Helgi Sleep Thorn

In Saxland at that time, there ruled a queen by the name of Olof. She had the ways of a warrior king. She went with shield and byrnie, a sword at her side and a helm on her head. This is what she was like: fair in looks, but fierce in mood, and haughty. They said she was the best match known at that time in the whole of the north, but she wanted no man. Now King Helgi hears of this imperious queen, and thought he’d add much to his reputation if he could win this woman, willing or no.

So one day he set out with a great army. He came to the land which this mighty queen ruled over, and arrives without warning. He sent his men to her hall and bids them tell her that he and they would accept her invitation to a feast. And this took her by surprise, and there was no chance of mustering forces. She took the sensible option, and invited King Helgi to a feast with all his men.

So King Helgi comes to the feast now and took the high-seat beside the queen. They drink the evening together, and nothing was lacking, and he could detect no gloom in Queen Olof.

King Helgi said to the queen, “This is what I’m thinking,” he said, “I want us to drink our wedding feast here this evening. There’s plenty of company here for that, and we’ll share one bed together tonight.”

She said, “Too fast, my lord, that seems to me, but I don’t know of anyone more courteous and noble than you, if I do have to take a husband now. And of course, I’m sure you’re not intending to act dishonourably here.”

The king said that what she deserved for her pride and haughtiness, “is that we’re together just as long as I like.”

She said, “We’d rather have more of our friends here, if we had a choice, but I can’t do anything about that now, so I suppose it falls to you to decide, but I’m sure that you’ll treat our royal person with due respect.”

There was hard drinking then, through the evening and long into the night, and the queen is all smiles, and no one sees anything in her demeanour to suggest that she isn’t perfectly happy with the arrangement. And finally the king is led to bed, and there she was, waiting. The king had been drinking so hard that he immediately fell fast asleep on the bed. The queen made use of this opportunity to stick him with a sleep thorn.

And once everyone has gone, the queen gets up. She shaves off all his hair and covered him in tar. Next she took a sleeping-bag and packed a load of clothes into it. After that, she gets the king and ties him up in the sack, swaddled like a baby. Then she got some men to bundle him back to his ships. She wakes up his men and tells them the king’s gone back to the ships and wants to sail, as there’s a good wind now. They jumped up as quick as they could, but they were drunk and hardly know what they were doing. And that’s how they were when they came to the ships and the king was nowhere to be seen, but they did see a huge sleeping-sack that someone had brought. They were very curious now to know what was in it, and they wait for the king, thinking he’d probably be along a bit later. But when they undo it, there they found their king. Someone had played a shameful trick on him. Then the sleep thorn drops out, and the king starts up from a dream, and not a nice one, and he’s in a foul mood now at the queen.

Meanwhile, it’s to be told that Queen Olof musters her men in the night, and she’s not short of soldiers, and King Helgi sees no way to get to her now. Suddenly from the hinterland they hear the rasp of lur-horns and the war-blast being blown. The king sees that the best thing now is to get away as fast as they can. There’s a good wind, anyway. King Helgi sails home now to his kingdom with this shame and disgrace and seethed with resentment and often wonders how he might get revenge on the queen.


- The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and his Champions (Hrólfs saga kraka), Part 2, Chapter 7