Helge

“ The gods, O Helge, do indeed dwell in temples, but not in them alone. So far as voice can reach, so far as the sun’s golden beams can penetrate, or the thoughts of man can fly, so wide are the halls of their boundless sanctuaries. The blood of sacrificial victims oft deceives; runes, howsoever deeply graven, sometimes prove false; but upon a just and upright heart, O Helge, Odin hath inscribed runes which god and man may trust. As flowers adorn the brazen shield, so doth gentleness become strength. ”

“ This last was a rival suitor for the same maiden; and when he saw that the match which he had been denied was promised to Helge, he challenged him to a struggle, wishing to fight away his vexation. Helge agreed to the proposed combat. The hour of the fight was appointed for the wedding-day by the common wish of both. For any man who, being challenged, refused to fight, used to be covered with disgrace in the sight of all men. Thus Helge was tortured on the one side by the shame of refusing the battle, on the other by the dread of waging it. ”

“ Beyond the San Angelo bridge the electric tramcars with illuminated windows rolled over the new iron bridge, throwing white sparks from the connecting wires.
Helge took off his hat to a man:
"San Pietro, favorisca?"
The man pointed with his finger and said something Helge did not understand. He turned into a dark and narrow street which, with a sensation of joy, he almost thought he recognized, for it was exactly like the Italian street of his imagination: shop after shop full of curios. He gazed into the poorly lit windows. ”

“ So on the day appointed he sought the place where Helge sat, black as a thunder-cloud, with his warriors around him, and foolish Halfdan, jesting as usual, and playing with his sword, stood by his side. And Frithiof stood forth and said: "Not yet is thy kingdom free, O Helge, from the threat of battle. Give me then thy sister and my strong right arm shall fight for thee. Come, let this grudge between us be forgotten, for I am loth to bear myself ill towards the brother of Ingeborg and the sons of Bele. ”

“ Suddenly he felt an impulse to try an adventure—to ask them the way, so as to hear if they were Norwegian—or Scandinavian at any rate, for they were certainly foreigners. With slightly beating heart he started to walk after them.
The two young girls stopped outside a shop, which was closed, and then walked on. Helge wondered if he should say "Please" or "Bitte" or "Scusi"—or if he should blurt out at once "Undskyld"—it would be funny if they were Norwegians.
The girls turned a corner; Helge was close upon them, screwing up courage to address them. ”

“ Helge is now my father, and on his will I go or stay. I will not steal my happiness. Last night I thought about my fate. I must remain obedient to my brother. A child of the Northland cannot live in the south. With eyes filled with tears should I look for the bright northern star which stands over our fathers' graves. And you, my Frithiof, must not desert the land you were born to guard. Let us yield to the voice of duty. Let us save our honour though our happiness be lost!"
"Necessity commands our flight. Come, Ingeborg!" ”

“ And since he seemed to be meditating a second blow, and to be about to make another thrust with his sword, Helga flew quickly from the couch, caught up a shield, and, by interposing it, saved the old man from impending destruction; for, notwithstanding, Helge with a stronger stroke of his blade smote the shield right through to the boss. Thus the praiseworthy wit of the woman aided her friend, and her hand saved him whom her counsel had injured; for she protected the old man by her deed, as well as her husband by her warning. Starkad was induced by this to let Helge go scot-free ”

“ Helge turned upon him and taunted him with being a craven if he would not break that engagement with Illuge, but Eindride had nothing to add. All that Helge brought back to Haurd was that Eindride offered no help.
Everyone being against them, Haurd and Helge were outlawed. They had to quit the homestead, and rather than leave it for Torfe, they burnt it and all the hay with it. They and the household took refuge at Geir’s house, Netherbottom. From here they raided the country on every side, carrying off whatever they wanted. Before long men gathered together to subdue them. ”

