Gripla - 01.01.1984, Page 258

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GRIPLA
The longest of these is Sagan af Haddingja Harðgreiparfóstra (Lbs.
1493 4to, 9-150). Although this hero is not mentioned in medieval Ice-
landic literature, the author has used the mythological accounts in the
Snorra Edda and in Ynglinga saga to provide an introduction to his
story. He then follows Saxo but omits episodes with which the account
in Saxo is interspersed so as to concentrate on the major characters.
Meanwhile he adds greatly to the number and length of the adventures
undergone by the hero. Some of these adventures are loosely based on
Gesta Danorum but others are of the common stock for late romances.
Fights with vikings figure particularly frequently.
After the mythological opening and the events concerning Haddingi’s
parents, which are based on Saxo, additional information is given to fill
out on the hero’s childhood. He then goes on a journey in the company
of the giantess Harðgreip, who is his foster-mother. She does not be-
come his lover until at a later stage than in Saxo. This occurs after the
two have killed a wood-dweller, or skálabúi in an episode of a type
common in the Fornaldarsögur. In the saga Óðinn is introduced at this
stage, while in Saxo he does not figure until much later when Haddingi
is king. He calls himself Rauður, and gives Haddingi advice in the fol-
lowing episodes.
The episode in which Haddingi is led to the otherworld in Saxo has
been changed in the saga, and the woman who leads him there is Harð-
greip herself. In Saxo Haddingi is sitting in his hall when the woman
appears with an otherworld branch, but in the saga an arm appears
through the floor, a motif perhaps taken from Eyrbyggja saga.19 This
occurs in a dream, and still in the dream Haddingi questions Harðgreip
about the otherworld, and she takes him there. The details of this
journey correspond fairly closely to Saxo, though the cock which the
woman kills and throws over a wall, after which they hear it singing on
the other side, has been transformed into a mere mention of a bird that
was sitting on a wall. This was perhaps to make the incident less incom-
prehensible and it demonstrates the kind of change that is common in
these sagas. At the end of the dream Harðgreip appears to Haddingi as
ugly and evil, and this serves to introduce the next episode, in which
Óðinn warns Haddingi that she will kill him if he does not kill her first.
Haddingi is reluctant to do this but he accepts a necklace from Óðinn
19 Eyrbyggja saga, ed. Einar Olafur Sveinsson, Reykjavík 1935 (íslenzk fornrit
IV).