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Tale Summary

There was once a beautiful princess named Hadvor who had a foster brother named Hermon. They were inseparable and pledged their love to one another when they were children. The Queen one day became sick, and before she died she had her husband promise to marry only the Queen of Hetland the Good if he again decided to take a wife. Some time passed and he set sail and came to a clearing in the woods after he found land, where he found three women. One was sad and played the harp, dressed beautifully and seated in a golden chair, the second was younger and finely dressed, seated in a less grand chair, and the third wore a green cloak and was maid to the other two. He told the one in the golden chair why he had come to the country, and she responded that she was Hetland the Good, and that she was seated with her daughter and maid, and that all three of them had escaped their land after it was plundered by pirates. He took them home and married her. Before long, the King went of to war, and the Queen asked Hermod to marry her daughter, but he refused, and she cursed him to live on a desert island where he would be lion by day and man by night, and that he would always think of his love for Hadvor which would cause him sorrow. He would never be freed until Hadvor burned the lion’s skin. He replied by cursing her, so that as soon as he was released she would become a rat and her daughter a mouse, and the two would fight each other in the hall until he killed them. Hadvar became friends with Olof the maid, who told her what had happened to Hermon and that the queen and her daughter were really ugly witches. Also, the queen had a brother in the Underworld who was a three-headed Giant who she would turn into a handsome prince to marry Hadvar to, and that to prevent this she should wait until he created a hole in the castle to pour hot pitch into. Olof additionally revealed that she had been stolen from her parents by the queen, but that her green cloak protected her from harm. Some time after the King returned home, Hadvor heard a loud rumbling under the castle and poured hot pitch into where the floor opened up. The next morning the Queen found her Giant brother dead, and cast a spell on his body to appear as a handsome prince before going to her husband and accusing the princess of killing her young brother. She was allowed to pick a punishment, which was to be that Hadvor should be buried in a grave-mound beside her would-be husband. Olof knew of the plan and told the princess how to protect herself: she should wear a cloak while in the mound the giant’s ghost would appear with two dogs and he would ask her to cut off pieces of his leg to feed them, but she must refuse until he told her how to get to Hermon. She must also make sure to keep her cloak loosely fastened because he would then let her stand on his shoulders to get out of the mound as a trick and try to drag her back down with it. She did all this and learned where Hermon was, and that she could get there by making shoes out of the skin of the giant’s feet, which she did, and made it to the island where he was kept but was stopped by tall cliffs once she arrived. She fell asleep and dreamed that a tall woman told her that she had let down a rope for the princess to climb, and had also left a clew (a ball of thread) which would show her the way, and a belt which would keep her from feeling faint from hunger. She used these things to make her way to a cave, and lay down inside under a couch. That evening she heard a lion enter, and then heard the sound of a man, who she recognized as Hermod. She waited until he was asleep and burned the lion skin, and then they were reunited. They wondered how they would escape the island and Hadvor told him about her dream, and he replied that there was a witch who could help them, and so they visited her and her fifteen sons. She said that the Giant had turned into a whale, but she would lend them a boat and if they were in danger they could summon her. While they sailed they saw him approaching and so called upon the witch, and a huge whale followed by fifteen smaller ones had a battle with the first whale and beat it. When they arrived back at the castle the King was overjoyed but the Queen and her daughter had disappeared, and there was a mouse and a rat fighting in the hall that no one could get rid of. Hermod killed them with his sword and they became the bodies of the two ugly witches. He explained the whole story to his father, and then was married to Hadvor and inherited the kingdom, while Olof married a handsome nobleman.

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