#Norsebinge

[nimblermortal]

The Saga of Hervor Getting What She Wants

in entertaining light retelling this time

for the poetry in translation, click here

Hervor: WAKEY WAKEY RISE AND SHINE, LICHES! Hervor's here and she's ready! for! gifts!

Hervor: I said WAKEY WAKEY I WANT PRESENTS. There are twelve vikings in this burial mound and I will not stop until somebody answers me.

Hervor: Nobody? Okay, then the curses are coming out on three. One, two -

Angantyr: What are you saying, daughter? You're becoming hysterical. Waking up dead men is not a good idea. None of my other kinsmen made such a scene, and there was no reason to. The magic sword Tyrfing that you're looking for, my killers took it.

Hervor: Liar liar pants on (bale)fire. For shame, holding out on your only child!

Angantyr: It is literally Hel all around you. You should run away.

Hervor: I came here to talk to ghosts and you think I'm afraid of a little fire?

Angantyr: I don't want you to have the sword because it will be the ruin of our entire family. Your son could carry Tyrfing.

Hervor: Jesus, what does a girl have to do to qualify as a man? I didn't ask you for advice, I asked you for a magic sword.

Angantyr: It's, uh, right here. Wrapped in fire. No girl would ever dare to put her hand in -

Hervor: *sticks her entire arm into the fire*

Angantyr: *snatching the fire back* Jesus, girl, grow some self-preservation! Hervor: Sword? Angantyr: Fine. Sword.

Hervor: Sick blade :D

Angantyr: No really, you don't understand, the sword will be the death of your entire family, all your sons -

Hervor: That sounds like a them problem. I've got a sick blade.

Angantyr: Enjoy. Don't touch the edges, they're poison. God, you're drengr, I wish I could give you the lives of every man here, but, uh, we're already dead.

Hervor: Ha, yeah, you all stay in your pussy little "graves," I'm gonna go do some great deeds.

[nimblermortal]

OH BOY I was JUST reading about not this while translating the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise!

(warning: purported murder of child)

So Tyrfing is the classic 'cannot (must not?) be drawn without bloodshed' sword, voted world's best 1000 years running, etc. It's in the possession of one Heidrek, king of I-don't-know-where because I skipped the middle part of the saga. It's a whole thing.

Heidrek asks-volunteers-demands to foster the son of the king of Gardariki, who says no, and then his wife says, "Would you like to not die?" so he says yes. Heidrek dotes on this kid, until the king of Gardariki says, hey, why don't you come visit bring my kid?

So they go visit, and it's a big feast with much partying and they go hunting, and Heidrek finds himself alone in the forest with the kid.

"Huh," says Heidrek to himself. "Here I am, alone in the forest with a child and a magic sword. What should I do about this, I wonder. I'm going to have impulses."

So he sends the kid off to stay at a nearby farm and stay hidden until sent for, and then he goes back and looks ostentatiously gloomy at the feast that evening, until his mistress asks him what's wrong.

He's been told not to tell this mistress anything secret. Possibly that's the entire motivation for this, he wants to know whether she can keep a secret after all. Me, I skipped the middle of the saga, so I think he's just dumb. Also possibly they have decision-changing sex at this point, the sagas are very prudish about such things.

"Oh well, you know, you shouldn't tell anyone because my life hangs in the balance, but I kinda killed our host's son today," says Heidrek.

"Excuse me what?" says the mistress.

"Yeah, we were standing there by this tree and the kid wanted an apple, and it was just out of reach. So me, the silly bean that I am, drew my sword and knocked it out of the tree. And then I looked at the sword, and I looked at the kid, and it was just the two of us there, and, well..."

"Ah well," says his mistress. "Back to bed. These things happen."

The next day she goes straight to the queen of Gardariki and goes, "Oh. My. God. You would not believe why Heidrek's been looking so down. Ask me. Go on, ask. It's because he killed your son."

"Oh god," says the queen. "Oh god. My son is dead. And if anyone finds out, we'll go to war and everyone's son will be dead. Um. Excuse me a minute. Keep this quiet." And she walks out of the room.

"Huh," says the king of Gardariki. "Hey, mistress, how come my wife looked so sad after you talked to her?"

"Oh. My. God," says the mistress. "You would not believe the news I have. Heidrek totally killed your son. It was awful. You should have him put to death about it."

"Wow," says the king, who never wanted his son anywhere near Heidrek. "Good idea. Guards! Arrest this man!"

