Winifred Hodge Rose
(This is a chapter in my serial novel, Gridhr Jotun-Kin. Click on the menu-header above with this title, and the list of chapters will appear in order, beginning with the Prologue.)
As Gridhr and Skadhi strode through the rapidly warming landscape, Gridhr noticed the wander-birds flying in flocks above their heads, returning to the northern climes for the season of summertide. A wedge of great white swans beat their way northwestward, angling down toward the lake that shimmered in the distance. Gridhr wondered whether they were swans in truth, or were perhaps a flock of valkyrja in swan-dress, off on business of their own. Though she had never met any of these strange maidens–wights of fate and dread and death, of beauty and fierce, protective love–she was curious to do so. But there was little use chasing after the swans right now; their paths did not run together, and perhaps after all they were simply swans. Gridhr bent down, though, and picked up a small white feather, softly-fuzzed at its root, that had drifted from a smooth white breast, and tucked it gently into a corner of her carry-sack. The plangent call of the receding swans echoed even after they were out of sight.
The Jotunn-wives’ way took them past a corner of the steading held by Geirrodhr and his daughters Gjalp and Greip. Both of them recognized the place; a certain dinginess lay like a pall even over the brightness of spring renewal. Gridhr felt a chill as she noticed it.
“It’s as though some of the life was sucked out of this place,” she observed to Skadhi, uneasily.
“I think that’s exactly what has happened to it, Gridhr,” Skadhi slowly answered. “You know that Gjalp and Greip are powerful witches, even though neither of them is overburdened with brains. As with others of the Thursar-tribe of giants, their power seems to be inborn in them. I doubt they are bright enough to have sought and learned it for themselves. I believe they must draw some of their power from the life of their own land, but they never make any offerings or gifts to return the power to the land again.”
“Ugh!” Gridhr shivered in instinctive abhorrence. What power, she thought, could make up for it, if the land itself lost its hamingja, its power of life and luck? What could be worth that price?
“Ugh, you say?” sneered a low, grating voice behind them, startling Gridhr.
She and Skadhi both whipped around, Skadhi’s bow out and arrow nocked faster than Gridhr could see. Gridhr herself had her great staff raised and ready in her defense. They faced a tall, gangly giantess, all knobs and bumps, with a nasty expression that looked like it had been permanently nailed in place. Her stringy hair hung over her face, wet with the drool that dripped from her chin, and her blurry eyes were mismatched in color and alignment.
Ugh, indeed! thought Gridhr, but she thought it very quietly.
Pleased that she seemed to have intimidated them, the Thurs-wife continued. “So, neighbor Gridhr, you’ve come to visit me at last, have you? And your roamings, Skadhi, have brought you to the doorstep of your betters! I am glad to see you are developing some sense of neighborliness, at long last.”
“We have not come to visit you, Gjalp,” answered Gridhr. “We are just passing through, and won’t be here in your steading for long.”
“No, no–I insist, Gridhr: you must both come visit and allow us to show you what real hospitality and neighborliness is like!”
Gridhr felt a shiver of abhorrence. There was nothing she could think of that appealed less to her, than partaking of the Geirroding clan’s menacing hospitality. She looked enquiringly at Skadhi, eyebrows raised. Skadhi gave her a reassuring look, then turned back to speak to Gjalp.
“Why, thank you, Gjalp–that’s a kindly offer and we’ll gladly take you up on it. We’ll need to be off early on the morrow, though–we have a long road ahead of us.”
“Yes, yes, that will be no problem,” answered Gjalp hastily. “We’ll set you on your road as early as you wish.”
Her tiny eyes glinted with a greasy light that Gridhr liked not at all. As they turned to follow Gjalp, Gridhr eyed Skadhi with an angry glare, wishing she had not accepted the invitation for them. Skadhi smiled soothingly at her and patted her arm. Gridhr supposed she must be up to something; there was a gleam of mischief in her eyes that reminded Gridhr of their antics together in their childhood days. Though Skadhi was some years older than she, Jotunn childhoods lasted long, and Gridhr’s and her cousin’s interests had often run along common lines. Gridhr could not help a reminiscent chuckle as she recalled some of their more hair-raising exploits. The thought lifted her spirits slightly as they trudged in Gjalp’s wake through the depressing landscape. Underneath her amusement, though, was a deep-lying worry, and a determination that whatever happened, she would protect the tender new child-souls that lay within her. She was no longer a mischievous, carefree girl now, but a mother, and she felt all of a mother’s bone-deep fierceness rising up in her.
