The Gesta Danorum (Books I-IX) on Hadding

The Danish History, > Books I-Ix > Customary Law.

• comparison: Hadding's discovery of a treasury robber is compared to the Rhampsinitus tale from world folklore.

  "The crafty discovery of the robber of the treasury by Hadding is a variant of the world-old Rhampsinitos tale"

• attestation: Hadding resolved to commit suicide upon his friend's death, treating self-slaughter as more honourable than a 'cow-death'.

  "Hadding resolves to commit suicide at his friend's death"

The Danish History, > Books I-Ix > Supernatural Beings.

• attestation: Hadding instituted the sacrifice called Froblod (Freys-blot) as atonement for having slain a sea-monster.

  "a sacrifice called Froblod (Freys-blot) instituted by Hadding, who began it as an atonement for having slain a sea-monster"

The Danish History, > Books I-Ix > Funeral Rites And Man'S Future State.

• attestation: Hadding's voyage underground led him through mist to sunny fields bearing angelica, across a River of Blades, past ghostly armies.

  "They pierce a mist, get on a road worn by long use, pass nobly-clad men, and reach the sunny fields that bear the angelica"

• attestation: In Hadding's underworld journey, a wall surrounded the Land of Life, beyond which a tossed cock came alive and crowed.

  "they came to a high wall, which surrounds the land of Life, for a cock the woman brought with her, whose neck she wrung and tossed over this wall, came to life and crowed merrily"

• attestation: The River of Blades and the Fighting Warriors seen in Hadding's underworld are known from Eddic poems.

  "The "River of Blades" and "The Fighting Warriors" are known from the Eddic Poems"

The Danish History, > Books I-Ix > "T.M.").

• attestation: Hadding was trapped by Loki and exposed to wild beasts but slew the attacking wolf, and by eating its heart gained wisdom as Woden had instructed.

  "He falls into captivity, entrapped by Loke (for what reason again we are left to guess), and is exposed to wild beasts, but he slays the wolf that attacks him, and eating its heart as Woden had bidden him, he gains wisdom and foresight"

• attestation: Hadding was cursed by Swipdag's widow and had to institute an annual sacrifice to Frey at Upsala to annul it.

  "Swipdag's wife cursed the conqueror, and he was obliged to institute an annual sacrifice to Frey (her brother) at Upsale, who annuls the curse"

The Danish History, > Book One.

• attestation: Hadding preferred to avenge his father rather than accept favours from Swipdag.

  "Hadding preferred to avenge his father rather than take a boon from his foe"

• attestation: Hadding was befriended by a one-eyed old man (Woden) named Lysir, who made a blood-pact with him.

  "Hadding, thus bereft of his foster-mother, chanced to be made an ally in a solemn covenant to a rover, Lysir, by a certain man of great age that had lost an eye"

• attestation: Hadding and Lysir declared war against Loker, tyrant of the Kurlanders, but were defeated.

  "Lysir and Hadding, being bound thus in the strictest league, declared war against Loker, the tyrant of the Kurlanders. They were defeated"

• attestation: Hadding attacked Handwan, king of the Hellespont, in his city Duna by fastening lit wicks to birds' wings to set fire to the city.

  "he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by skilled fowlers, and he caused wicks which had been set on fire to be fastened beneath their wings"

• attestation: Hadding defeated Swipdag off Gottland and advanced from exile to kingship of his own land.

  "Swipdag met him with a great fleet off Gottland; but Hadding attacked and destroyed him. And thus he advanced to a lofty pitch of renown"

• attestation: Hadding spared the captured Handwan, allowing him to ransom his life with gold.