There's a lot of shuffling and lack of eye contact here, because apparently in the few days Heidrek has been here he has made himself so popular that nobody wants to arrest him for murdering a child for no reason.

"I ain't gon' do that," says one of the guards, laying the shackles at Heidrek's feet.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" says Heidrek.

"GUARDS! Hang this man from the gallows!" bellows the king of Gardariki.

"ohshitohshitIdidnotthinkthisthrough," says Heidrek to himself, and sends a man off to collect the kid from the farm.

"HEY DAD," says the kid, fulfilling the destined role of foster children everywhere, "PLEASE DON'T KILL MY AWESOME FOSTER FATHER."

And the moral of the story is: If you are fostering children, gift them the fastest method of transportation you have available, because you are going to need them to have it.

So y’all know the classic edge trope of “my blade cannot be sheathed until it has tasted blood”? What if a magic sword that has that requirement, except it’s sort of inverted. A sword that, instead of being inhabited by an evil spirit which once awakened cannot be lulled back to sleep except by blood sacrifice, was inhabited by a benevolent spirit who would not allow the sword to be drawn unless bloodshed were the only possible solution. A sword whose power could never be misused because it would only allow itself to be used in situations where it was justified. What about a Paladin who spends their entire journey fighting with a sheathed sword, incapacitating but never killing or maiming. The party believes that the Paladin has taken an oath of no killing, until they face the big villain. And it is in that moment, and that moment alone, that the sword will allow itself to be drawn.

Idk, this image set my mindwheels a-turning.

But do y’all see the vision?

[nimblermortal]

Hervor <3

Okay, so I am translating the Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, also known as the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise by people who a) have met King Heidrek and b) clearly have no taste and are absolutely sleeping on my beloved Hervor.

Hervor is the daughter of a berserk. She's not like other girls. She would rather change with shot and shield* and sword than with needle and thread. She would rather do bad than good, and when bad is banned, she leaps into the forest and starts killing men for money.

Your fave could never. Your fave probably has honor.

Her grandfather the jarl** takes a troop of men to deal with the highwayman, and has an off-screen awkward haha moment of discovering said highwayman is his granddaughter, in front of all his men, and drags her back to his house, where she goes right back to making life miserable for everyone around her.

Eventually the slaves get so fed up with her that one of them tells her of course she's always bad, it's perfectly in keeping with her breeding, her (maternal) grandfather the jarl won't let anyone speak of it but her mother lay with the lowest slave.

Hervor gets rather upset and goes to her grandfather to inquire about the truth of this. She gets a relieved, "Haha no of course not your father was known for being... strong** and his tomb lies on this one island where he lost a duel his brother picked."

"Oh," Hervor replies instantly and in verse, "I want to go there and rob his grave."

Arguably the very next morning she has reworked her entire wardrobe*** and sailed off alone. Where does she go? TO FIND PIRATES†! She sails off to the land of the wild things (pirates) and they make her their king (captain). King because she's crossdressing now, she's tooootally a man named Hervard.

The instant she becomes their leader she says, "Cool, we're going to this island where I hear there's treasure."

"We don't want to go there," say all of her men, sailing there anyway but refusing to get off the boat. "That island is haunted. It's scary. No."

So after a great deal of argument lasting all day until sunset, they drop the anchor and Hervor gets in the boat and rows to shore herself, where she starts interrogating the natives, who are all, "You should not have come here, it's dangerous, we don't go outside at night, you need to go to somebody's house" and she's all, "I didn't ask you if it was scawy, I asked you where the lich king's burial mound is."

And that's as far as I've translated so far, but every day reading about Hervor Angantyrsdottir is a fresh gift.

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*side note, why have we stopped using this as a phrase?? It alliterates!

**the jarl has an interesting unspoken story going on. The first part of the saga deals with Hervor's dad's younger brother deciding he's going to marry a Swedish princess, and scheduling a duel over it. While they're preparing for this duel the (twelve, berserk) brothers drop in on a jarl and Hervor's dad Angantyr declares he's going to marry the jarl's daughter. The unspoken undercurrent is that Hervor's mother didn't have anyone to speak up for her, as the Swedish princess did, and her father also did not defend her from this jarl because he was afraid of the berserk brothers. And then said brothers went off, lost a duel, and Hervor was born only after they all died. So Hervor is this living reminder that the jarl wasn't brave enough to stand up to berserks, not even for his daughter, not even for the few months it would have taken for the berserks to die - he didn't even suggest waiting a year or so to have the wedding. Basically just let the berserks ride in and rape his daughter. And then he gets this grandchild who sullies his honor further by being a highwayman... I'm not saying he's a good man, but he's in an interesting position. And it also puts us in the position of seeing this conflict in Hervor: her grandfather the jarl's ought to be the side of her lineage she can be proud of, but her berserk viking father is the one who actually left a bold legacy.