An hour’s walk brought them to a dank cave-dwelling, not the Geirroding’s main hall, but a shieling where the daughters often stayed during herding season. Squatting on a stool in the cave doorway was a great, beefy troll-wife milking a scrawny goat into a bucket. She looked up and glared as she caught sight of her sister and the guests she brought, and tugged harder at the goat’s teats in anger. Caught off-balance, the spraddled-legged goat teetered on three legs, then planted a dung-caked hoof into the bucket of milk. Greip growled, grabbed the bucket in one huge fist and the goat in the other by the scruff of its neck, and threw the goat at her sister with a curse. Gjalp swatted the maltreated goat aside, where it went off baaing to its companions huddled in a dirty yard beside the cave.
“I’ve brought guests, Greip!” Gjalp called in what she fondly imagined was a pleasant tone, her voice cracking with the unaccustomed strain.
“So I see, sister,” Greip sneered. “And what are you going to feed them? Or shall we eat them ourselves?”
“Now, now, Greip,” whined Gjalp. “These are our neighbors–you know them. I found them wandering across our land and thought to offer them our rich hospitality before they go their way. It’s been awhile since we’ve had such fine guests.”
Greip stood staring at her sister in deep suspicion. Such friendliness was very unlike her, and Greip clearly was wondering what she was up to.
“You’ll remember, sister,” continued Gjalp, “that I recently had a seeing concerning fine guests and the knowledge they bring with them. One should always honor the wise.”
Greip frowned, a grimace of pain as she struggled with the unaccustomed act of thought. Giving up, she decided it was easier to follow Gjalp’s lead than to argue with her, and led the way into their cave with the bucket of milk. Once inside, she poured it, unstrained, into a dirty pot half-full of milk that had, by the looks of it, been sitting there for some time. Bits of dung and straw floated on the surface, and within it flies struggled hopelessly to escape a milky death. Gridhr wondered what they would be eating for dinner here. Her appetite was not dainty, but she had her limits nevertheless.
“Come this way,” said Gjalp as she led them toward the fire-pit in the center of the cave. No fleeces or hides waited there to seat them in comfort, only the bare, ashy ground around the pit, tracked with bits of the ubiquitous dung. “Sit!” she barked at them, and plunked herself down to follow suit, a cloud of ash greeting the smack of her bony hams onto the dirt.
“Dinner, Greip! Now!” Gjalp bellowed at her sister.
With a screech of anger, Greip threw herself on Gjalp and tore at her hair, while Gjalp locked her strong, spidery fingers around her sister’s windpipe and struggled to bite her, screaming shrilly all the while. Clearly the troll-wives well deserved their names of “Yelp” and “Grip”. They scuffled and staggered around the cave while Gridhr looked on in amazement, wondering whether to burst out laughing or simply get up and leave. She could not imagine what Skadhi had in mind to make her willing to put up with this, and looked at her incredulously. Skadhi returned her stare with serious intentness, conveying a determination to stay.
The Thurs sisters lay panting in the dust, thick wisps of hair clutched in Greip’s hands and red marks around her throat. Though their quarrel had petered out, they seemed disinclined to get up and do anything about dinner. Gridhr was just as glad of that. She much preferred going hungry at this point.
“What in Aurgelmir’s name are you up to?” Gridhr took the opportunity to whisper to Skadhi. “Why are we here?”
“Ward yourself well, and follow my lead,” was Skadhi’s answer.
“Ward myself how? Your lead where?” Gridhr hissed at Skadhi, but there was no chance for an answer. The troll-wives had hauled themselves up on their haunches and squatted, one on either side next to Gridhr and Skadhi, peering sideways at them through stringy hair now caked with fresh dust and ashes. Several bleeding, bald patches showed on Gjalp’s bony skull, and Greip coughed and gagged around her bruised throat.
“So, Gridhr,” spoke Gjalp in a wheedling tone. “I hear you are a seeress.”
“I am,” answered Gridhr curtly.
“I wonder whether you are as good as I am, though?” mused Gjalp slyly.
Gridhr maintained an unencouraging silence, ignoring Skadhi’s elbow in her ribs. She had no intention of parading herself before these she-beasts.
Giving up on Gridhr for the moment, Skadhi volunteered, “I too am a seeress, Gjalp. Did you wish us to explore some question for you?”
Gjalp looked slyly sideways at Skadhi while she licked a dab of muddy drool from her chin with her long, thin tongue. “Ye-es, you could say that,” she answered. “Are you willing?”