  "he might have cut off his foe, he preferred to grant him the breath of life; so far did his mercy qualify his rage"

• attestation: Hadding killed Asmund by flinging a spear through him using a thong

  "Hadding, flinging his spear by the thong, pierced him through"

• attestation: Hadding invaded Sweden after his victory over Asmund

  "After this Hadding, now triumphant, wasted Sweden"

• attestation: Hadding hanged his treasury keeper Glumer after the treasury was robbed

  "Hadding, on returning from the Swedish war, perceived that his treasury, wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper Glumer"

• attestation: Hadding used a deceptive promise of reward to lure the treasury thieves into confessing, then punished them

  "Their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment"

• attestation: Hadding spent five years at war in Sweden, during which his soldiers were reduced to eating mushrooms, horses, dogs, and finally human flesh

  "he went back to Sweden and there spent five years in warfare. By dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of emaciation"

• attestation: The soldiers descended from mushrooms to horse meat, then dog carcasses, and finally cannibalism out of desperation

  "they devoured their horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs. Worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs"

• attestation: A supernatural voice sounded in Hadding's camp at night prophesying the Danes' defeat in Sweden

  "there sounded in the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the following song"

• attestation: The supernatural prophecy was fulfilled the next morning with a great slaughter of the Danish forces

  "This prophecy was accomplished on the morrow's dawn by a great slaughter of the Danes"

• attestation: Two supernatural hairless old men fought on opposing sides during the night battle between Danes and Swedes

  "two hairless old men, of appearance fouler than human, and displaying their horrid baldness in the twinkling starlight, divided their monstrous efforts with opposing ardour, one of them being zealous on the Danish side, and the other as fervent for the Swedes"

• attestation: Hadding was defeated and fled to Helsingland

  "Hadding was conquered and fled to Helsingland"

• attestation: Hadding killed a beast of unknown kind while bathing in cold sea-water at Helsingland

  "while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown kind"

• attestation: A woman cursed Hadding for unknowingly killing a disguised god, prophesying perpetual misfortune on land and sea

  "truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god!"

• attestation: Hadding suffered the prophesied calamities: storms destroyed his fleet and houses collapsed when he entered them

  "when he was at sea a mighty storm arose and destroyed his fleet in a great tempest: and when, a shipwrecked man, he sought entertainment, he found a sudden downfall of that house"

• attestation: Hadding atoned for killing the disguised god by instituting annual sacrifices to the god Frey, a rite called Froblod

  "he sacrificed dusky victims to the god Frey. This manner of propitiation by sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow. This rite the Swedes call Froblod"

• attestation: Hadding went to Norway and killed the giant in combat to prevent the marriage

  "he went to Norway and overcame by arms him that was so foul, a lover for a princess"

• attestation: A woman carrying hemlocks appeared beside Hadding's brazier at supper and drew him underground wrapped in her mantle

  "a woman bearing hemlocks was seen to raise her head beside the brazier, and, stretching out the lap of her robe, seemed to ask, "in what part of the world such fresh herbs had grown in winter?""

• attestation: Hadding journeyed through an underworld: passing through dark mist, seeing nobles in purple robes, reaching sunny herb-growing regions

  "they first pierced through a certain dark misty cloud, and then advancing along a path that was worn away with long thoroughfaring, they beheld certain men wearing rich robes, and nobles clad in purple"

• attestation: In the underworld Hadding encountered a swift leaden river full of missiles, crossed by a bridge

  "they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters, whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and likewise made passable by a bridge"

• attestation: Beyond the river, two armies of the slain re-enacted their deaths in perpetual combat

  "These," she said, "are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past life in a living spectacle"

• attestation: An impassable wall blocked further passage; the woman flung a decapitated cock over it, and the bird came back to life with a loud crow

  "she wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the bird came to life again, and testified by a loud crow to recovery of its breathing"

• attestation: Hadding escaped pursuing rovers on his return journey by virtue of superior sailing speed

  "some rovers bore down on him, but by swift sailing he baffled their snares"

• attestation: An old man on the Norwegian beach signalled Hadding's fleet to shore and taught him the wedge formation for battle

  "he saw upon the beach an old man signing to him, with many wavings of his mantle, to put into shore"

• attestation: The old man arranged columns where each row doubled the previous: front row of two, second of four, third of eight

  "the front row consisted of two, the second of four, while the third increased and was made up to eight, and likewise each row was double that in front of it"

• attestation: The old man positioned slingers and archers at the wings and stood behind the warriors with a magical arbalist that fired ten arrows at once

  "from the wallet which was slung round his neck drew an arbalist. This seemed small at first, but soon projected with more prolonged tip, and accommodated ten arrows to its string at once"

• attestation: The old man prophesied that Hadding would die by his own hand, not by an enemy's might

