The land in which Frode and his beautiful sister live is difficult of access, and magic powers have hitherto made futile every effort to get there. The attendants of the brother and sister there are described as the most savage, the most impudent, and the most disagreeable that can be conceived. They are beings of the most disgusting kind, whose manners are as unrestrained as their words. To get to this country it is necessary to cross an ocean, where storms, conjured up by witchcraft, threaten every sailor with destruction.
Groa has predicted this journey, and has sung a magic song of protection over her son against the dangers which he is to meet on the magic sea:
thann gel ek thér inn sétta
ef thú á sjó kemr
meira en menn viti:
logn ok lögr
gangi thér i lúdr saman
ok ljái thér æ friddrjúgrar farar.
When Erik and Roller, defying the storms, had crossed this sea and conquered the magic power which hindered the approach to the country, they entered a harbour, near which Frode and Gunvara are to be sought. On the strand they meet people who belong to the attendants of the brother and sister. Among them are three brothers, all named Grep, and of whom one is Gunvara's pressing and persistent suitor. This Grep, who is a poet and orator of the sort to be found in that land, at once enters into a discussion with Erik. At the end of the discussion Grep retires defeated and angry. Then Erik and Roller proceed up to the abode where they are to find those whom they seek. Frode and Gunvara are met amid attendants who treat them as princely persons, and look upon them as their court-circle. But the royal household is of a very strange kind, and receives visitors with great hooting, barking of dogs, and insulting manners. Frode occupies the high-seat in the hall, where a great fire is burning as a protection against the bitter cold. It is manifest from Saxo's description that Frode and Gunvara, possibly by virtue of the sorcery of the giants, are in a spiritual condition in which they have almost forgotten the past, but without being happy in their present circumstances. Frode feels unhappy and degraded. Gunvara loathes her suitor Grep. The days here spent by Erik and Roller, before they get an opportunity to take flight with Gunvara, form a series of drinking-bouts, vulgar songs, assaults, fights, and murders. The jealous Grep tries to assassinate Erik, but in this attempt he is slain by Roller's sword. Frode cannot be persuaded to accompany Erik, Roller, and Gunvara on this flight. He feels that his life is stained with a spot that cannot be removed, and he is unwilling to appear with it among other men. In the mythology it is left to Njord himself to liberate his son. In another passage (Hist., 266, 267) Saxo says that King Fridlevus (Njord) liberated a princely youth who had been robbed by a giant. In the mythology this youth can hardly be anyone else than the young Frey, the son of the liberator. Erik afterwards marries Gunvara.
Among the poetical paraphrases from heathen times are found some which refer to Frey's and Freyja's captivity among the giants. In a song of the skald Kormak the mead of poetry is called jastrin fontanna Sýrar Greppa, "the seething flood of the sea ranks (of the skerry) of Syr (of Freyja) of the Greps." This paraphrase evidently owes its existence to an association of ideas based on the same myth as Saxo has told in his way. Sýr, as we know, is one of Freyja's surnames, and as to its meaning, one which she must have acquired during her sojourn in Jotunheim, for it is scarcely applicable to her outside of Jotunheim. Greppr, the poet there, as we have already seen, is Freyja's suitor. He has had brothers also called Greppr, whence the plural expression Sýrs Greppa ("Syr's Greps"), wherein Freyja's surname is joined with more than one Grep, receives its mythological explanation. The giant abode where Frode and Gunvara sojourn, is according to Saxo, situated not far from the harbour where Erik and Roller entered (portum a quo Frotho non longe deversabatur—Hist., 198). The expression "the Greps of Syr's skerries" thus agrees with Saxo.
A northern land uninhabited by man is by Eyvind Skaldaspiller called utröst Belja dolgs, "the most remotely situated abode of Bele's enemy (Frey)." This paraphrase is also explained by the myth concerning Frey's and Freyja's visit in Jotunheim. Beli is a giant-name, and means "the howler." Erik and Roller, according to Saxo, are received with a horrible howl by the giants who attend Frey. "They produced horrible sounds like those of howling animals" (ululantium more horrisonas dedere voces). To the myth about how Frey fell into the power of the giants I shall come later (see Nos. 109, 111, 112).
Erik is in Saxo called disertus, the eloquent. The Svipdag epithet Ódr originally had a meaning very near to this. The impersonal ódr means partly the reflecting element in man, partly song and poetry, the ability of expressing one's self skilfully and of joining the words in an agreeable and persuasive manner (cp. the Gothic weit-wodan, to convince). Erik demonstrates the propriety of his name. Saxo makes him speak in proverbs and sentences, certainly for the reason that his Northern source has put them on the lips of the young hero. The same quality characterises Svipdag. In Grogalder his mother sings over him: "Eloquence and social talents be abundantly bestowed upon you;" and the description of him in Fjölsvinnsmal places before our eyes a nimble and vivacious youth who well understands the watchman's veiled words, and on whose lips the speech develops into proverbs which fasten themselves on the mind. Compare augna gamans, &c. (str. 5), and the often quoted Urdar ordi kvedr engi madr (str. 47).
Toward Gunvara Erik observes the same chaste and chivalrous conduct as Otharus toward Syritha (intacta illi pudicitia manet—p. 216). As to birth, he occupies the same subordinate position to her as Ódr to Freyja, Otharus to Syritha, Svipdag to Menglad.
The adventures related in the mythology from Svipdag's journey, when he went in search of Freyja-Menglad, are by Saxo so divided between Ericus Disertus and Otharus that of the former is told the most of what happened to Svipdag during his visit in the giant abode, of the latter the most of what happened to him on his way thence to his home.
Concerning Erik's family relations, Saxo gives some facts which, from a mythological point of view, are of great value. It has already been stated that Erik's mother, like Svipdag's, is dead, and that his father, like Svipdag's, is married a second time where his saga begins. The father begets with his second wife a son, whom Saxo calls Rollerus. When Erik's father also is dead, Roller's mother, according to Saxo, marries again, and this time a powerful champion called Brac (Hist., 217), who in the continuation of the story (p. 217, &c.) proves himself to be Asa-Brage, the god Thor (cp. No. 105), to whom she brings her son Roller. In our mythological records we learn that Thor's wife was Sif, the goddess of vegetation, and that Sif had been married and had had a son, by name Ullr, before she became the wife of the Asa-god, and that she brought with her to Asgard this son, who became adopted among the gods. Thus the mythic records and Saxo correspond in these points, and it follows that Rollerus is the same as Uller, whom Saxo elsewhere (Hist., 130, 131; cp. No. 36) mentions as Ollerus. The forms Ollerus and Rollerus are to each other as Olfr to Hrólfr. Hrólfr is a contraction of Hród-úlfr; Rollerus indicates a contraction of Hród-Ullr, Hríd-Ullr. The latter form occurs in the paraphrase Hrídullr hrotta, "the sword's storm-Ull," a designation of a warrior (Grett., 20, 1). It has already been pointed out that in the great war between Odin's clan and the Vans, Ull, although Thor's stepson, takes the side of the Vans and identifies his cause with that of Frey and Svipdag. Saxo also describes the half-brothers as faithfully united, and, in regard to Roller's reliable fraternity, makes Erik utter a sentence which very nearly corresponds to the Danish: