Harthgrepa

Harthgrepa, the daughter of Vagnhofthi, attempted to soften his [Hadingus'] steadfast spirit with unremitting assertations that he was obligated to pay her the first gift of his nuptial bed by marrying her, since she had nurtured him with special care in his infancy and given him his first rattle. Not satisified with exhorting him with plain expressions, she also began to utter a poem thus:

Why does life flow by you unsettled,
why do you spend your time unmarried,
pursuing warfare, thirsting for slaughter,
does beauty not awake your desire?
You are seized by an extraordinary frenzy,
never slipping into tenderness.
Caked with carnage and gore,
you prefer battle to the bridal bed,
stimulation never refresh your spirit.
A fierce man never thinks of leisure,
play is absent, only savagery occupies his mind.
His hand is never free from impiety,
but loathes the reverence of Venus.
Let this hateful harshness yield,
let the pious fire of love arrive
and bind yourself to me with the bond of passion,
for I first gave you the milk of my breast,
I nursed and aided you as a child,
performing all a mother's duties,
attentive to all your needs.

When he replied that the magnitude of her body was unfit for human embraces, and that the nature of her appearance left no doubt that she was born of giants, she replied: 'Don't let the sight of my strange size trouble you,' she said, 'for I can transform the measurements of my body, arbitrarily alterate its extent, now smaller, now greater, now meagre, now abundant in substance. Now my height penetrates the skies, now I settle into the narrow confines of human posture.' While he was still delaying and hesitating to believe her words, she added this song:

Young man, do not fear the fellowship of our bed!
I change my corporeal figure in twofold manner,
and appoint a double law upon my sinews.
For I alternate between diverse figures and forms,
I vary my shape at will; now my neck reaches the stars
and rushes to the heights near the Thunderer,
falls down again, bent into human vigor,
my head pulled back to earth from heaven's pole.
Thus I easily transmute my body by various transitions,
ambiguous in aspect and modes; now a wavering rigor
briefly contracts my limbs, now the grace of height
unfolds my body and allows it to touch the summits of the clouds.
Now I am squeezed to a small size, now I extend my pliant knee,
stretching, my new features transform like wax.
Do not marvel at me, but think of Proteus.
Now my two-formed shape, uncertain in appearance,
tightens its disorderly form, only to thrust out its enclosed limbs,
which now disentangle, only to roll them back into a sphere.
I stretch and contract my limbs, extend and then immediately
crumple, the condition of my twin figure, its double features
both divided and united; great, I frighten the fierce,
but small, I pursue intercourse with men.

With these assertations she obtained intercourse with Hadingus, and so much did she burn with love for the young man that, when she discovered his desire to revisit his fatherland, she did not hesitate in accompanying him, clothed in manly fashion, considering it a pleasure to take part in his hardships and perils. They set out on their path together, and sought shelter for the night at a house where, as luck would have it, they were mournfully conducting the funeral rites for the deceased master of the house. Desiring to probe divine will by her magical far-sight, she engraved the most dire spells on wood, and made Hadingus insert them under the tongue of the corpse, which was then, in a voice horrible to the ears, forced to utter these verses:

May the one who dragged me from the netherworld,
summoned a spirit from Tartarus, be cursed and suffer a tormentful death!

Whoever summoned me from the underworld abode,
one made lifeless by fate,
and drove me again to the upper airs,
may she suffer the penalty of her own funeral
as a blueish body beneath Styx among the sorrowful shades.
Behold! Against my pleas and purpose
I am forced to reveal something that will bring me little gratitude:
For as your feet carry you away from this abode,
you will reach a grove,
where you will be the prey of swarming demons,
Then she who brought a dead man back from Chaos
and made him see the light of day again,
marvellously tying bonds between bodies
and spirits, enticing and disturbing,
shall weep bitterly because of her heedless endeavours.

May the one who dragged me from the netherworld,
summoned a spirit from Tartarus, be cursed and suffer a tormentful death!

For a monster-created black whirlwind's plague
will suffocate your innermost entrails,
and a hand will sweep up the living, a cruel claw
will snatch your bodies, tearing and cleaving your limbs.
Then only you, Hadingus, will escape with your life.
The realm of the dead will not snatch up your corpse,
nor will your spirit travel to the Stygian waters.
But the woman, crushed by her crime,
will placate my cold ashes, and soon be ashes herself,
for causing the return of this miserable shade.

May the one who dragged me from the netherworld,
summoned a spirit from Tartarus, be cursed and suffer a tormentful death!

Consequently, when they were spending the night in a shelter bound together by sticks in the aforementioned grove, they saw a hand of extraordinary size enter their hut. Hadingus was terrified by this monstrosity and cried out for his nurse's help. Then Harthgrepa, unfolding and distending her limbs, growing to giant size, tightly gripped the hand and held it out for her foster-son to cut off. More pus than blood flowed from its vile wound. She later paid the price for this deed by being torn to pieces by others of her kin. Neither the circumstances of her nature nor the size of her body proved to be of any help against the vicious claws of her enemies.

Robbed of his nurse and orphaned for the second time, an old one-eyed man happened to take pity on the lonely Hadingus, and brought him together with a certain pirate, Liserus, establishing a pact between them in accordance with the law.