Who chops meat for the wolf?
Who makes showers of helmets?
Who stirred up strife?
Harold reddened the keen blades;
The host chops meat for the wolf;
Högni makes the shower of helmets;
Hjarrandi stirred up strife!
In the Shetlands the story survived down to modern times in the form of a ballad known as Hildina, which was taken down by George Low[4] from the recitation of an old man on the Isle of Foula in 1774. The Norwegian dialect (Norn) in which it is composed is so obscure as we have it in Low's script as to be almost untranslatable, though a serious attempt at its interpretation has been made by Dr M. Hægstad in Skrifter udgivne af Videnskabsselskabet i Christiania, 1900 (Historisk-Filosofisk Klasse, ii), with a very full discussion of all the linguistic difficulties involved[5]. According to Low "The subject is a strife between a King of Norway and an Earl of Orkney, on account of the hasty marriage of the Earl with the King's daughter in her father's absence." Further on[6] he gives the substance of the ballad at greater length:
An Earl of Orkney, in some of his rambles on the coast of Norway, saw and fell in love with the King's daughter of the country. As their passion happened to be reciprocal he carried her off in her father's absence, who was engaged in war with some of his distant neighbours. On his return, he followed the fugitives to Orkney, accompanied by his army, to revenge on the Earl the rape of his daughter. On his arrival there, Hildina (which was her name) first spied him, and advised her now husband to go and attempt to pacify the King. He did so, and by his appearance and promises brought the King so over as to be satisfied with the match.
After this, with the introduction of a courtier Hiluge the story proceeds in a form totally different from anything found in the tháttr, though an attempt has been made to connect it with the second part of the German poem Kudrun.