  "the death whereby he would perish would be inflicted, not by the might of an enemy, but by his own hand"

• attestation: Hadding killed Uffe in retaliation but honoured him with an elaborate tomb

  "Hadding retaliated and slew Uffe; but put away his hatred and consigned his body to a sepulchre of notable handiwork"

• attestation: Hadding appointed Hunding, brother of Uffe, as king of Sweden to maintain the Asmund dynasty's sovereignty

  "he appointed Hunding, the brother of Uffe, over the realm, that the sovereignty might seem to be maintained in the house of Asmund"

• attestation: After years of peace Hadding grew restless and upbraided himself for idleness, preferring war to peace

  "seeming to think war a merrier thing than peace, he began to upbraid himself with slothfulness"

• attribution: Hadding longed to return to seafaring and plundering, finding life in the mountains dreary

  "Why loiter I thus in darksome hiding, in the folds of rugged hills, nor follow seafaring as of old?"

• attribution: Hadding expressed preference for raiding and sea-gotten wealth over dwelling in rough inland terrain

  "It were better service to sound the firths with the oars, to revel in plundered wares, to pursue the gold of others for my coffer, to gloat over sea-gotten gains, than to dwell in rough lands"

• attribution: Hadding's wife preferred forest life and found the noise of sea-birds intolerable and sleep-disrupting

  "The shrill bird vexes me as I tarry by the shore, and with its chattering rouses me when I cannot sleep"

• attribution: Hadding's wife argued that woodland rest was safer and sweeter than life tossed on the shifting sea

  "Safer and sweeter do I deem the enjoyment of the woods. How are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by tarrying tossed on the shifting sea?"

• attestation: Hadding was defeated by Toste in a land battle but escaped by sabotaging Toste's fleet and fleeing in a skiff

  "Hadding was conquered by this man in an affair by land; but in the midst of his flight he came on his enemy's fleet, and made it unseaworthy by boring the sides; then he got a skiff and steered it out to sea"

• attestation: Hadding faked his death by deliberately capsizing his vessel and hiding inside its hull

  "Hadding, despairing of flight, deliberately turned the vessel over and held on inside to its hollow, thus making his pursuers think him dead"

• attestation: Hadding ambushed Toste while he was carelessly guarding his spoils, cut down his army, and forced him to abandon his plunder

  "he attacked Toste, who, careless and unaware, was greedily watching over the remnants of his spoil; cut down his army, forced him to quit his plunder"

• attestation: Hadding challenged and slew Toste in single combat, preferring personal combat to general battle

  "he was challenged and slain by Hadding, who preferred to hazard his own fortune rather than that of his soldiers"

• attestation: After Toste's death, the ghost of Hadding's dead wife appeared in a dream prophesying a monstrous son and a harmful daughter

  "the figure of Hadding's dead wife appeared before him in his sleep"

• attestation: The ghost described the future son as a beast-tamer who would crush wolves, and the daughter as a harmful bird with a tuneful tongue

  "A monster is born to thee that shall tame the rage of wild beasts, and crush with fierce mouth the fleet wolves"

• attestation: A dream interpreter explained the wolf in Hadding's dream as a truculent son and the swan as a treacherous daughter

  "who explained the wolf to denote a son that would be truculent and the word swan as signifying a daughter"

• attestation: The interpreter predicted the son would be deadly to enemies and the daughter treacherous to her father

  "foretold that the son would be deadly to enemies and the daughter treacherous to her father"

• attestation: Hadding was warned of the plot in a dream and posted armed guards at the feast

  "Hadding was warned in a dream to beware of his son-in-law's guile. He went to the feast, which his daughter had made ready for him with a show of love, and posted an armed guard hard by"

• attestation: Hadding detected the would-be assassin and signalled his hidden soldiers with a trumpet, foiling the plot

  "The king, remarking him, blew on the trumpet a signal to the soldiers who were stationed near; they straightway brought aid, and he made the guile recoil on its deviser"

• attestation: Hadding hanged himself in public upon hearing of Hunding's death, fulfilling the prophecy that he would die by his own hand

  "Hadding, when he heard this, wished to pay like thanks to his worshipper, and, not enduring to survive his death, hanged himself in sight of the whole people"