practices. In the nineteenth century a charm was recorded in Iceland in which a small metal hammer called a 'Th6r's Hammer' was used in conjunction with a spike; the aim was to discover thieves and force them to restore the goods:

If one has a Th6r's Hammer, one can find out who has robbed one if one has lost something. For this hammer one must have copper from a church bell, three times stolen; the hammer must be hardened in man's blood on Whitsunday between the Epistle and Gospel. A spike must

15 Water is poured on it, in accordance with a well-known rain-making technique. Striking a stone to bring rain is rare, but is known at Audeby in Lincolnshire; see Bett, English Myths and Traditions, 47. 16 On Mj9llnir see H. R. Ellis Davidson, 'Th6r's Hammer', Folklore, 76, I-I5.

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also be forged out of the same material as the hammer. With this spike one must prick the head of the hammer and say: 'I drive this into the eye of the Father of Battles [Vigfadir, i.e. Odin], I drive it into the eye of the Father of the Slain [Valfadir, i.e. Odin], I drive it into the eye of Th6r of the Aesir.' Then the thief will get a pain in his eyes.17

Such a hammer was seen by Dr Maurer in 1858; he described it as roughly made of copper, about three inches long, with a short, loose handle that could be detached and used for striking the head. A disproportionately short handle is also, as Maurer noted, a feature of MjQllnir itself.18

Thorstein's pebble resembles this nineteenth-century hammer in the method of its use by the three-fold stabbing with a spike; the words pjakka 'prick, stab' and broddr 'a spike' occur in both accounts. Of course the aim of the proceedings is different, but a charm associated with a god of such wide powers as Th6r could surely have very varied uses;19 in fact the effects of the pebble - snow and hail, sunshine, and fire - all come within the sphere of Th6r's powers. His association with hailstorms is obvious, and his control over the sun is implied by Adam of Bremen: 'They say he rules the air which controls the thunder and lightning, the winds and showers, the fair weather and the fruits of the earth'.20 As for the showers of sparks, Th6r is lord of the lightning, and hammers strike sparks from a smith's anvil; it has indeed been suggested that a ceremonial striking of fire formed part of his cult.21

17 Jon Arnason, op. cit., I, 445; he also describes an alternative method whereby one draws a face on one side of a sheet of paper, and on the other a swastika-like sign also called a 'Thor's Hammer', and then sets the spike on the eye of the face and drives it in with the hammer. W. A. Craigie, summarizing Jon Arnason's information (Scandinavian Folklore, 16-17, 420), adds a note that 'the practice is also known in Sweden and Denmark, according to A. A. Afzelius, Swenzka Folkets Sago-hdfder, Stockholm, 1839-40, I, 20; J. M. Thiele, Dan- marks Folkesagn, 1843, III, 360'.

18 K. Maurer, Isldndische Volkssagen, i860, IoI. 19 There is, for instance, the Lincolnshire charm against ague reported at the end of the last century by the Rev. R. M. Heanly, Folklore, 9 (1898), i86; Saga-Book of the Viking Society, III, i (I902), 40; cf. S. Baring-Gould, A Book of English Folk Lore, 77. He speaks of a horseshoe being nailed to the bedstead with three hammer-blows, accompanied by a rhyme to say that the blows are 'One for God and one for Wod and one for Lok'. Dr Ellis Davidson has recently expressed scepticism about the reliability of this account ('Folklore and Man's Past', Folklore, 74 (1963), 534-6); but the similarity with the triple blows and triple invocation of deities in the Icelandic thief-catching charm greatly strengthens one's confidence in the Rev. R. M. Heanly's report.

20 Adam of Bremen, History of the Bishops of Hamburg, IV, 26. 21 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, 1964, 78-9.

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The powers of Thorstein's pebble can thus all be seen as derived from Th6r's attributes. Nor is the fact that it is a stone, not a metal hammer, any objection. The so-called 'thunderstones' (i.e. certain fossils or prehistoric weapons) which until recent times were in use in northern Europe as protective amulets against lightning, fire, and other evils, must in earlier days have been specifically associated with Th6r.22 Indeed, in Sweden certain 'smooth wedge- shaped stones' found in the ground were until recently called 'Th6r's Wedges' and 'were believed to have been thrown by him at some troll or other'.23

It therefore seems plain that the author of porsteins saga based his account of the pebble on the myth of Thor's Hammer and on folk-traditions surrounding thunderstones and model hammers named after Th6r; the romantic and mdrchen-like elements that he also introduced are mere trimmings surrounding genuine Northern material.24

The third adventure of Thorstein is the longest and most complex, rich in interesting motifs; its climax is the killing of a giant named GeirrQth, and it is to the history of this theme that we must now turn.

