Free The Guests of Odin by Gavin Chappell Page A

fleet of ships. One ship belonged to Thorfinn, and he told the two children that it would take them to his brother, Ottar, who was an earl in Permia. He gave them a token to prove to Ottar that they were Thorfinn’s foster children. Halfdan said he would do so as long as Thorfinn came with them but the earl refused. He kissed them farewell and they went aboard.
    After a long voyage around Scandinavia, they came to Permia where Earl Ottar received them and asked for news. They told him of all that had happened and asked for succour. Ottar seemed unwilling to do so until they gave him Thorfinn’s token. He had Halfdan sit beside him on the high seat and sent Ingibjorg to the bower of his daughter Thora.
    One day Halfdan asked the earl, “Will you give me ships and men so I can go on a voyage?”
    The earl agreed, and Halfdan and his sister spent that summer at sea before heading back towards Permia in the autumn. But as they sailed home, they ran into difficulties. A storm blew up and scattered the ships, sinking all but Halfdan’s own vessel, a large dragonship, which was blown far off course.
    They found themselves driven onto a mysterious shore beneath a great cliff.
    Halfdan told his companions, “We must stay here for the while.” They made a hut out of driftwood. Halfdan’s followers asked him where they could be and he said, “It must be a land uninhabited by men.”
    One day he went up onto a glacier in search of food. Here he discovered a path that he followed to a cave mouth where a fire was burning. Coming closer he saw two trolls, a male and a female, who were eating from a cauldron that contained both horseflesh and human flesh. The man had a hook in his nose while the woman wore a ring, and they passed the time by pulling each other back and forth by the hook and ring. When the male troll suddenly slipped his hook out of the ring, the female fell flat on her back.
    She got up and said, “I will not play that game again.”
    Then the male troll, whose name was Jarnnef, asked the female, Sleggja, to go and get him some of the men he had lured here that winter by sorcery. She went into the back of the cave and returned clutching two men in her hands. Putting them down by the fire, she commented on their taciturnity. Halfdan saw that they were fine-looking men, apparently twins.
    Before Jarnnef could put the two men in the pot, Halfdan rushed forward and hacked his head off with an axe. Sleggja rose and attacked him with a knife, but Halfdan evaded her attack and they began to wrestle. She dragged him across the cave floor to the edge of a chasm where they fought again. Her legs slipped over the edge. Halfdan grabbed her by her hair and cut her head off with the knife.
    Now Halfdan explored the cave, finding a side-cave where a woman sat on a chair, with her hair tied to the chair post and nothing to eat or drink except icy water.
    When she saw him, she said, “You must have killed Jarnnef to be here.”
    Halfdan said, “I killed Jarnnef and Sleggja as well. What is your name?”
    She said, “I am called Hild and my father was a Scottish earl named Angantyr. I went sailing the previous year with my twin brothers Sigmund and Sigurd but Jarnnef bewitched us and we ran aground on the shore.”
    Jarnnef had wanted to possess her, but Hild added that she wished Halfdan had not killed Sleggja.
    Halfdan released her and they went to find the two brothers, who they revived. Sigmund and Sigurd asked, “Who do we have to thank for saving us?”
    Hild introduced Halfdan. They remained there five days and nights before they went back to join Halfdan’s men . Halfdan took much gold, silver and jewels from the cave. His men were overjoyed to see him return safely, but happiest was his sister.
    They spent the rest of the winter there, and they set sail in the spring but were driven against the cliffs on the far side of the fjord.
    Here they had to settle again, and Halfdan, Sigurd, and Sigmund went up onto the glacier