Frithiof Banished
But although this offer was received with acclamation by the assembled warriors, Helgé scornfully demanded of Frithiof whether he had spoken with Ingeborg and so defiled the temple of Balder.
A shout of “Say nay, Frithiof! say nay!” broke from the ring of warriors, but he proudly answered: “I would not lie to gain Valhalla. I have spoken to thy sister, Helgé, yet have I not broken Balder’s peace.”
Ingeborg watches her lover depart
Knut Ekwall
By Permission of F. Bruckmann, Munich
A murmur of horror passed through the ranks at this avowal, and when the harsh voice of Helgé was raised in judgment, none was there to gainsay the justice of the sentence.
This apparently was not a harsh one, but Helgé well knew that it meant death, and he so intended it.
Far westward lay the Orkney Islands, ruled by Jarl Angantyr, whose yearly tribute to Belé was withheld now that the old king lay in his cairn. Hard-fisted he was said to be, and heavy of hand, and to Frithiof was given the task of demanding the tribute face to face.
Before he sailed upon the judgment-quest, however, he once more sought Ingeborg, and implored her to elope with him to a home in the sunny South, where her happiness should be his law, and where she should rule over his subjects as his honoured wife. But Ingeborg sorrowfully refused to accompany him, saying that, since her father was no more, she was in duty bound to obey her brothers implicitly, and could not marry without their consent.
The fiery spirit of Frithiof was at first impatient under this disappointment of his hopes, but in the end his noble nature conquered, and after a heartrending parting scene, he embarked upon Ellida, and sorrowfully sailed out of the harbour, while Ingeborg, through a mist of tears, watched the sail as it faded and disappeared in the distance.
The vessel was barely out of sight when Helgé sent for two witches named Heid and Ham, bidding them by incantations to stir up a tempest at sea in which it would be impossible for even the god-given vessel Ellida to live, that so all on board should perish. The witches immediately complied; and with Helgé’s aid they soon stirred up a storm the fury of which is unparalleled in history.
“Helgé on the strand
Chants his wizard-spell,
Potent to command
Fiends of earth or hell.
Gathering darkness shrouds the sky;
Hark, the thunder’s distant roll!
Lurid lightnings, as they fly,
Streak with blood the sable pole.
Ocean, boiling to its base,
Scatters wide its wave of foam;
Screaming, as in fleetest chase,
Sea-birds seek their island home.”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (Longfellow’s tr.).
“Then the storm unfetter’d wingeth
Wild his course; in Ocean’s foam
Now he dips him, now up-swingeth,
Whirling toward the God’s own home:
Rides each Horror-spirit, warning,
High upon the topmost wave—
Up from out the white, vast, yawning,
Bottomless, unfathom’d grave.”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (G. Stephens’s tr.).
The Tempest
Unfrighted by tossing waves and whistling blasts, Frithiof sang a cheery song to reassure his terrified crew; but when the peril grew so great that his exhausted followers gave themselves up for lost, he bethought him of tribute to the goddess Ran, who ever requires gold of them who would rest in peace under the ocean wave. Taking his armlet, he hewed it with his sword and made fair division among his men.
“Who goes empty-handed
Down to sea-blue Ran?
Cold her kisses strike, and
Fleeting her embrace is.”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (G. Stephens’s tr.).
He then bade Björn hold the rudder, and himself climbed to the mast-top to view the horizon. While perched there he descried a whale, upon which the two witches were riding the storm. Speaking to his good ship, which was gifted with power of understanding and could obey his commands, he now ran down both whale and witches, and the sea was reddened with their blood. At the same instant the wind fell, the waves ceased to threaten, and fair weather soon smiled again upon the seas.
Exhausted by their previous superhuman efforts and by the labour of baling their water-logged vessel, the men were too weak to land when they at last reached the Orkney Islands, and had to be carried ashore by Björn and Frithiof, who gently laid them down on the sand, bidding them rest and refresh themselves after all the hardships they had endured.
“Yet more wearied than their Dragon
Totter Frithiof’s gallant men;
Though each leans upon his weapon,
Scarcely upright stand they then.
Björn, on pow’rful shoulder, dareth
Four to carry to the land;
Frithiof, all alone, eight beareth,—
Sets them so round the upblaz’d brand.
’Nay! ye white-fac’d, shame not!
Waves are mighty Vikings;
Hard’s the unequal struggle—
Ocean’s maids our foes.
See! there comes the mead-horn,
Wand’ring on bright gold-foot;
Shipmates! cold limbs warm,—and
Here’s to Ingeborg!’”
Tegnér, Frithiof Saga (G. Stephen’s tr.).
The arrival of Frithiof and his men, and their mode of landing, had been noted by the watchman of Angantyr, who immediately informed his master of all he had seen. The jarl exclaimed that the ship which had weathered such a gale could be none but Ellida, and that its captain was doubtless Frithiof, Thorsten’s gallant son. At these words one of his Berserkers, Atlé, caught up his weapons and strode from the hall, vowing that he would challenge Frithiof, and thus satisfy himself concerning the veracity of the tales he had heard of the young hero’s courage.