The Tale of
Helgi Thorisson
© Peter Tunstall, 2005
1. Helgi Met Ingibjorg
There was once a man called Thorir who lived in
It happened one summer that the brothers took a trading
trip north to Finnmark with butter and bacon to sell to the Lapps. They had a
good trip and as summer was getting on they turned back, and one day they came
to the headland known as Vimund. There was a very fine forest there. They went ashore
and cut down some maple tree. Helgi has gone deeper into the woods than the
others. Then a thick fog comes down so that he can’t
find the ship that evening. Soon night falls too.
Then Helgi sees twelve women riding from the wood. They
were all in red, on red horses. They dismounted. All the trappings of the
horses glittered with gold. One surpassed the others in loveliness, and they’re all serving her, this magnificent imposing woman.
Their horses went to graze. Next, they set up a beautiful tent. It was covered
in different coloured stripes shot through with gold, and the points flashed
with gold as the tent went up, and the pole too, as it
stood up, with a big knob of gold on top.
And
when they were ready, they set up a table and put on it all sorts of delicacies.
Then they took water to wash their hands with, using a jug in the shape of a man
and basins made of silver and inlaid all over with gold. Helgi stepped closer
to the tent and looked in. She who was chief of them said, “Helgi, come here
and take food and drink with us.”
So
he does. Helgi sees that there is excellent drink and good food
too and beautiful vessels. Then the table was taken
down and beds prepared, and they were much more ornate than the beds of
other folk. That woman, the one who was their leader, asks Helgi whether he’d rather sleep on his own, or with her. Helgi asked her
name.
“I am Ingibjorg, daughter of Godmund of Glasisvellir.”
Helgi said, “With you.”
And so they did, for three nights in a row. Then the weather
cleared—they rise and get dressed.
And
Ingibjorg said, “Now we must part. Here are two boxes, one full of silver, one
of gold, which I want to give you, but tell no one where it’s from.”
After that, they ride off the way they came, and he went to
his ship. They welcome him back and ask where he’s
been, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. They steer south along the coast
and come home to their father, and they’ve done well
for themselves. Helgi’s father and brother ask where he came by so much wealth
as he had in the boxes, but he won’t say.
2. Of Godmund’s Messengers
Now it’s getting on for Yule. And one night, it so happened, there comes portentous
weather. Thorstein spoke to his brother, “We ought to go and have a look to see
how our ship’s doing.”
That’s what they do, but it was quite secure. Helgi had put up a
dragon figurehead on their ship, up on the prow, and it was well
decorated above the sea-line. He spent some of the treasure that Ingibjorg
gave him on this, and the rest he’d locked in the
dragon’s neck. Then they hear a great crack. Two men ride at them and carry off
Helgi. Thorstein didn’t know what had become of him. The
storm quickly subsides then. Thorstein comes home and tells his father what
happened, and it sounds serious. Thorir goes to see King Olaf and tells him how
things stood, and begged him to find out what had become of his son. The king
says he’ll do as Thorir asked, though he said he wasn’t
sure if Helgi would be of much use to his family after this.
So Thorir returned home, and a year passes, and now it’s getting on for Yule again, and the king is staying the
winter at Alreksstadir. It’s now the eighth day of Yule, and at evening three
men walk into the hall and stand before King Olaf as he sat at table. They
greet him well. The king greets them well in return. One of them was Helgi, but
no one knew the other two. The king asked their names, and they were both called Grim.
“We’ve been sent here to you by Godmund of Glasisvellir. He
sends his respects and, with them, these two horns.”
The king took them and they were covered
in gold. These were very fine items. King Olaf owned two horns, which were called the Hyrnings, but even though they were very
good, these were better, these ones Godmund had sent.
“Here, lord, is Godmund’s offer, that you be his friend,
for he sets great store in your having your respect, more so than that of any other
king.”