***Privilege of the Sword, anyone?

†I use this word because I can never predict when my audience will have the right association with the word viking. Viking is a summer job for young men, like camp counselor. It's also illegal and disreputable, when it's done to you/inside your kingdom's borders, but cool and honorable when it's done to foreigners who had it coming and also you get their riches now.

[nimblermortal]

I should have thoughts about the many names of the gods, shapeshifting, gender, and transient identity some time.

[nimblermortal]

It must be so annoying to Norse scholars to add lines like "The fact that the horse on the stone has eight legs supports this interpretation, since Odin’s horse Sleipnir had that shape in the Old Norse traditions." Everyone knows about Sleipnir having eight legs. Why do we have to repeat this in every inscription. Can't we just make like a chemist and reference the periodic table of how Loki's effin' children are built. What is this xkcd 2501 BS.

[nimblermortal]

Apparently the sentence I was translating as "There were then many questions about her peacefulness" is supposed to be "There were then many rumors/much fame about her beauty"

Disappointing

[nimblermortal]

Just. As reinforcement that this author is really paying attention to his tone. King Gudmund rules a country that borders Jotunheim (on the edge of fairyland, let us say, for the uninitiated), and his speech is noticeably more difficult than the standard prose. The syntax is weird, it's more poetic, far more difficult to parse. He's different, because he's not quite human, and that's in the prose.

[nimblermortal]

Tyrfing

So Tyrfing is the best sword ever. It's beautiful, it's sharp, it makes one suspiciously good at combat, it shines with the light of the sun whenever its blade is drawn.

It also requires, every time it's drawn, that it draws blood.

And every time it draws blood, it kills.

I can understand why this sword is described as 'cursed', and also why it's compelling for authors to want Tyrfing in their story. There's a lot of situations you can draw up where "oh no the sword's been drawn" is a big drama.

[nimblermortal]

AND LAWYERS!!!

You don’t have an Angel or a Devil on your shoulder. You have an Angry Viking and 50’s House Wife.

[nimblermortal]

There isn't actually any textual evidence for it, but I choose to believe that Hervor was pregnant when she left King Gudmund's court the first time.

Saga writers are very prudish about sex. What we have is a mention that Hofund exists and is an adult in the area, and you know from context that he's a love interest. (Well, he's an adult and a lawyer, what more could you ask?)

Then Hervor gets in a fight and leaves.

Not long after, Hofund decides he wants to marry and asks his dad to arrange something. There are a couple options for this: his dad knew what was going on and will make it happen. Hofund didn't know Hervor was pregnant but his dad had a pretty good guess. It's also a very... prudish, love interest sort of way to go about things. Men propose marriage to the girl's dad, and then the girl, if she approves, bats her eyelashes and says, "Oh, I don't know, whatever you think, Dad." So I feel like there's a mirror in Hofund going, "Oh, I'd like to marry, Dad - who do you think would be good?"

Anyway, if I were writing an adaptation, I'd have Hervor pick the fight semi-deliberately - make it obvious that she allows no one to touch her sword and is never without it. Make eyes at Hofund a few times. And then deliberately cross the crowded room to stand behind the king and be 'absorbed' in his game, leaving her sword at the other side of a room. And then she storms out, cut to Hofund's stricken face. Hofund leaving a suspiciously short time afterwards to chase after her as she goes rebound a-viking. (God I love this woman) And then the hasty marriage.

[nimblermortal]

hnnnnngh this author is doing really good stuff with grammar and gender

Hervor is pretending to be a man again, and passing herself off as a warrior

The author chooses to use a word for 'champion' that is a perfectly good and normal word to use, it just happens to be grammatically feminine

Then when she kills someone the king outs her, but the word he chooses to use is not a common word for woman but more 'female person'... hm. You know how historically 'man' was considered a gender-neutral term for a person, as well as a word for male people? It's that sort of suffix, a female man, as it were (hat tip Joanna Russ).

[nimblermortal]

Every paragraph with this woman is a delight

So, I mentioned that she has Penric problems, by which I mean Orphans of Raspay, by which I mean while she was screaming WAKEY WAKEY COUGH UP THE GOODS at liches in their own tombs, her crew was trembling on the deck of a ship off the coast of the relevant island, and they got skeered and scarpered. So she had to live on the island until she could get passage, and wound up at the court of King Gudmund of Glasisvellir.

