At first I could see that long green howe among the lesser gravel-scattered graves, but as I drew closer, the lowlier mounds puffed up their own claims, for, after all, every barrow-wight deserves to be noticed, even if he can only boast of dark iron tweezers and a green-rusted cloakpin, while his gruesome neighbor might be squatting on an entire moldy sack of tarnished silver coins with holes in them. I suppose that the scald Einar Audunsson had their realm in mind when he sang:
A troll will scarcely sit at home
if he can dig a new kingdom
— a verse whose main virtue is to frighten children.
Out of a hole now rose an old woman in a moss-colored dress. Her hair was as the lank orange sea-grass between graves, and she said: Love me, and I’ll weave you a mole-shirt, so you can creep among the roots with me forever. — I can’t say this offer left me unmoved, but since I had come all this way (never mind that had I avoided tramping all the way around the world, this place wasn’t but two hours from Ingrid’s house), it seemed most befitting to persist in my purpose, so I gave her a kiss, although her frozen mouth tore the skin right off my lips, which she considerately salved with troll-fat, and then she pointed out my way across the green waves of howes over the fields, to where the queen’s grave rose alone. Where King Yngvar was buried I wished to ask, but dreading either to pay the fee of another kiss or else to disappoint her by turning away from her hard and glistening blue-grey mouth, I thanked her with all my heart, sending my best wishes to her cousins the moles, at which, scratching my shoulder in what she meant to be a caress, she chuckled fondly and melted back under the earth. As for me, I made my way toward those white sheep-ovals in a line halfway up a rock-boned emerald hill all by itself, not as high as some, but all the same it must have cost her thralls and lendermen some pains to build. Between afternoon and evening I got there. Forgetting the old woman with the orange hair, I wondered what could be as chilly as the green-maned shoulder of the queen’s grave, where I threw myself down, breathing in the scent of wet dirt; and now the autumn sun made landfall at the rocky river-mouth, rested upon the sea-horizon like a fabulous egg, then left me, just as Ingrid meant to do.
So darkness oozed up out of the sea, and presently a whole crew of grave-wights wailed and giggled all about me, longing to be givers or takers, if I were only willing; and to me each proposition seemed as good as the next, except of course for Ingrid’s, so I declined them all with thanks, at which some of them turned sour, and even snicked their teeth at me, while the rest either popped back down to their bones or else took on that lovely abstraction one sees on women’s firelit faces when they are plaiting cord. I was introduced to a fetching goddess of an old headdress; I met many goddesses of the serpent’s bed; their dead flesh was as white as the barnacles on black rocks. Without boasting I assure you that had I wished, I could have been suffocated in a troll-woman’s bristly arms; she offered honest lust, and her breath was as cold as frozen meat. An elf-wife kissed her hand to me and gave me a silver coin. A troll-hag took a jab at me with a poisoned ice-needle; that was when I found out that my gold bracelet from the cormorant-trapper’s daughter gave me magic protection, which I had to confess made me all the fonder of her. At any rate, I continued about my business of waiting for the queen. And soon enough, being no less weak and flighty than I, those ghosts and such moaned back down to their holes.
Now indeed came the time to lay down my gift from the cormorant-trapper’s daughter, which I had faithfully kept upon my wrist all over the world, sometimes thinking, I admit, to offer it to my darling Ingrid, although she would have repaid me with anger — for Ingrid could be superstitious; I had found her unwilling to give her arm to be devoured in the gape of a gold bracelet of unknown provenance, in case it enslaved her by means of some spell. Kissing the arm-ring, I laid it down in the grass, and prayed the dead queen of her kindness.
First came a silver-blue shimmering of noble lady-sprites — evidently the mead-maidens and weaving-dames of Queen Hnoss’s court. I bowed to each and all, wishing them joy of the cold air. And presently, when the night once again became as cold and black as an iron axehead, two skeleton-hands blossomed up through the turf, offering me a wide bronze bowl with snakeheaded handles. Even in death she remained a generous queen; her husband King Yngvar must have been very lucky, at least at one time. Had I accepted this gift from her, all might have gone differently, for me if not for Ingrid. Instead, I placed my silver coin in it, and greedily it rushed back under the earth.
Now the queen’s old skull emerged from the turf, without hesitation, as if she did not know or did not care how hideous she might appear to me. In fact I have never met a woman entirely without charm, and this goes equally for dead ones, so the queen and I got on well enough. She wore a long-sleeved, wine-red dress with braids of gold and silver at the sleeve. Her hair, wet like fresh-cut grass, was combed down as carefully as the threads in her warp-weighted loom, and she wore snails for earrings.
She offered me a gold axehead which was shining with engraved serpent-men, but all I prayed of her was that snowy swan-shirt.
That’s good, then, said the queen. You passed the test. You refrained from what you couldn’t use.
I’ve heard of your openhandedness, said I. That’s why I came to you.
I’ll give you all a man desires, she replied. First, I’ll give you a bride.
Ingrid?
Ingrid is not for such as you. It’s wandering she’d rather be, and good riddance to her. Your destiny is the cormorant-trapper’s daughter. Do you remember her name?
Turid, I said. The instant I said it, I fell in love. Turid means beautiful.
That’s right. For the rest of your life, whenever you forget what you need to do, ask Turid. She’ll take care of you. Do you promise me?
I swear by Freya.
You could have sworn by me. But here’s how you get the shirt: Open my grave at sunrise, and dig down to me. Cut off the little finger of my left hand, and leave everything else alone. Cover me up again, or my husband will punish you. As soon as you see Ingrid, throw my finger in her face.
And when the shirt comes, shall I keep it for Turid?
No, man, you must give Ingrid the shirt, so that she has had her use of you. And take back the arm-ring that Turid gave you. It will defend you against Ingrid. Farewell.
On the queen’s green grave I lay all night. A maiden in weeds of gold smiled sadly, reaching for my hair. Whenever trolls sought to choke me in their lichen-scabbed arms, I diverted myself by thinking about Turid. Was she lying awake? When I last left her house, a morning sun-ray had struck the crossbars of her leaning loom, and her bread was rising.
At dawn small dark birds exploded from a leafless tree, and the salmon stream began to glow. I peeled the turf off the summit of the queen’s grave. Then I dug down with a sheep scapula until I found a bog-iron brooch, whose edge scraped the earth as nicely as could be. So I came to the rectangular stone-walled trench. Closest to the surface, but in a side-chamber, I uncovered the skeletons of all those court ladies I had glimpsed the night before, the cruel clay having long since tightened about them, drawing their skulls together like a woman’s yarn bobbins. Begging their pardons and giving them each a kiss, I kept digging, a chore which although it was not easy proved less tiring than my walk around the world. Before noon I reached her. There she lay, rubble of bone in rags of linen, and no sadder thing have I ever seen than the dead queen’s broken twill.