The killing of GeirrQth was originally one of Th6r's feats, and it must have been one of the most popular myths, for it has left many traces in literature, including four full-length variants. The earliest version is a poem by Eilif Guthruinarson at the end of the tenth century, which is unfortunately often obscure;25 it tells how Thor and his servant Thjalfi set out for the world of giants, barely escaped drowning in a deadly torrent, and at length fought their

22 C. Blinkenberg, The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore, 1911; K. Oakley, 'The Folklore of Fossils', Antiquity, XXXIX (I965), 117-18; M. Haavio, 'The Oldest Source of Finnish Mythology', Journal of the Folklore Institute, I (1964), 44-66.

23 W. A. Craigie, op. cit., I7, quoting A. A. Afzelius, op. cit., I, Io. 24 The colours of the stone have an obvious natural appropriateness to its functions, but would also appeal to a taste for the marvellous and gaudy. Gibbons saga, Ch. 3, tells of a red, blue and gold stone with strange properties; if one looks at the red part one can see events in distant lands, the blue makes one 'as fair as an angel', and the gold 'as ugly as a devil' (ed. R. I. Page, I960, 9-io). Such a description shows sheer arbitrary fantasy, without roots in living beliefs.

25 Idrsdrdpa, quoted in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (Skdldskaparmdl XVIII), ed. Finnur J6nsson, Copenhagen, I926, 90 ff. For commentary, see W. Kiil, Arkiv f6r nordisk Filologi, LXXI (1956), 89 ff. This text and others dealing with Thor and Geirr9th have been discussed by Mrs N. K. Chadwick in a recent issue of Folklore, (75, 243-59); though my angle of approach is different, some duplication in plot-summaries is unavoidable, and will, I hope, be excused.

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way into the home of the giant GeirrQth, where Th6r broke the backs of the giant's daughters. Then GeirrQth hurled an iron bar at Thor, who caught it, rammed it against the giant's belly, and then crushed him with his hammer.

Over two hundred years later, Snorri Sturluson gave a very similar account in his Prose Edda (c. i220),26 using Eilif's poem as his main source. But in some details he differs from it; for instance, he says Th6r did not have his hammer with him, and that his com- panion was Loki; also he gives a slightly different account of the climax. According to him, GeirrQth challenged Th6r to a game, and 'seized a mass of glowing iron with his tongs and threw it at Thor, but Th6r caught it with his iron gloves and raised it in the air; but GeirrQth ran behind a pillar to protect himself. Th6r threw the glowing iron and hurled it through the pillar, and through GeirrQth, and through the wall of the house, and so into the ground outside.'

At almost the same period as Snorri (c. I2I5 or a little later), the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus wrote a version27 in which the theme has undergone striking changes and elaborations. The hero is now a human being, an Icelander named Thurkillus, who guides a band of Danes to the realm of Geruthus, a region of eternal darkness and icy deserts beyond the uttermost ocean. The aim of the expedition is to acquire treasures. There is a sea-voyage beset with perils and marvels, which resembles the Irish imramma more closely than anything in older Scandinavian traditions.

An important new character enters the story, a figure whom Saxo calls Gudmundus and who appears in several late sagas as Guthmund of Glasisvellir or Glesisvellir. According to Saxo, Gudmundus is a giant and brother of Geruthus, yet he helps Thurkillus in his quest. He is lord of a strange land with rich fruit-orchards, has twelve noble sons and twelve fair daughters, and is pressing in offers of hospitality; yet Thurkillus warns his companions not to eat the food he offers, nor touch his servants nor his goblets, nor accept the love of his daughters - those who do will 'lose recollection of everything' and dwell in his land for ever. Saxo, intent on moralizing, paints this fate in grisly colours; all the

26 Snorri, op. cit., ed. cit., 88-90. 27Historia Danorum, VIII, 286-92; quotations from the translation by O. Elton, 1894, 344-52.

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same, it is clear both from Saxo himself and from passages in certain sagas that Guthmund is lord of one of those Otherworlds of unfading and timeless bliss which are familiar to us from Celtic literature.28

In Saxo's story, Gudmundus ferries Thurkillus and the Danes over a river into the land of Geruthus, which turns out to be 'a gloomy neglected town' haunted by grim phantoms, filthy, stinking, swarming with snakes. There they find a 'ruinous house', a 'rocky dwelling' with a cavern in it; inside is 'an old man with his body pierced through, sitting on a lofty seat', and three women with their backs broken. This, says Thurkillus, is the giant Geruthus, pierced long ago by Th6r with a red-hot iron, while the giantesses' backs were broken by his thunderbolt. The men then go in search of the treasures, but as soon as they touch them the seemingly dead giants leap up, pandemonium breaks out, and all but twenty of the Danes are killed. Whether Thurkillus succeeds in carrying anything off is not said, for Saxo treats the whole story as a warning on the perils of greed.