The king doesn’t reply, but has
them shown to their seats. He has the horns filled with good drink and blessed
by his bishop, and brought to the Grims for them to drink from first. And the horns were called Grim too. Then the king chanted
this verse:
“Our guests shall get,
each Grim, a horn,
while Lord Godmund’s
liegeman rests,
from namesakes two
let them take a sip;
so shall the Grims
good ale receive.”
So
the Grims take hold of the horns and they think they know what words the bishop
has read out over the drinks. They say, “He wasn’t far off the mark, our king, Godmund.
This is a sneaky king who doesn’t know how to repay
kindness very well, for our master acted honourably towards him. Let’s all get
up now and be off.”
So
they do. There’s a great disturbance in the room. They
tipped the drinks from the horns and snuffed the lights. Then a great crack was heard. The king prayed God to watch over them, and told
his men to get up and pull themselves together. Now the Grims are gone, and
Helgi with them. A light was kindled in the king’s
dwelling. They see then that three men have been killed,
and there lie the Grim-horns on the hall floor beside the dead.
“This is a great wonder,” said the king, “but it would be
better if it didn’t happen too often. And I’ve heard it said of Godmund of Glasisvellir,
that he’s full of spells, and dangerous to deal with, and those who have come
under his power are in a bad way, even if we could do something about it.”
The king told them to keep the horns of the Grims, and drink
from them, and there was no problem. The pass above Alreksstadir, where they
came from the east, is now called Grims’ Gap, and nobody’s
used it since.
3. Helgi’s Story
Now the winter passes, and another year, and it’s the eighth day of Yule again and the king is in church
with his court hearing mass. And three men appear at
the church door and two of them say: “Here, we’ve brought Old Sourface for you,
king, but when you’ll be rid of him, well, that’s anyone’s guess.”
Then the two of them go, leaving the third man. And people recognise him as Helgi. The king is at now table,
and as the men are talking with Helgi there, they notice that he’s blind. The king asked what it meant, what happened to
him, and, for that matter, where he’d been all this
time. He tells the king first about finding the women in the wood, then about
the Grims causing a storm for him and his brother, so that they would want go
out to save their ship, and how the Grims had then taken him off to Godmund in Glasisvellir
and brought him to Ingibjorg, Godmund’s daughter.
The king asked, “What was it like there?”
“Just perfect,” he says, “and I’ve never seen better.”
Then the king enquired about King Godmund’s
way of life, how many his people were, and what they got up to. And Helgi spoke, saying how great everything was, and how it
was impossible to describe it all.
The king said, “Why did you leave so suddenly last year?”
“Godmund sent the Grims to trick you,” says Helgi, “He let
me come because of your prayers, so that you might know what became of me. But we left so fast then because of the Grims. On account of their nature, they couldn’t drink the drink
which you’d had blessed. They got angry at seeing themselves beaten. And they killed those men of yours because that’s what Godmund
said to do, if they didn’t manage to harm you. But he showed off his glory,
sending you those horns, so that you would think more of them than me.”
The king asked, “Why have you come back now?”
He answers, “It’s due to Ingibjorg. She reckoned she couldn’t sleep with me without feeling sick, if she touched
my naked body, and that’s mostly why I left, and of course King Godmund didn’t
want any bother with you, as soon as he knew you wanted me away from there. But
the glory and bounty of King Godmund, and the vast host of the people that are
with him, well, I can’t sum it up in just a few words.”
The king asked, “Why are you blind?”
He answers, “Ingibjorg, Godmund’s daughter, clawed out both
my eyes when we parted, and said that the women in
The king said, “I’d have Godmund suffer greatly for those
murders he did in my hall, if that is God’s will.”
Now they sent for Thorir, Helgi’s father, and he gave
thanks to the king, that his son had been brought back
out of the clutches of trolls. Then Thorir went home, but Helgi stayed on with
the king and lived a year to the day. And the king had
the Grim-horns with him when he put to sea that last time. And
it’s said that when King Olaf vanished from his ship, The Long Serpent,[2]
the horns vanished too, and they say no one has seen them since. And that’s all there is to be told of the Grims.