War of the Gods

is every man’s, but being you, he took what you would have taken. And I launched his life on Midgard into such waters that it would likely in some wise follow the course that you follow among the gods. I helped him steer clear of the worst that had befallen you, and helped him again when black wizardry would have overwhelmed him before he had won what was his. Otherwise he who was you wrought his own fulfillment, which was likewise yours. He won a name that will live as long as the world stands, and that honor is also yours.”

“You sent him on strange ways.”

“Yes, for I wanted him to know fully who and what the one was who befriended him in his need. He had seen too much of trollcraft, too early and too closely.”

“Not all of them who wielded it were his foes.”

“True. Such was the way he must go, like to the way that you and your kinfolk had gone. In the beginning, the untamed earth, ruthless, reckless, and shameless. Then war and wild farings, the way of the Aesir. Then the flowering of the soul that is yours, which shall grow beyond ours.

“For you alone among us will live without blame; and the spaewife who made known to me what shall be has foretold that at the downfall of the gods, you will go home to your Vanir; and when the new world rises from the sea and Baldr comes back from the dead, you will be there to help build its peace.”

They stopped, for they had reached the foot of the rainbow. Its trembling bridge soared to the walls of Asgard.

Before they betrod it, Odin laid a hand on his fellow’s shoulder. “But first,” he said, “here and now, will you renew the oaths we swore? At the end of his life, Hadding gave himself to me. Thereby you took what I offered you, and we are in brotherhood again.”

“Yes,” answered Njord, god of the sea, “from this day to the last, we are brothers.”

Dedication

To

Diana Paxson

farer in lands afar

Afterword

Dark and violent even by saga standards, the story of Hadding is also one of the most enigmatic that has come down to us from the old North. Looked at closely, it reveals itself as more than a series of adventures and exploits. They have a unity, a deeper meaning; but what? For a century and a half, mythologists and folklorists have wondered.

Aside from a few incidental mentions elsewhere, our only source for it is the Qesta Danorum of Saxo. That we know so little about this writer adds to the irony.

He was a Dane. He states that his father and grandfather fought for King Valdemar I, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Thus he himself must have been born about 1150. His favorable references to the people of Zealand, compared to others both in the kingdom and abroad, indicate that he hailed from that island and probably spent most of his days there. He says that he undertook his work at the behest of the great Archbishop Absalon. The latter died before it was completed, and so it is dedicated to his successor Archbishop Andreas and to King Valdemar II. This was about 1208, which seems to be more or less the year of Saxo’s death.

His clerical connections, the fact that he wrote in Latin, and his (somewhat limited) classical education have caused most scholars to take for granted that he was a monk. However, we have no direct evidence. His chauvinism, delight in scenes of derring-do, and occasional eroticism imply that he could have been a layman. The appellation “Grammaticus,” meaning “master of words,” only came to him in the fifteenth century, when interest in him revived.

As for his chronicle, he meant to write the history of Denmark from the days of King Svein Estridsson (d. 1076), but Absalon persuaded him also to seek out and set down traditions from earliest times. Although they had been Christian for some two hundred years, the Scandinavians remained fascinated by the deeds and beliefs of their ancestors. In this, the Icelanders became pre-eminent, and Saxo gives them due credit. A person or persons on that island recorded those poems we call the Elder Edda. A generation after Saxo, Snorri Sturluson wrote the Younger Edda, the Heimskringla, and very likely the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson. Others were similarly engaged.

We do not know how long or how widely Saxo delved, whom he questioned, what notes he took, how much he simply recalled of what he heard in childhood or at hearthsides, how much he patched together from scraps or his own imagination. It is clear that he was acquainted with ancient poems still on the tongues of skalds and common folk. He either made prose of them or translated them into his Latin. Sometimes we have Norse versions to compare. Mostly, though, we can only attempt to reconstruct the originals from the materials he has left us.

His narration is usually bald, his style usually florid and often preachy. He has misunderstood a great deal of what he was handling and garbled a great deal more. Nevertheless he saved this treasure hoard for us, damaged though it may be. It includes the oldest extant account of Hamlet. All honor to Saxo Grammaticus.

The story of Hadding comes near the end of the first book. There is no point in searching for a historical kernel of it. Saxo places Hadding three generations before Hrolf Kraki. Some truth undoubtedly lies behind that saga, which can be dated to the middle sixth century. But a fuller, though later Icelandic rendition does not square with the Qesta Danorum. For instance, Hadding’s son Frodi cannot be identical with Hrolf’s great-uncle of that name. Saxo was probably fitting together what pieces he had in a rather arbitrary fashion.

Besides, the tale of Hadding is not properly even a legend. It is a myth. Saxo may have had some intimation of this, but