This version of Saxo's has obviously departed considerably from the old myth. Besides substituting Thurkillus for Th6r,29 and ascribing the wounding of Geruthus to a previous encounter with Thor, he includes two features, the perilous voyage and the figure of Gudmundus, to which the readiest parallels are to be found in Celtic tales. It is, however, unlikely that he was the first to use them, for they also occur (with variations) in porsteins saga

28 One text of Hervarar saga ok Heidreks says of him: 'So old were he and his people that their lives lasted through many generations of men. For that reason heathen men believed that his realm must lie in the Land of the Undying, that region where sickness and death depart from every man who enters it, and where no man can die' (C. Tolkien, The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, I960, 66, 84-6). In Helga Dattr Pdrissonar he and his daughter are chiefly seen as cruel and hostile to men, but even there there is praise for the lavish hospitality and delights of his land (Flateyjarbdk, ed. G. Vigfdsson and C. R. Unger, I86o-8, I, 359-63; also in G. J6nsson and B. Vilhjalmsson, Fornaldarsogur Nordurlanda, III, 42I-6; cf. N. K. Chadwick, 'Literary Tradition in the Old Norse and Celtic World', Saga-Book, XIV, iii, I94-8). The name of Guthmund's land means 'Glassy Plains' or 'Glittering Plains'; glass and crystal are often mentioned in medieval accounts of the Otherworld, especially those containing Celtic elements (cf. the 'Isle of Glass' in Chretien's Erec, and see H. R. Patch, The Otherworld

According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature, 1950). 29 In a later passage Saxo ascribes to Thurkillus another of Th6r's adventures,

the visit to Utgartha-Loki. However, his version of this is utterly transformed, partly by confusion with the myth of the bound god Loki, and even more by the intrusion of the folk-tale of the man who goes to pluck three hairs from an ogre's beard (Aarne Type 46I).

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bcejarmagns, and it is reasonable to suppose that features shared by Saxo and this saga must have been present already in Saxo's lost Icelandic source.30

To return to Thorstein - in his third adventure he, like Thurkillus, takes on Thor's role as the adversary of GeirQrth. While sailing east in the Baltic, his ship goes off course in a fog and bears him to a beautiful but silent land, which turns out to be Glaesisvellir. He goes exploring alone, spends the night in an oak,31 and encounters the gigantic Guthmund, who laughs at his puny human size. In this version Guthmund is not the brother of GeirrQth, but his very unwilling vassal; he is on his way to swear allegiance to him, but fears it may end in his being killed by treachery. Thorstein offers his help, saying he can make himself invisible, and that the protection of the Christian God and of King Olaf Tryggvason will guard him; Guthmund accepts his offer.

There are motifs here which have a certain Celtic colouring. A mist that leads the hero astray as a prelude to some Otherworld encounter is frequent in Irish and Welsh, and also occurs in medieval romances, where it is usually reckoned as a feature of Celtic origin.32 However, it is also known in sagas and in Saxo. Similarly, tales in which a human hero undertakes to help one lord of the Otherworld against another are frequent in Celtic literature, and are sometimes claimed as a uniquely Celtic

30 Peculiar to Saxo is the change from a living and active Geirr9th into the semi-corpse Geruthus, a motionless guardian of treasures in an ill-defined and sinister locality. He may have been thinking of the very popular Icelandic motif of a living corpse (draugr) that will spring to life if the treasures are robbed from its burial-mound; on the other hand, his reference to a 'cavern' and 'recess in the crag' sounds more like the medieval legend of the king (Arthur, Barbarossa, etc.) who sleeps in a cavern beneath the mountain, surrounded by treasures. Saxo often tends to pile marvel upon marvel, resulting in confusion and ambiguity. 31 Eik in Icelandic came to mean any largish fruit-bearing tree, such as an apple-tree or nut-tree, for oaks were unknown there. The present incident, however, is very probably modelled on Snorri's description of Th6r encountering the giant Skrymir under an eik, and there an 'oak' is certainly meant, for its acorns are mentioned. But the wider meaning would also fit the context, for in medieval romances and ballads Otherworld beings often appear to those who sleep or linger near apple-trees (G. L. Kittredge, 'Sir Orfeo,' American Journal of Philology, VII, i886, I76 ff.; L. C. Wimberley, Folklore in English and Scottish Ballads, 1928, 153-8). This belief seems to have been known by the author of this saga, for it is at an orchard-gate that Thorstein meets the giantess who becomes his wife.

