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Heidrek or Heiðrekr (Old Norse: [ˈhɛiðˌrekz̠] ) is one of the main characters in the cycle about the magic sword Tyrfing. He appears in the Hervarar saga , and probably also in Widsith , [1] together with his sons Angantyr (Incgentheow) and Hlöð (Hlith), and Hlöð's mother Sifka (Sifeca). The etymology is heiðr, meaning "honour", and rekr, meaning "ruler, king".
Heidrek was the son of king Höfund and his wife Hervor, a shieldmaiden. Like his mother in her youth, he was ill-natured and violent. To amend this, he was raised by the wise Geatish king Gizur, but this did not improve his disposition. One day, when his parents were having a banquet, Heidrek arrived uninvited and late at night, he started a quarrel which ended in manslaughter. His father, King Höfund, banished Heidrek from his kingdom, although Hervor did her utmost to soften Höfund's feelings against his son.
However, before Heidrek left, his father gave him some words of advice:
Heidrek immediately decided never to follow his father's advice.
Hervor secretly gave her son the sword Tyrfing as she bade him farewell, and his brother Angantyr kept him company for a while. When they had walked for some time, Heidrek wanted to have a look at the sword. Since he had unsheathed it, the curse the dwarves had put on the sword made him kill his brother.
After a while, Heidrek met a patrol moving a prisoner who was to be executed because he had murdered his master. He remembered his father's advice and resolved to buy the criminal. Then he continued his journey and met a patrol moving a scoundrel who had killed his comrade. Likewise, Heidrek bought the man's life in order to disobey his father.
Soon, Heidrek arrived in Reidgotaland, entered the Gothic king Harald's service, and disposed of two rebellious jarls for him. This earned him half the Gothic kingdom and the king's daughter, Helga. Heidrek and Helga had a son who was named Angantyr after Heidrek's brother and grandfather. During the same time old King Harald had a son who was named Halfdan.
Unfortunately, Reidgotaland was struck with bad crops and starvation. The goðar (heathen priests) determined that they must sacrifice the most noble young man of the kingdom to Odin in order to restore good crops. Immediately, people started to quarrel about which of the princes was the most noble, and so they asked king Höfund of Glæsisvellir. King Höfund decided that it was Angantyr (Harald's own grandson) who was the most noble prince. Höfund also told Heidrek to ask King Harald that in recompense for sacrificing his own son, he should receive half the Gothic army as his own. King Harald agreed to this.
However, when Höfund called for a thing in order to sacrifice Angantyr, Heidrek objected and said that Odin would be happy if instead of Angantyr, he received King Harald and his son Halfdan. Then, Heidrek made a coup d'état with his half of the Gothic army, using Tyrfing to kill King Harald and his son. When his wife Helga heard the news, she committed suicide by hanging herself.
Heidrek used his army to subjugate the Gothic kingdom and ruled with brutal force. He defeated Humli, the king of the Huns, and captured his daughter Sifka, whom he raped. When she became pregnant, she was sent back to her father's kingdom, where she bore a son who was named Hlöd.
Heidrek married Olof, the daughter of Åke, the King of the Saxons. She often asked to go home to visit her family, and since Heidrek remembered his father's advice, he always gladly consented. This would turn out to be an unwise strategy, because one day he made the journey to Saxony in order to see his wife among her family. He found her in the arms of a blond thrall and immediately divorced her.
Instead, he married a girl from Finland who was named Sifka, like the Hunnic princess. One day, they were visiting king Rollaug of Gardariki. To oppose a fourth word of advice given by his father, he told Sifka a secret and asked her to swear an oath never to tell anyone. The secret was that he had accidentally killed King Rollaug's son in a hunting accident.
Naturally, Sifka immediately ran to King Rollaug and told him the secret, which caused King Rollaug to capture Heidrek and to kill all of his retinue. The two men who bound him were none other than the two culprits he had saved from the gallows.
When king Rollaug was about to burn Heidrek alive, someone broke the news that the prince was still alive and that Heidrek was innocent. Rollaug apologized and in recompense for Heidrek's losses he gave him his own daughter, Hergerd.
Heidrek and Hergerd had a daughter who was named Hervor, the shieldmaiden, after his mother who had just died. This was the beginning of a time of peace for Heidrek.
During a voyage, Heidrek camped at the Carpathians (Harvaða fjöllum, cf. Grimm's law). He was accompanied by eight mounted thralls, and while Heidrek slept, the thralls broke into his tent, took Tyrfing and slew Heidrek.
