There was a king named Högni who had a daughter named Hild.

While Högni was meeting with some other kings, Hild was abducted by a king whose name was Heðin, the son of Hjarrand. When Högni heard that his daughter had been taken in a raid, he went with his men to search for Heðin.

He heard word that Heðin had sailed to Norway. But when King Högni came to Norway, he heard that Heðin had sailed west. Högni sailed after him all the way to the Orkney Islands, and came across Heðin and his men at an island called Háey.

Hild went to meet with her father, and offered a necklace in hopes that it might convince her father to settle things peacefully with Heðin. She told him that Heðin was ready to fight, and if it came to that, Högni would have no hope of mercy from him.

Högni answered his daughter harshly, and when she returned to Heðin she told him that Högni wasn’t willing to make a settlement. She told him to prepare for battle.

And so both of them readied themselves, went to the island they chose as the battlefield, and drew up their men.

Heðin called out to Högni, his father-in-law, and asked him to accept some gold as a peaceful settlement.

But Högni replied: “If you wanted to make a settlement, you came too late, because I’ve already drawn my sword, Dáinsleif. It was forged by dwarves, and every time it is drawn it must kill a man. It never fails to make a cut, leaving a wound that never heals.”

Heðin responded: “You can praise that sword all you want, but you shall not have victory.”

Thus began the Battle of the Hjaðnings.

They fought all day, and at evening the kings returned to their ships. But Hild went by night into the battlefield where the corpses lay, and used her magic to raise up all those who had died.

The next day the kings returned to the battlefield, and so did all those who had fallen the day before. At the end of each day, all those who have fallen, and all the weapons which lie there in the battlefield, and all the shields, turn to stone. And when the dawn comes, all the dead men stand up and battle, their weapons made like new.

The poets tell us that the Battle of the Hjaðnings will go on, waiting for Ragnarök.

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This is some serious fantasy writing. All the Viking sagas are, really. They were written mainly between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries in Iceland. After that, high fantasy more or less dropped off the face of the earth until the mid-twentieth century, when Germanic linguists and medievalists finally decided to bring it into the modern world. So if this reminds you of Tolkien, there’s a good reason.

The Battle of the Hjaðnings comes from the Skáldskaparmál of Snorri Sturluson, where he explains the craft of poetry. The point of this particular passage is to explain the origin of the kenning “Hjaðning-weather” which is used to describe battles.

I’ve translated it out of the original Old Norse, which I have from Jesse Byock’s textbook, Viking Language 1. I got some help from my Old Norse professor and the other students’ translations, and I also changed the wording in several places to make it easier to read. I know there are other translations of the Battle of the Hjaðnings out there, but I didn’t use them, so I feel justified in posting this. Hopefully you enjoyed it.