32 Several Celtic examples are given by H. R. Patch, op. cit., 45-6. Sagas using this motif are Egils saga einhenda (twice), and Helga Pdttr Porissonar; also Saxo, I, 3 ; III, 70.

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theme.33 Yet this is not the only occasion when the motif appears in Scandinavia.34 In this case, as in that of the supernatural mist, it is not certain whether the author of porsteins saga would have thought of himself as borrowing foreign material, for whether or not it was originally Celtic it may well have been fully naturalized by the time he came to use it.

So Thorstein and Guthmund (and the twenty-four giants who are the latter's followers) set out for GeirrQth's realm. To reach it they must cross a perilous icy river, as Th6r and Thjalfi did in Eilif's poem; but instead of wading, they cross on horseback, protected by magic clothing that keeps them dry. Thorstein alone gets one toe wet, and has to cut it off because it is frostbitten - a detail which the author has adopted from another old myth, that of Th6r and Aurvandil,35 bringing it up to date with touches of the more romantic magic popular in his own period.

Once the river has been crossed, Thorstein makes himself invisible, presumably by using the little black stone which was one of the dwarf's gifts, and so watches the reception Guthmund gets at Geirr9th's court. The general situation here is much like Th6r's visit to the giant-magician Titgartha-Loki;36 there is the same barely-hidden hostility, the same mixture of feasting, quarrelling and tests of strength. Some of the tests are identical: competitive drinking, and wrestling. There is also bone-throwing; also an unusual form of ball-game, when the giant-king GeirrQth sends for his 'gold ball', and this turns out to be:

33 K. H. Jackson, The International Popular Tale and Early Welsh Tradition, I96I, 127; J. Baudis, 'Mabinogion', Folklore, 27 (I9I6), 35; K. Liestol, Norske Trollevisor och Norr6ne sogur, 1915, 70 ff.; E. Hartmann, op. cit., 98, 152-3.

34 The hero of borsteins pdttr uxafdts is led into a burial-mound by the leader of one party of dead men so that he should join in an everlasting fight against a second party, and so bring it to an end. In the Norwegian folk-tale of Vogel Dam (Type 301), one troll asks the hero to kill another, so that the first troll may become king of the trolls (P. Chr. Asbjornsen and J. Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr no. 3; transl. R. Th. Christiansen, Folktales of Norway, 1964, 243-52). There is a similar episode in the Danish folk-tale of Svend Felling (E. T. Kristensen, Danske Sagen, 1872-9I, I no. 968; transl. T. Keightly, Fairy Mythology, 1889, 128-9).

35 Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda (Skdldskaparmdl XVII), ed. cit., 87-8. Ampu- tation of a frozen toe was also connected with Th6r in one episode of the lost JQkuldcela saga, which told how a certain Hakon used to walk barefoot to Thor's temple, every day when weather permitted. This he did one day when he was due to fight a duel, despite frost on the ground; his little toe froze, and for fear it should make him clumsy, he cut it off. He won his duel. (A. van Hamel, '(O6inn Hanging on the Tree', Acta Philologica Scandinavica, VII (1932), 281.) I am grateful to Mrs. Audrey Meaney for this reference.

36 Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda (Gylfaginning XLV-XLVII), ed. cit., 45-54. 12


A seal's head that weighed one hundred pounds; it was glowing hot, so that sparks flew from it as from the hearth of a forge, and the fat dripped from it like glowing pitch. The king said: 'Now take this ball and throw it to one another. Whoever falls shall go into outlawry and lose all his possessions, and whoever dares not handle it shall be called shameful and base.'

The game causes some casualties among the evil giants, and continues till someone accidentally sends the ball flying out of the window and into the moat, where a blazing fire leaps up.

Already in Snorri, the sports in GeirrQth's hall had been part of the story, for there the flinging of the red-hot iron is called a 'sport'; Saxo has the theme too, for he mentions in passing some 'hideous doorkeepers' who 'played a gruesome game, tossing a goat's hide from one to the other'. (This is simply skinnleikr, a game popular in medieval Iceland and played with a rolled-up hide.) But why is the ball now a seal's head? I think it possible that this may reflect some game actually played in real life in Iceland; Mr Alan Smith has recently studied evidence for semi-ritual games with animal heads in England,37 and something similar may have existed in Iceland. Why the seal's head is aflame I am not sure; it could be a reminiscence of the glowing iron in the older versions, it could be inspired by real-life games with burning objects,38 or it could be due to the widespread tendency to include some ordeal by fire among the perils of the Otherworld.

