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Hverr veldur eldi<br />
hverr orrustu<br />
hverr jarls megin<br />
oddum beitir?<br />
H<strong>of</strong> sviðnuðu<br />
hörgar brunnu<br />
hverr rauð eggjar<br />
Yngva liði?<br />
Örvar Odds <strong>Saga</strong>, ch. 29<br />
Who makes fire<br />
who makes war<br />
whose earl-power is behind<br />
those arrows?<br />
Temples were scalded<br />
shrines were burned<br />
Who reddened his blade<br />
from Yngvi’s blood?<br />
Gyðja calls on Freyr, the Æsir <strong>and</strong> Ásynjur for help, but to no avail. Örvar Oddur<br />
attacks her with a club, as he did the völva Heiður almost 300 years earlier, <strong>and</strong> as King<br />
Ólafur attacked Þorgerður Hörgabrúður. Gyðja flees from him into the main temple, <strong>and</strong><br />
Oddur does not have the courage to follow her into the sacred shrine <strong>of</strong> the Goddess, so<br />
he finds a window through which he throws a huge boulder, which breaks her spine.<br />
After that he returns to her husb<strong>and</strong> who is not yet dead <strong>and</strong> beats him with the club till<br />
he dies.<br />
It is interesting that the author defines the king <strong>and</strong> high priestess <strong>of</strong> Antiokkia as<br />
servants <strong>of</strong> the Æsir, Yngvi Freyr, <strong>and</strong> the Ásynjur. It is also <strong>of</strong> interest to find, in the<br />
description <strong>of</strong> the murder <strong>of</strong> this Gyðja <strong>and</strong> Álfur, so many memories from Freyr, Freyja<br />
<strong>and</strong> the saga <strong>of</strong> Hörgabrúður above. Just like Þorgerður is defined as tröll (giantess), this<br />
Gyðja is called gýgur (giantess), as she dies. <strong>The</strong> patriarchal scholars have also called<br />
Gullveig/Heiður an evil witch. Whether one <strong>of</strong> the authors <strong>of</strong> those two <strong>Saga</strong>s, <strong>of</strong> Ólafur<br />
<strong>and</strong> Oddur, are influenced by the other’s story, <strong>and</strong> whether both might have been<br />
influenced by Völuspá <strong>and</strong> the saga <strong>of</strong> Gullveig, I don’t know. <strong>The</strong> likeness is striking,<br />
but my belief is that what we have here is a collective myth with roots in real memory,<br />
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