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Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar

on a wolf, and had snakes in place of a bridle. She asked Hethin for his company. "Nay," said he. She said, "Thou shalt pay for this at the king's toast[1]." That evening the great vows were taken; the sacred boar[2] was brought in, the men laid their hands thereon, and took their vows at the king's toast. Hethin vowed that he would have Svava, Eylimi's daughter, the beloved of his brother Helgi; then such great grief seized him that he went forth on wild paths southward over the land, and found Helgi, his brother. Helgi said:

31.[3] "Welcome, Hethin!  what hast thou to tellOf tidings new  that from Norway come?Wherefore didst leave  thy land, O prince,And fared alone  to find us here?"
  Hethin spake:32.[4] "A deed more evil  I have doneThan, brother mine,  thou e'er canst mend;For I have chosen  the child of the king,Thy bride, for mine  at the monarch's toast."
  1. ↑ The king's toast: vows made at the passing of the king's cup at the Yule feast were particularly sacred.
  2. ↑ Sacred boar: a boar consecrated to Freyr, an integral part of the Yule rites. Hethin's vow, which is, of course, the vengeance of the troll-woman, is too sacred to be broken, but he immediately realizes the horror of his oath.
  3. ↑ From Norway: Bugge uses this phrase as evidence that the poem was composed in one of the Icelandic settlements of the western islands, but as the annotator himself seems to have thought that Hethin came to Helgi by land ("on wild paths southward"), this argument does not appear to have much weight.
  4. ↑ The second line is conjectural; a line has clearly been lost from this stanza, and various emendations have been suggested.

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