And why does GeirrQth call this head his 'gold ball', when it is neither gold nor, in view of its huge size, a normal ball? Two medieval poems are of interest here, as having a similar sardonic jest in closely analogous circumstances. The first is the twelfth- century French Pelerinage de Charlemagne, that tells of a visit to Constantinople, in which many authorities see a rationalized version of a visit to the Otherworld.39 In the course of this visit, William of Orange hurls a vast stone at the palace wall, battering it to the ground; this huge stone is jestingly called a pelotte, which is

37A. W. Smith, 'The Luck in the Head: A Problem in English Folklore', Folklore, 73 (1962), 13-24; 'The Luck in the Head: Some Further Observations', Folklore, 74 (I963), 396-8.

38 M. Williams ('Apropos of an episode in Perlesvaus', Folklore, 68 (I937), 266) tells of a game played in Cardigan on i November in which a large ball of tarred sacking was set on fire and kicked through the streets till it disintegrated; it was referred to as 'the head'.

8 Ed. E. Koschwitz, 1923, vss. 507-14, 744-52.

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roughly equivalent to 'tennis ball'. When the Pelerinage was translated into Icelandic, pelotte was rendered as 'gold ball'.40

The second analogue is the English poem The Turk and Gawain,41 of about I500, which has much in common with our saga. It tells how Gawain is led to a court of hostile giants by a supernatural dwarf called the 'Turk', to bring about their destruc- tion and make the Turk lord of their land. The Turk, posing as Gawain's servant, performs feats of strength on his behalf in reply to challenges, just as Thorstein aids Guthmund in the competitive sports (of which more later); the Turk is invisible at the end, as Thorstein is throughout. The poem is badly mutilated, but for- tunately there is no doubt that for the first sport the giants and the Turk hurl to and fro a ball of brass that no man in England could lift, and that the king of the giants calls this 'my tennis ball'. In another test the Turk lifts a huge brazier of burning coals and swings it so that sparks fly; one may assume that he then throws it at some giant, but the manuscript is unfortunately damaged at this point. At any rate it seems plain that the saga and the English poem preserve essentially the same plot, and that the 'ball' jest is part of the tradition which they and the Pelerinage share.

One of the most interesting features of this part of porsteins saga is the part Thorstein plays in these tests of strength. He is of course tiny compared with the giants, but he has the advantage of being invisible (and of being a Christian). In every test, the victory of Guthmund's party is in fact due to Thorstein; in the bone- throwing, he catches bones in mid-air and hurls them back at the senders; he steadies Guthmund's followers when they stagger under the weight of the seal's head; he holds them up in the wrestling, and trips their adversaries. All this help is given in such

40 Karlamagnus saga ok kappa hans, ed. Bjarni Vilhjilmsson, Reykjavik, 1950, 752, 762. Mr. Alan Smith informs me that in ritual ball-games the balls are sometimes gilded or silvered to represent the sun or moon, and suggests that memories of such a practice have mingled with a debased version of an animal- head ritual to provide this colourful variation upon the theme of a weight- throwing test.

41 The Turke and Gowin, Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall, I867, I, 90-0I2. The parallels between this poem and the Pelerinage have been several times pointed out, and a derivation from Celtic tales suggested. See G. T. Webster, 'Arthur and Charlemagne', Englische Studien, XXXVI (1906), 337-69; G. L. Kittredge, A Study of 'Gawain and the Green Knight', 1916, 118 ff., 274 ff.; L. H. Loomis, 'Observations on the Pelerinage de Charlemagne', Modern Philology, XXV (I927), 331-49.

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a way that it looks as if Guthmund and his men are performing their feats unaided, yet in fact the vital work is done by the invisible Thorstein.

This is a distinctly unusual motif; Marvellous Helpers are of course extremely common in folk-tales and in medieval literature, but they all (including Gawain's Turk) are quite open in under-

taking tasks on the hero's behalf, and the question of trickery by invisible aid does not arise. It is indeed true that in folk-tales of

