And in England as late as 1344 Thomas of Walsingham records the slaying of the dragon that guarded a barrow, and the recovery of a great treasure of gold by the retainers of the Earl of Warrenne.
Popular imagination believed that barrows were occupied by a ghostly inhabitant 'haugbui,' who guarded the treasure. This was sometimes a dragon, as in Beowulf, or a reanimated corpse, as in our saga; but whatever he was, he inspired the outside world with such fear that the breaking into a grave-mound came to be regarded as a deed of the greatest courage and prowess. The 'hogboy' (haugbui) of Maeshowe, a barrow in the Orkneys, is still a living reality in the imaginations of the country people[1].
Unfortunately The Saga of Hromund Greipsson is preserved only in late paper mss., of which none apparently are earlier than the seventeenth century. None of the verses of which the notice in the Saga of Thorgils and Haflithi speaks (cf. p. 58 above) have been preserved. There is, however, a rhymed version of the saga known as Gríplur, dating apparently from about the year 1400 and evidently taken from a better text than any of those which have come down to us. A short extract from these rhymed verses will be found on pp. 173-75. For a full discussion of the relationship of the Gríplur to the extant texts of the saga and to the later ballads, the reader is referred to Kölbing, Beiträge zur Vergleichenden Geschichte der Romantischen Poesie und Prosa des Mittelalters (Breslau, 1876), pp. 181-83, and to Andrews, Studies in the Fornaldarsögur Northrlanda[2] in Modern Philology, 1911, 1912.
A full bibliography of texts, translations and literature relating to this saga will be found in Islandica, Vol. v, p. 30.
[Footnote 1:] Cf. Joseph Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times: The Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 278-279 (publ. by Douglas, Edinburgh, 1886).
[Footnote 2:] It is pointed out by Andrews, p. 2, that the form Lara (which appears in Rafn's and Ásmundarson's editions, ch. 7) is due to a misreading. The mss. have Cara.]
THE SAGA OF HROMUND GREIPSSON[°]
I. There was a King called Olaf, the son of Gnothar-Asmund, and he ruled over Garthar in Denmark, and was very famous. Two brothers, Kari and Örnulf, both mighty warriors, were entrusted with the defence of his territories. In that district there was a wealthy landowner called Greip, who had a wife called Gunnlöth, the daughter of Hrok the Black. They had nine sons whose names were as follows: Hrolf, Haki, Gaut, Thröst, Angantyr, Logi, Hromund, Helgi, Hrok. They were all promising fellows, though Hromund was the finest of them. He did not know what fear was. He was blue-eyed and fair-haired; he was broad-shouldered, tall and strong, and resembled his mother's father. The King had two men called Bild and Voli. They were wicked and deceitful, but the King valued them highly.
On one occasion King Olaf was sailing eastwards with his fleet along the coast of Norway. They put in at Ulfasker, and lying to off one of the islands they began to plunder. The King bade Kari and Örnulf go up on the island and look if they could see any warships. They went up on land and saw six warships under some cliffs, one of them being a most gorgeous 'Dragon.' Kari called to the men and asked whose ships they were. One of the scoundrels on the 'Dragon' stood up and declared his name to be Hröngvith, adding: