Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1975, Blaðsíða 359
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ing he is a child, ske at first puts him into the cradle beside her
infant brother but soon takes him into her own bed. There, much
to her surprise, a child is conceived. After the winter has passed,
Oddr departs, accompanying the giant in search af a bear. (Boer,
Q-Os, pp. 121-123.)
In Vold a dragon flies off with Marmoria, Valdimar’s sister, and
Valdimarr vows to find her. Soon after setting out on his quest,
Valdimarr encounters a certain Kollr who takes him to a giant’s
cave. The giant’s daughter begs her father to let him stay. Under
the illusion that Valdimarr is a mere boy, the giant consents. Valdi-
marr and the giantess go to bed together. The hero stays with
her for two years, at which point the giantess reminds him of his
vow8.
In Blv Åki tells in his ævisaga how, after having fallen from the
dragon’s claws into the forest, he was captured by a giant who took
him home and thrust him into a pig-pen as fodder for his wild
boars. (Mobius, Blv, pp. 38-41.) The giant’s daughter, however, res-
cued him before the boars could eat him. She then fed the en-
trails of a bear to the swine and bound his wounds. Åki and the
giant’s daughter remained together throughout the winter with the
tacit approval of her brother but without her parents’ being any
the wiser. On the first day of spring, as Åki was about to leave
the giantess, he and his mistress were forced to fight and kill both
parents from whom their liaison could no longer be concealed.
During the struggle the swine-herd and the giantess’s brother lost
their lives. Åki and the giantess had four children, none of whom
survived infancy. The giantess herself died after she and Åki had
lived together for thirteen years.
It should be noted that in Blv this incident is attributed not to
EtgarS, the slayer of the dragon, as one might be led to expect
from the previous episode in Q-Os, but rather to Åki, who feil from
the dragon’s claws before it reached its nest. Etgar&’s own further
adventures continue to parallel those of Di&rikr: he marries the wife
of the ruler who was killed by the dragon EtgarS has slain. (Ber-
telsen, Pidr, II, 365-368; Mobius, Blv, pp. 43-44.)
8 Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, Vol. I, ed. by Agnete Loth, Editiones
Amamagnæanæ, Series B, Vol. XX (Copenhagen: 1962), pp. 54-59.