Types 505-8 when the Helper is a Grateful Dead Man, he does

commonly make himself invisible to spy on the cruel princess, but the whole point of that plot is the discovery of her secret, not the

achieving of a feat of strength.42 But there is one famous story in which the helper makes himself

invisible, and acts simultaneously with the friend he is helping, so as to trick the watchers, and in which the tests are feats of strength. This is the Seventh Adventure in the Niebelungenlied, the scene where Gunther must beat Brynhild in an exchange of spear-casts, in hurling a huge stone, and in a long-jump. Siegfried, invisible, performs all three tests in such a way that it seems to be Gunther who does them; he takes the impact of Brynhild's spear, casts it back, hurls the stone, and finally gives a mighty leap, carrying Gunther with him as he goes. Now this scene has caused much discussion, for, as is well known, in the Icelandic versions Sigurth wins Brynhild for Gunnar by the more dignified method of riding through a wall of fire, after they have magically exchanged shapes. The only parallel so far suggested for the scene in the Niebelungen- lied is the Russian folk-tale 'The Strong Bride' (Type 519), of which thirty-five versions have been collected.43 Here the tests are to hurl some vast weapon and to bridle a wild horse; the hero has a Helper to perform these tasks, and deception is sometimes involved; but it is only in one of the thirty-five variants that the Helper is invisible,44 and in one other that he is a tiny dwarf hidden behind the hero. The remaining versions use more rational

42 Types 505-8, especially 'The Monster's Bride'. See S. Liljeblad, Die Tobiasgeschichte und andre Mdrchen von toten Helfern, Lund, 1927, I96-225. 43 A. von Lowis of Menar, Die Brunhildsage in Russland, Leipzig, I923; F. Panzer, Das Niebelungenlied; Entstehung und Gestalt, 1955, 322-34; S. Lilje- blad, op. cit., I67-77, 235-40.

44 'The Strong Tsar and the Beautiful Jelena'; even here the Helper, Nikita Koltoma, is only invisible at the end of the contests, not throughout.

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devices - facial resemblance, or exchange of clothing - or do not contain the element of trickery at all.

For many years the argument has raged as to whether these Russian tales are evidence that the Niebelungenlied borrowed this

episode from some early folk-tale, or whether, on the contrary, they are themselves derived from the Niebelungenlied.45 As far as I know, the similarity between Siegfried's exploit and that of Thorstein bcejarmagn has never been brought into the discussion, but it seems to me that it should not be neglected.46 After all, porsteins saga boejarmagns is probably not more than a hundred and fifty years later than the Niebelungenlied, and appears to be largely built up out of older themes; its evidence is highly relevant to the question of what sources were available in the twelfth century for the author of the Niebelungenlied. The most plausible explanation seems to be that the motif of the Invisible Helper was already circulating, but as part of a story of hostile encounters with Otherworld beings rather than as part of a wooing tale. Whether the author of the Niebelungenlied was the first to attach it to Siegfried, and, if so, what led him to make the connexion, is a

question beyond the scope of the present paper. To return to the narrative of Thorstein's adventures - GeirrQth

and the other wicked giants have become suspicious of the successes of Guthmund's party, and are beginning to guess that some unknown person is present, for the presence of a Christian in their hall affects them as a sensation of unpleasant heat and a foul smell. Therefore GeirrQth decides to consult his oracle, which is a strange drinking-horn, which Guthmund describes as follows:

'Its name is Grim the Good, and it is a great treasure, full of magic power, and adorned with gold. On the pointed end there is a man's head with flesh and mouth, and this speaks to men and foretells what is still to come, and declares whether there is enmity to be expected .... A man of average size can stand upright under the curve [of the horn]; there is a metal band half a yard wide round the rim, and the best drinker in

45 The discussion up to 1948 is summarized by F. Panzer, 'Nibelungische Ketzereien', Paul und Braunes Beitrage, LXXII, 463-98. Since then Panzer has repeated his arguments for the priority of the folk-tale in Das Niebelungenlied, loc. cit., and the opposite view has been put by Jan de Vries, Betrachtungen zum Marchen, FFC, 150(I954), II1-17.

46 It was briefly noted by Margaret Schlauch, Romance in Iceland (1934), 31, but her remark seems to have passed unnoticed by other scholars.

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their company can only drink as much as will clear this band, but the king drinks it dry in one draught. Every man has to give Grim treasure.'

In due course this horn is ceremonially carried into the banquet- ing hall; the giants all worship it, offer it gold, and drink from it. On Thorstein's advice, Guthmund gives it his own crown and vows to honour it even more zealously than GeirrQth does; but he only pretends to drink, for he fears that the liquor may be poisonous. Nevertheless the speaking head is apparently won over by his gift, for it does not betray the secret of Thorstein's presence.

