Hrolf And His Warriors

Appropriately, Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga (New York, 1973) ends:

"Here ends the saga of Hrolf Kraki and his warriors." (p. 261)

- because the novel is not just about its title character. He is born at the mid-point of Chapter III, becomes King aged 16 in Chapter IV and dies in battle at the end of Chapter VII. Thus, he is King of Denmark, though even then not the central character of the novel, in just four of the eight chapters.

After the short explanatory Chapter I, "Of The Telling," each chapter is entitled "The Tale Of..." followed by a name or, in one case, a description. Chapter III is "...Of The Brothers." The names are Frodhi, Svipdag, Bjarki, Yrsa, Skuld and Vogg. The soap-operatic relationships between these characters define the episodic plot, reconstructed by Anderson from diverse sources:

Frodhi overthrew his brother Halfdan but was in turn overthrown by Halfdan's sons, Hroar and Helgi (the "Brothers"), who then ruled jointly;

when Helgi, then Hroar, had died, they were succeeded by Hroar's son, Hrorik, who however was overthrown in favour of Helgi's and Yrsa's son, Hrolf, whose warriors Svipdag and Bjarki married his daughters;

by witchcraft, Skuld, Helgi's daughter, enabled her husband to defeat Hrolf who, however, was immediately avenged by Vogg;

a further relationship is that Yrsa was Helgi's daughter although they had married and had a son before their close kinship was disclosed.

Thus, Helgi is kind of the unifying character:

Halfdan's son;
Hroar's brother;
Frodhi's nephew;
Yrsa's father;
for a time, Yrsa's husband;
Hrolf's father;
Skuld's father.

An Infinitely Cold Cataract

Poul Anderson, After Doomsday, CHAPTER FOUR.

Three crew members from the all-women European spaceship, the Europa, go EVA:

"Space gloomed and glittered around them. The sun was a fire too fierce to look at, the Milky Way an infinitely cold cataract, stars and stars filled the sky -" (p. 44) 

Sigrid Holmen, Swedish, reflecting on the silence of space and the noise of her own breath, refers to Fenja and Menja, a myth with which I was unfamiliar. However, the Wiki article refers to familiar figures: Hrolf Kraki, Yrsa, Frodi and Halfdan.

That is quite a lot of cross-reference.

How They Connect

In Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga (New York, 1973), of two brothers jointly ruling Denmark, Hroar is the king who is helped by the hero Beowulf whereas Helgi is both father and grandfather of the hero Hrolf Kraki. Thus, Halfdan, father of Hroar and Helgi, unites the stories of Beowulf and Hrolf in a way similar to that in which Abraham, as the father of both Ishmael and Isaac, unites the stories of Islam and Judaism.

The picture, taken from Wikipedia, shows Helgi and Yrsa who marry not knowing that they are father and daughter. Thus, the title character of the Saga is born perhaps sooner than expected in Chapter II which, according to the family tree in the beginning of the book, still deals with Skjoldungs two generations prior to Hrolf.

For me at least, the close connection with Beowulf came as a surprise as did something else. Of Helgi, we are told:

"Himself he poured water upon the boy and named him Hrolf." (p. 74)

I had not known that Pagan naming ceremonies involved pouring water on the baby. I do not think that modern Pagans do this but will ask.