“ Be reconciled with thyself and thy foes, and then will Balder be reconciled with thee.
"Thou hatest Bele's sons because pride of birth was theirs and they would not give thee Ingeborg, their sister. Strange it is but true, that no one is proud of his own merit, but only of his fortune. Art thou not proud of thy heroic deeds, of thy great strength? But who gave thee this strength? Is it thy merit or Odin's gift? Censure not another's pride, lest thine own be condemned. King Helge now is fallen."
"Fallen!" exclaimed Frithiof; "King Helge is fallen?" ”

“ About Helge, of course. Tell me what he looks like to the girl who loves him. You are no ordinary girl either—you are an artist—and I believe you are intelligent and good. Will you not tell me how you came to like him—what it was that made you choose him? ”

“ Swiftly the dragon-ship skimmed the waves, while Helge paced up and down the shore in helpless wrath, all of his vessels having been destroyed by the companions of his fleeing enemy.
For three years thereafter Frithiof roved the seas as a viking, overcoming the great sea-pirates, and taking from them their rich spoils. At length, when he had become very wealthy, he tired of his ceaseless roaming and came to feel that nothing would satisfy him but to see Ingeborg again. Then, despite the protests of Bjorn, he set out for Norway to visit the kingdom of Ringland. ”

“ But Helge and Halfdan answered with spirit:
"Not in our young days will we learn to do that which we will never know when old, and that is how to do shameful service to a neighbour king." [129]
Then they summoned Hilding, their foster-father, and bade him go to Frithiof and pray him to come with his followers to their aid. And meantime, being in fear for their sister's safety, they sent her away to the dim grove where Balder's temple rose grey among the shadows. There, day by day, fair Ingeborg sat among her maidens at her embroidery, and as she drew the thread it was wet with her tears. ”

“ To fill the measure of their joy, Halfdan, who was now reigning alone, Helge having died, became reconciled to them and gladly agreed to their union. Indeed, it was he who led his sister to the altar in the restored temple of Balder and gave her into the safe- keeping of her faithful lover.
When you think how old your grandmother and grandfather seem, and then remember that they have lived less than a hundred years, you feel that a story which has been living for hundreds of years is indeed very old. ”

“ Fain to extend his empire, he warred upon the East, and after a huge massacre of many peoples begat two sons, Athisl and Hother, and appointed as their tutor a certain Gewar, who was bound to him by great services. Not content with conquering the East, he assailed Denmark, challenged its king, Ro, in three battles, and slew him. Helge, when he heard this, shut up his son Rolf in Leire, wishing, however he might have managed his own fortunes, to see to the safety of his heir. ”

“ Helge had destroyed the estate at Framnas, and had given Ingeborg as a bride to King Ring. Into such a furious passion did the news put him, that he went at once to seek out Helge. The two kings with their wives were worshipping in Balder's temple. Unable to suppress his rage, Frithiof advanced toward Helge and thrust Angantyr's tribute into the very face of the king. Then, finding that Helge's wife was wearing the magic ring that Ingeborg had been forced to give up, Frithiof tried to wrest this from its wearer, and in doing so caused the queen to drop into the fire an image of the god Balder. ”

“ Having the man, we are able to trace the germs of his being in the past of his race and his country; but, with all our science we have not yet acquired the ingenuity to predict the man—to deduce him a priori from the tangle of determining causes which enveloped his birth. It seems beautifully appropriate in the Elder Edda that the god-descended hero Helge the Völsung should be born amid gloom and terror in a storm which shakes the house, while the Norns—the goddesses of fate—proclaim in the tempest his tempestuous career. ”

“ While King Helge gathered his warriors to fight King Ring, the angry Frithiof was playing chess with his friend Bjorn. Hilding urged him to forget his anger and go into battle to fight for his king and his country. "The times are evil, dear foster-son," said the good Hilding, "and you are all the people's hope." ”

“ Clouds all over the western sky, close together like small pale grey lambkins, and as the sun sank behind him it painted their linings a glorious amber. Beneath the pale skies lay the city, and Helge understood that this was the real Rome—not the Rome of his imagination and his dreams, but Rome as she actually was. ”