Several ideas are blended in this strange scene. There is the test of drinking from the inexhaustible horn, as in the well-known story of Th6r's visit to iJtgartha-Loki. Then there is the idea that drink proffered by Otherworld beings may be not merely magical but literally poisonous; this occurs fairly often in sagas,47 and becomes very common in modern Scandinavian versions of the folk-tale of 'The Drinking-Vessel Stolen from Fairies'.48 But the oddest and most mysterious feature is the oracular head that grows from the end of this horn. Oracular heads on their own are of course to be found in many sources in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, the more archaic ones being actual human heads, either mummified or freshly severed, and later ones being of metal, usually brass;49

47 Helga pdttr IPdrissonar tells of two men, both called Grim, who were sent by Guthmund of Glaesisvellir to give two horns, also both called Grim, to King

la6f Tryggvason, and it says that the liquor in these horns would have poisoned him had he not made the Sign of the Cross before drinking; this tale is evidently related to that of Grim the Good. There are also tales of a she-troll trying to poison Olaf with drink from a horn (Flateyarbdk, ed. cit., I, 398-9), and of a demon in the guise of a woman trying to 'beguile' him by the same means (Oddr Snorrason, ladfs saga Tryggvasonar, Ch. 47). Such stories may be Christian distortions of an old heathen association between kingship and the acceptance of a drink offered by an Otherworld being, such as can be clearly seen in Irish tales (e.g. those of Niall of the Nine Hostages, of Conn and Lug and the 'Sovereignty of Ireland'); when Geirroth hands the horn to Guthmund he says it will seal the agreement whereby the latter is to hold the kingship of Glaesisvellir as the former's vassal.

48 E. Hartmann, op. cit., i8; W. A. Craigie, op. cit., 13I-3, 429-30; E. S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, 137-60. 49 A. Dickson, Valentine and Orson: A Study, 1929, 20z0-6; A. Ross, 'The Human Head in Insular Pagan Celtic Religion', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, XCI (1960), 10-43. Icelandic speaking heads are com- paratively rare: that of Mimir mentioned in two Eddic poems and by Snorri; that in Eyrbyggja saga, Ch. 43; and that which a later sorcerer named Thorleif Galdra-Leif is said to have revived by magic and kept hidden in a chest or a crevice among rocks (J6n Arnason, op. cit., I, 523).

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however, the combination, one might say the integration, of oracular head and drinking horn is unique.

Nevertheless a source may perhaps be suggested, though only as a conjecture based on circumstantial evidence.50 The work of Professor R. S. Loomis on the origins of the Grail legend led him to ascribe great importance to the Welsh figure of Bran the Blessed, and to postulate a group of lost stories about a horn of plenty belonging to him; these stories would have passed from Wales to the Bretons, and thence into French literature, where they would have contributed greatly to the growth of the Grail legend. Now one thing certain about Bran is that the Mabinogion says that he was decapitated and that his severed head presided at a feast that lasted for eighty years. So in the case of Bran we have the same figure being thought of as a severed head, and probably also associated with a famous magic horn; and the more we examine the alleged characteristics of Bran's head and of his horn, as re- constructed by Professor Loomis and Professor Helaine New- stead,51 the more the resemblance to Grim the Good becomes impressive.

First, the names: in the Mabinogion Bran is called 'the Blessed' and also 'the Noble Head' (or 'Noble Chieftain', for penn is ambiguous); it is alleged that Bran's horn was called Cor Benoit, 'Blessed Horn' -compare the name 'Grim the Good'. Bran's head spoke, presided at a magic feast, and protected the land; Grim spoke, appeared at an Otherworld feast, and was expected to give its owner warning of enemies. Bran's horn is alleged to have also been associated with feasting in a fair land, to have been a discriminating vessel that would feed no coward, to have been worshipped by giants, to have foretold the future, and to have answered all questions; 52 the similarity to Grim in all these features is very marked. (Grim shows discrimination against cowards by

50 The following paragraphs are a summary of arguments which I have set out in greater detail in 'Grimr the Good: A Magical Drinking-Horn', Etudes Celtiques, X (1964), 489-515. 51 R. S. Loomis, 'The Irish Origin and Welsh Development of the Grail Legend', Speculum, XIII (1933); 'The Head in the Grail', Revue Celtique, XLVII, 39 ff.; Wales and the Arthurian Legend, I956, 40-I, 44-50, I51-2. H. Newstead, Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romance, 1939. 52 The last three points are very conjectural; they depend on passages in Perlesvaus and Fouke Fitz Warin in which, according to Loomis, tors 'bull' is a scribal error for cors 'horn'.

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taunting an old giant who had done badly in the wrestling, and this giant had to take three draughts before he could drain the horn.)

I believe that this series of similarities goes beyond coincidence, and that the author of porsteins saga (or some predecessor of his) knew stories about Bran's horn and severed head as talismans of plenty and protection, and modelled his Grim the Good upon them. Many masterpieces of French romance - the lays of Marie de France, the works of Chretien, and so on - were translated and imitated in the North in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and it is intrinsically probable that other French lays and tales, now lost, also reached the North at the same period. The more such tales had kept their pagan, Celtic, non-Arthurian features, the more readily they could have blended with native Scandinavian material. If the cycle of stories about Bran was indeed as popular and influential as Professor Loomis maintains, its reappearance in Norse disguise is only one more example of the influence of Continental literature on the sagas; nor would this be the only case where an Icelandic text can cast light on a problem in the field of romance.