This was the last one of Tyrfing's three evil deeds. Heidrek's son Angantyr caught the thralls, killed them and reclaimed the magic sword, but the curse had ceased.
Tyrfing, also rendered as Tirfing or Tyrving, was a magic sword in Norse mythology, which features in the Tyrfing Cycle, which includes a poem from the Poetic Edda called Hervararkviða, and the Hervarar saga. The name is also used in the saga to denote the Goths.
Ivar Vidfamne was a semi-legendary king of Denmark, who originated in Scania. He apparently died circa 700 CE, in Karelia, at a place called Karjálabotnar, which may have been the modern Kurkiyoki, in Lakhdenpokhsky District of Russia.
Hlöðskviða, known in English as The Battle of the Goths and Huns and occasionally known by its German name Hunnenschlachtlied, is an Old Norse heroic poem found in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks. Many attempts have been made to try to fit it with known history, but it is an epic poem, telescoping and fictionalising history to a large extent; some verifiable historical information from the time are place names, surviving in Old Norse forms from the period 750–850, but it was probably collected later in Västergötland.
The Battle of Brávellir or the Battle of Bråvalla was a legendary battle, said to have taken place c. 770, that is described in the sagas as taking place on the Brávellir between Sigurd Hring, king of Sweden and the Geats of Västergötland, and his uncle Harald Wartooth, king of Denmark and the Geats of Östergötland.
Starkad was either an eight-armed giant or the human grandson of the aforementioned giant in Norse mythology.
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas in Germanic heroic legend. It tells of wars between the Goths and the Huns during the 4th century. The final part of the saga, which was likely composed separately from and later than the rest, is a source for Swedish medieval history.
A shield-maiden was a female warrior from Scandinavian folklore and mythology.
Halfdan the Valiant was a legendary Scanian prince, who was the father of Ivar Vidfamne according to Hervarar saga, the Ynglinga saga, Njal's Saga and Hversu Noregr byggdist. The genealogical work Hversu Noregr byggdist gives his father as Harald the Old, his grandfather as Valdar and his great-grandfather as Hróarr.
Hjalmar and Ingeborg were a legendary Swedish duo. The male protagonist Hjalmar and his duel for Ingeborg figures in the Hervarar saga and in Orvar-Odd's saga, as well as in Gesta Danorum, Lay of Hyndla and a number of Faroese ballads. Hjalmar never lost a battle until meeting a berserker wielding the cursed sword Tyrfing.
Hervör is the name shared by two female characters in the Tyrfing Cycle, presented in The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek with parts found in the Poetic Edda. The first, the Viking Hervör, challenged her father Angantýr's ghost in his gravemound for his cursed sword Tyrfing. She had a son, Heidrek, father of the other Hervör. The second Hervör was a commander killed in battle with her brother.
Arngrim was a berserker, who features in Hervarar saga, Gesta Danorum, Lay of Hyndla, a number of Faroese ballads and Orvar-Odd's saga in Norse mythology.
Angantyr was the name of three male characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, Gesta Danorum, and Faroese ballads.
Hervararkviða, is an Old Norse poem from the Hervarar saga, and which is sometimes included in editions of the Poetic Edda.
Hlöd or Hlod was the illegitimate son of Heidrek, the king of the Geats, in Norse mythology.
Árheimar was a capital of the Goths, according to the Hervarar saga. The saga states that it was located at Danparstaðir, which is identified with the ruins of Kamjans'ke Horodyšče, near Kamianka-Dniprovska in southern Ukraine.
Gizur, Gizurr or Gissur was a King of the Geats. He appears in The Battle of the Goths and Huns, which is included in the Hervarar saga and in editions of the Poetic Edda. Gizur was the foster-father of Heidrek, who made a coup-d'état in Reidgotaland, the land of the Goths .
Guðmundr was a semi-legendary Norse king in Jotunheim, ruling over a land called Glæsisvellir, which was known as the warrior's paradise.
Munarvágr was a location on the southern shore of Samsø, which is mentioned in the legendary sagas Hervarar saga and Ragnar Lodbrok's saga.
Humli is a legendary king of the Huns who appears in the Hervarar Saga. He is the Grandfather of Hlod, illegitimate son of Heidrek, King of the Goths.
Sifka or Sifeca is a Hun princess in Norse mythology, the mother of the warrior Hlöd by Heidrek, King of the Geats.
Henrikson, Alf (1998). Stora mytologiska uppslagsboken.
Tolkien, Christopher (1960) The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise: Translated from the Icelandic with Introduction, Notes and Appendices. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. ASIN: B000V9BAO0. An on-line PDF copy is available from the Viking Society for Northern Research.