Now, sagas differ on just where Glasisvellir is, but in this saga it's between the northernmost regions of Norway and, uh, Jotunheim. It's on the border with fairyland. And Hervor obviously becomes the darling of the king's court, and he just haaaappens to have a fully-grown son who's a lawyer.

Now that's boyfriend material.

But! She does not date him! In fact, she just hangs out claiming to be Hervard again, until King Gudmund is losing at board games And How, until he asks the open court if anybody can advise him out of this dilemma, and Hervor wanders over. She's excelling at the task when some rando notices she left her sword (her magic sword! that she worked so hard for!) at the table (Tyrfing! that cannot be drawn without being the death of someone!) and has the bright idea to draw it and marvel at what a good blade it is.

So Hervor steps back, takes Tyrfing from him, whacks off his head, and leaves.

Now King Gudmund's court is trying to egg each other on to go kill this most excellent champion when Gudmund, with the prescience of kings, suggests that maybe killing him would be a bad idea.

An interesting aspect of Gudmund is that he speaks in poetry, by which I mean his syntax is all over the place and I think this is intentional to make him seem more ethereal/foreign, but it's dratted annoying. Here's my current best shot at a translation, because I think it's fascinatingly trans:

"It will seem to y'all a lesser revenge on this man than you intend, because I understand him to be a woman."

so they decide not to kill Hervor/Hervard again, and instead:

Hervor went to be a viking and was raiding a while, and when she tired of being so she went to Jarl Bjarmar (the granddad she grew up with) and sat down with her embroidery. There were then many questions about her peacefulness.

Yeah, I bet there were. The balls on this woman.

[nimblermortal]

MR BADGE SIR

May I propose, as a scary medieval weapon, the atger?

It shows up in Njal's saga (fourteenth-century Icelandic historical fiction about the tenth/eleventh centuries) as the famed weapon of one of the main characters. It's a polearm. We don't know what it is beyond that. There is no description and it doesn't show up anywhere else.

My personal conspiracy theory is that it's got the same root as atgervimaðr (excellent, accomplished person) and the type of polearm it is is A Good One, but my Old Norse isn't good enough for anything other than 'oh hey look what's in my vocabulary list!'

It's not Mediterranean or Welsh at all, but it is "Order of the Thing We Don't Know What It Is but It's Good."

I just finished binge reading all the books in the Shivadverse and first off: these books are fantastic and I really enjoyed them and look forward to more! Second, does the monarchy of Askazer-Shivadlakia knight people? Or have they in the past? Also, as a queer Jewish person, I love that you’ve created a predominantly Jewish country that is super open and friendly towards queer people.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the books! I have a ton of fun with them.

The royals gave up some forms of power when the country democratized, but one of the odd quirks that remains is that the king can grant peerages and, indeed, knight people. There's a joke about it in the next novel -- Monday, Eddie's sister, is asked to be their surrogate for a royal baby, and she's excited to get to try all the weird folk recipes for having twins that she's picked up. Gregory jokes that if she manages twins he'll knight her. :D Mind you, he's planning to anyway, it's a pretty big deal to carry your brother's husband's baby for them.

(The other running joke is that Ceece, Eddie and Monday's mother, has a friends group that is doing fertility rituals to help Monday get pregnant, and nobody can decide if it's a coven or a book club.)

I imagine, given the Shivadh love of a good party, that Gregory finds an excuse to knight at least a few people a year. I'll have to come up with the formal title. "Knight of the [dramatic noun goes here]" or possibly "Sibling of the Order of the [scary medieval weapon]".

I bet Jerry has invented one to go with his fake medallion of office. Officer of the Vizier's Cavalry. (His drag queen friends get to be Dragoons.)

[nimblermortal]

The Saga of Hervor Getting What She Wants

in verse

(preliminary, I haven't reviewed any of these translations yet)

for the modern-style retelling, click here

Hervor: Wake up, Angantyr!* Hervor wakes you, only daughter of your Svafa. Surrender from your (burial) mound the sharp sword, the one that dwarves forged for Sigrlami.

*Angantyr is her dad

Hervor, Hjorvard, Hrani, Angantyr!* I wake all of you under the tree's roots with helm and armor and sharp sword, shield and harness, and orderly spear.

*these are Angantyr and his brothers

Much they are becoming, Angantyr's sons - mighty harm-willing ones - to mold-reek that none of the sons of Eyfura will speak with me in Munarveg.