We have once more wandered far from the actual adventures of Thorstein, which are now drawing to their climax. After the great horn has been removed from the hall, Thorstein decides to reveal himself, and enters, visible. The giants are amazed to see so small a creature, and take him simply as a figure of fun; Guthmund declares that this is his page, who 'knows many little tricks'. Geirrgth asks to see some, and so with the dwarf's three-cornered pebble and spike Thorstein produces in turn a storm of hail and snow, then hot sunshine, then a shower of sparks. The evil giants are blinded and thrown into confusion, and Thorstein closes the performance by flinging the pebble and spike at GeirrQth, 'and the pebble went in one of his eyes and the spike in the other, and he crashed down dead on the floor.'53

So Guthmund of Glasisvellir became king of all Giant Land, and rewarded Thorstein with the gift of three magic objects: a

53 In all other versions Geirroth dies from a blow that pierces his body, not his eyes; the change of method must be due to some version of the widespread Polyphemus story (Type 1137), and is particularly reminiscent of the killing of Balor of the Evil Eye.

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goblet that only he could drain dry, a gold-embroidered towel which no fire could burn, and a silver dish, the properties of which are not stated. After this, Thorstein won as his wife the daughter of a giant named Agthi, and also stole from Agthi a pair of drinking- horns, which he took home to Norway for King Olaf.54 What became of Grim the Good is not said, but presumably it remained with Guthmund. Thorstein did not remain in Norway but returned to Giant Land, where, after one last adventure of minor interest (the laying of the dead giant Agthi who would not rest in his grave), he settled down as an Earl, holding land in fieff from Guthmund. 'We have never', says the author, 'heard anything about Thor- stein again.' Like the Irish heroes Laegaire mac Crimthainn, Nera, and Connle, Thorstein returned at last to the Otherworld where he had had so many adventures, and of him as of Lagaire it might be said that 'he entered again into the Sidh, where he exercises joint kingly rule, nor is he come out of it yet'.

54 Similarly in the folk-tale of the 'Drinking-Vessel Stolen from Fairies' the stolen goblet or horn is usually given to a king or a church. This tale is very popular in Scandinavia, where it is first recorded in Norway in the sixteenth century; in England it goes back to the early thirteenth century, and perhaps the author of Thorstein's Saga knew it too, though if so he has treated it very cursorily (see R. Th. Christiansen, op. cit., II7-2I; E. S. Hartland, op. cit. I37-60). The horns Thorstein gives King 6Olaf are stolen back by the giant Agthi, just as in some Danish versions of the 'Stolen Drinking-Vessel' the cup is recovered by the 'berg-folk' (Craigie, op. cit., 429-30). But Thorstein finds the horns again in Agthi's burial-mound and returns them to King Olaf; the saga says that when Olaf threw himself overboard at the battle of Svold (A.D. 00ooo), the horns vanished 'and no man has seen them since'. Exactly the same thing is said of the Grim Horns in Helga pdttr dorissonar (see n. 45 above); clearly there was a persistent legend that Olaf owned supernatural horns that were bound up with his life and luck.

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Issue Table of ContentsFolklore, Vol. 77, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. i-vii+1-80Volume Information [pp. i - vii]Otherworld Adventures in an Icelandic Saga [pp. 1 - 20]The Enchanted Pear Tree Motif in Irish Folklore [pp. 21 - 30]The Dance of the Spirit of the New Corn in Cattaro [pp. 31 - 40]Two Moons in May [pp. 41 - 44]German Mythology Applied. The Extension of the Literary Folk Memory [pp. 45 - 59]The Worm in the Tooth [pp. 60 - 64]Letters to the EditorBuried Horse-Skulls in a Welsh House [pp. 65 - 66]Makara Heads in a Welsh Church [pp. 66 - 67]Surrey Peat [pp. 67 - 68]Whirlwinds [p. 68]

Reviewsuntitled [pp. 69 - 70]untitled [p. 70]untitled [p. 71]untitled [pp. 71 - 72]untitled [pp. 72 - 73]untitled [pp. 73 - 74]untitled [pp. 74 - 75]untitled [p. 75]untitled [p. 76]untitled [pp. 76 - 77]untitled [p. 77]untitled [pp. 77 - 79]

Folklore Notes [pp. 79 - 80]

otherworld adventures in an icelandic saga

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