“ Even so, Haurd again broke through them, killing three more. Ref again caught him, yet dared not meddle with him, though he now had Helge on his back, until the others made a ring about him with the aid of a spell. There was nothing for it but to drop Helge and save him from his enemies by killing him. Haurd was enraged because he knew that a spell was being used on him; he was so fearful to look at that no one would go for him until Torfe had promised Haurd’s ring to the man who did. Almost a dozen set on him together to earn the ring. ”

“ Of her the victor became enamoured, and he married her: but, being expelled from his kingdom by Helge, the son of Halfdan, who reigned at Ledra, this queen fell into the power of the victor, who, also, married her, and the issue of this union was Rolf Krake. But Ursa, who was discovered to be the 136daughter of Helge, returned to the court of Adils, with whom she remained during the rest of her life. On the death of Helge, in one of his piratical expeditions, Rolf, or Rollo, young as he was, was acknowledged king of Ledra. Adils did not long survive his enemy ”

“ After a while she rose and began walking restlessly up and down the floor—only to sit down again as before. She listened breathlessly to every sound on the stairs. Oh, if only Gunnar would come! And not the other one. But how could he? He did not know where she lived—he might have met somebody who knew and asked. Oh, Gunnar, Gunnar, come!
She would go straight to him, throw herself in his arms.
The moment she had seen Helge Gram's light brown eyes again, her whole past, that had begun under their glance, confronted her. ”

“ So Helge is at work again?"
"It is only natural, my dear, that an experience like yours should leave deeper traces in a woman."
"Oh yes, yes—a woman; that is the whole misery of it. It is just like a woman to become uninterested and utterly lazy because of a love that does not even exist."
"My dear Jenny," said Gram, "I think it quite natural that it should take some time for you to get over it—to get beyond it, as it were; one always does, and then one understands that the experience has not been in vain, but that one's soul is the richer for it in some way or other." ”

“ Carry her in," but he took her in his own arms and went towards the door. At sight of the blood-stained bed his face twitched. Turning away, he pushed open the door to his room and placed her on his own untouched bed. Then he rushed down the stairs.
Helge had moved at his side the whole time, his mouth half open as if paralysed in the act of crying out. But he stopped at Gunnar's door. When he was left alone with her he stole into the room, touching her hand with his finger-tips, and he fell down beside the bed, crying wildly, hysterically, with his head against it.... ”

“ At great personal risk he had been present at the king's interment, and had marked how little favourable to him and his cause was the temper of the people.
Nevertheless, it was quickly rumoured that Rypen House and Flynderborg were in the hands of the rebels, and that the valiant marsk, with seven hundred men in iron, and his warlike engines from Möllerup, had taken a strong position on Helgeness and Hielm, from which points he appeared resolved to carry devastation through the country.
Helgeness is a peninsula, girded by immense heights. ”

“ This is the other side of the picture; this is how Örnulf and his seven terrible sons must have appeared to Kaare the peasant, and this is how, to tell the truth, they would in real life appear to us. The persons in The Vikings at Helgeland are so primitive that they scarcely appeal to our sense of reality. In spite of all the romantic color that the poet has lavished upon them, and the majestic sentiments which he has put into their mouths, we feel that the inhabitants of Helgeland must have regarded them as those of Surbiton regarded the beings who were shot down from Mars in Mr. ”

“ Sigurd the Strong, a Sea-King. Gunnar Headman, [7] a rich yeoman of Helgeland. Thorolf, Örnulf’s youngest son. Dagny, Örnulf’s daughter. Hiördis, his foster-daughter. Kåre the Peasant, a Helgeland-man. Egil, Gunnar’s son, four years old. Örnulf’s six older Sons. Örnulf’s and Sigurd’s Men. Guests, house-carls, serving-maids, outlaws, etc. The action takes place in the time of Erik Blood-axe (about 933 A.D.) at, and in the neighbourhood of, Gunnar’s house, on the island of Helgeland, in the north of Norway. ”