Hervor, Hjorvard, Hrani, Angantyr! Let it be for you all as if you mourn with an ant's mound inside your ribs unless you give up the sword which Dwalin forged. It is always/not fitting for ghosts to carry a costly weapon.

Angantyr: Hervor, daughter, what are you saying? You go toward evils full of your own ills. You are becoming frantic and hysterical willfully you wake up dead men.

My father did not dig for me, nor did any of my kinsmen - Those two* have Tyrfing** who lived though only one became its possessor in the end.

*two men fought Angantyr and his eleven brothers; one died, and so did all twelve brothers. Don't feel bad for them, they were berserks and vikings. **magic sword

Hervor: You do not tell the truth - so let the god make you whole in your mound, as you do not have Tyrfing with you. You are loth to grant an inheritance to your only child!

Then the mound opened, and it was as if fires and wildfires were all over the mound.

Angantyr: Hither to the gate to Hel the mound opens all the flowering island trees you see are in the fire. It is savage outside, that you see around you. Go, girl, if you are able, to your ship.

Hervor: Y'all do not burn such balefires at night that I would be afraid of others' fires. The breast in the maid is untrembling at the thought, though she see a ghost standing at the door.

Angantyr: I tell you, Hervor, listen a while longer to be shown, daughter, what will happen. Tyrfing will, if you can believe it, ruin everything for your family, girl!

You will beget a son. He will later have Tyrfing and trust in his strength. Then Heidrek will lead people; he alone will be the most powerful under the sun's tent.

Hervor: I thought myself a manly man until I came to your hall seeking no counsel; give me from your mound that which hates armor, what is dangerous to defense, doom of Hjalmar.*

*of the two who killed Angantyr and his brothers - the one who died

Angantyr: Hjalmar's bane lies under my back everything around him wrapped in fire. I know no girl on the earth overhead who would dare carry that sword in her hand.*

*this may actually be 'who would touch it, since it's covered in fire'. Or not; note that in the Ring cycle, Brunhilde is wrapped in fire using the same terms as here describe the sword

Hervor: I can care for and take in hand that sharp sword; if I could not I do not fear the burning fire. Suddenly I see wildfire overhead.

Angantyr: You are foolish, Hervor, possessing courage, eyes bigger than your stomach you tumble into the fire. I would rather give you the sword from the mound. Young maid, I cannot deny you.

Hervor: You do well, son of vikings, now you give me the sword from the mound; hero, I think it better to have now than if I had all of Norway.

Angantyr: You don't get it - you are wretched of speech, most wicked woman - what you celebrate - you will see, Tyrfing will, if you trust in strength, entirely ruin all of your family, girl!

Hervor: I will go to the gull of the swelling waves (ship). Now the helmsman's maid (me) is in a good mood! I couldn't care less, friend of princes, what my sons deal with later.

Angantyr: You shall own/not* and long enjoy having in hiding Hjalmar's bane. Do not grasp the edges; poison is on both of them, that which is a man's bane, worse than maiming.

*another case where the opposite is the same word :(

Farewell, daughter - in a heartbeat I would give you the life of twelve men if you trust in strength, might, and endurance - all that is good that the sons of Arngrim leave to you.

Hervor: You all stay - I wish to be abroad. Whole in your mound - I want to go from here swiftly. I seemed now to be between worlds; fires burned all around me.

[nimblermortal]

Angantyr, lich: You don't get it, please don't take the sword, it will destroy your entire family! Hervor: I'm in a good mood. Hervor: Don't harsh my vibe Hervor: That sounds like my sons' problem Hervor: Fuck those guys, tbh

[nimblermortal]

He's at it again

Þó munk mitt ok móður hrør fǫður fall fyrst of telja; þat berk út ór orðhofi mærðar timbr máli laufgat.

My rearrangement for syntax (this one was actually pretty straightforward):

Þó mun-ek mitt fǫður ok móður fall hrør fyrst of telja; ek bera þat út ór orðhofi mærðar timbr máli laufgat.

My translation word by word:

Nevertheless prefer-I me father and mother fall corpse first of counting; I bear it out of word-building praise's timber speech [become leafy]

My smoother translation:

Nevertheless I would prefer that father and mother fall to corpses first in the reckoning. I bear* it out of my word-court to make praise's bare timber leafy with my speech.

*the pun with 'bare', as in bare branches**, translates and is doubtless intentional

**or, a verse earlier, naked bloated drowned corpse