Denmark -- History -- To 1241; Folklore -- Scandinavia
Gotar's constant talks with Erik furnished him with a store of most
fairshapen maxims, wherewith to rejoice and refresh his mind. So, not
satisfied with giving him his daughter in marriage he also made over to
him the district of Lither, thinking that their connection deserved some
kindness. Now Kraka, whom Erik, because of her cunning in witchcraft,
had brought with him on his travels, feigned weakness of the eyes, and
muffled up her face in her cloak, so that not a single particle of her
head was visible for recognition. When people asked her who she was,
she said that she was Gunwar's sister, child of the same mother but a
different father.
Now when they came to the dwelling of Gotar, the wedding-feast of
Alfhild (this was his daughter's name) was being held. Erik and the king
sat at meat in different rooms, with a party-wall in common, and also
entirely covered on the inside with hanging tapestries. Gunwar sat by
Gotar, but Erik sat close between Kraka on the one side and Alfhild on
the other. Amid the merrymaking, he gradually drew a lath out of the
wall, and made an opening large enough to allow the passage of a human
body; and thus, without the knowledge of the guests, he made a space
wide enough to go through. Then, in the course of the feast, he began to
question his betrothed closely whether she would rather marry himself or
Frode: especially since, if due heed were paid to matches, the daughter
of a king ought to go to the arms of one as noble as herself, so that
the lowliness of one of the pair might not impair the lordliness of the
other. She said that she would never marry against the permission of her
father; but he turned her aversion into compliance by promises that she
should be queen, and that she should be richer than all other women, for
she was captivated by the promise of wealth quite as much as of glory.
There is also a tradition that Kraka turned the maiden's inclinations to
Frode by a drink which she mixed and gave to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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