Gripla - 20.12.2008, Blaðsíða 88

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matic fight. Anyway, both versions of this episode agree on the main point,
namely that Haraldr had accomplished a great and extraordinary deed
when he managed to kill a huge and fierce monster with a small knife, i.e.
a weapon by no means intended for battles with dragons. Hence, the knife
itself naturally came to play a prominent role in the traditions dealing with
this remarkable adventure of the future king of Norway.
It is no surprise that in the much more eloquent and expressive account
of the same story in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum (Book XI, ch. 3) we do not only
find this weapon again but are also supplied with a more or less satisfac-
tory explanation of how the king could keep it in prison.
According to Saxo’s version of the Byzantine episode, Haraldr “was
convicted of manslaughter” and sentenced “to be thrown to a captive
dragon and torn to pieces”. It is said that on his way to the prison Haraldr
was followed by his companion, an unnamed “faithful servant”, who
“bravely and voluntarily offered to share his fate”. Both of them were
carefully searched by the warder and went into the prison “unarmed and
stripped”, but while the slave had to enter the cave naked, Haraldr was
allowed “to keep his linen on for the sake of decency” (thus the reader is
given a hint that the noble prisoner could hide something on his body, as
was actually the case). In order to gain time Haraldr bribed the jailer who
fed the monster with little fishes, so that while the dragon “was satisfying
the first pangs of his appetite”, the prisoners’ eyes got used to the darkness
after which they managed to get ready for an attack by their fierce enemy.
Having picked some bones from the skeletons Haraldr tied them up in a
bunch, constructing a sort of club (cp. kefli in the saga). Using this self-
made weapon in their fight with the dragon, his helper then smashed its
head with repeated blows until it was killed. But before that, the monster
was attacked and wounded by Haraldr, who happened to have another
weapon: “<...> when the dragon appeared, rushing eagerly at its prey, he
climbed on to its back with a ‘rapid bound’, and sank a ‘tonsorial blade’,
which he happened to have ‘covertly introduced’, into its navel, the only
part vulnerable to steel. For the serpent was covered with very hard
scales, which prevented any other part of his body from being cut.” (Saxo
I, 54).
In contrast to Saga Haralds harðráða, in which the killing of the serpent
does not entail Haraldr’s and his companions’ release from the prison, the