“What is your question?”
“What is my question? Yes….hmmm. Actually what I thought was that we could fare together, and see who could fare farthest and longest. A contest, you know?”
“A contest,” Skadhi repeated grimly. “That’s not something we do in our spaefaring, Gjalp. Spaefaring is serious work, and not for playing games with.”
“Oh, but this would be a serious contest, yes indeed,” assured Gjalp. Greip nodded her head grimly; whether she had any inkling of what Gjalp had in mind, Skadhi doubted, but clearly she intended to stand by her sister’s plot, whatever that turned out to be.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gjalp,” Skadhi answered. She glanced aside at her cousin, whose expression had turned even grimmer. “I don’t see any point to what you propose.”
“Oh, we’ll give you a point to this, never fear,” said Gjalp with a ghastly, snaggle-toothed grin. “You may find it harder to leave tomorrow than you expected, unless you fare to the spaelands with us first. The path that leads outside this cave now is not the one you came in on. If you wish to find your own path again, you will have to walk ours first.”
“That’s true,” added Greip, putting in her word. “The paths here change at sunset every day, and unless we weave them anew at sunrise, there would never be the same paths two days running. We’ve gotten used to this, of course. But you might have a harder time of it.” She leered at Skadhi and Gridhr both.
“The paths change, do they?” remarked Skadhi, with a deep note of anger in her voice. “Why do you suppose that is? Do you think it has anything to do with what you’re doing to your land?” In the firelight, the whites of Skadhi’s eyes gleamed as Gridhr noticed the force of her anger building.
Both troll-wives stared blankly at Skadhi. “That’s just the way the land is, around here,” Greip told her. “It’s a grudging land, it is, and fights us day and night, and we fight it. But we are stronger and we win.”
“You think so, do you?” retorted Gridhr. “You think you can beat down the land’s powers, and win yourselves? Not so, you stupid Thursar; either we and the land both win, or we both lose. There is no other way for it to be.”
“‘Stupid Thursar’, is it, you big cow?” snarled Greip, and lunged across the fire, her horny, clawlike fingernails crooked to tear at Gridhr.
“Now, now, sister,” Gjalp told her with a sickly smile, grabbing Greip’s powerful wrists and pushing her backwards. “Let’s have no more of this unseemly behavior. Gridhr is no more than a youngster and there’s a great deal she doesn’t understand. I think once we’ve done this spaefaring together she’ll know a lot more. And so will we.” Gjalp glared meaningfully into her sister’s red eyes as she pushed her backwards into her place beside Skadhi. “Come now; let’s waste no more time, but begin our contest.”
“I am still not sure what you expect us to do,” began Skadhi, but Gjalp cut her off.
“Don’t worry about that, Skadhi,” she said. “Just follow my lead and we’ll be all set. Yes, indeed!”
Skadhi and Gridhr exchanged a long, wordless look. Gridhr wished intensely to avoid anything of the sort with these ill-intentioned wights, but there was the matter of the changing paths. Whatever it took to get them away from this awful place would have to be done, willingly or unwillingly. She still felt angry and confused toward Skadhi, wondering why she had gotten them into this. Apparently Skadhi had some sort of plan in mind, but Gridhr had no idea what it could be, and no enthusiasm for the whole endeavor. Well, what must be, must be. She took a deep breath and nodded to Skadhi, indicating she was ready. Both the Jotunn-wives turned to Gjalp and waited.
Gjalp smiled in satisfaction and nodded in turn to her sister. Both of them took a deep breath and began the chanting that would carry them into the spae-realms.
Within moments, Gridhr was wincing and longing to cover her ears. Instead of the deep-toned, steady humming–strange and eerie but beautiful nonetheless–that Gridhr had learned from her foster-mother, the troll sisters were producing an ear-splitting cacaphony of yelps, howls, growls, snarls, and low, vibrating belches like gigantic bullfrogs. The one similarity they had, with the chanting Gridhr was accustomed to, was their ability to sound like there were many more voices involved than there actually were, but in this case that was hardly an advantage from Gridhr’s viewpoint.
She rolled her eyes at Skadhi, who returned the same look. How were they to enter into trance themselves, with this awful troll-howling as their bridge? Gridhr considered trying to counterbalance it with her accustomed chanting, but even with Skadhi’s participation she doubted they could hear themselves through the noise. She pondered for a moment, looking at Skadhi for inspiration. Skadhi, in turn, was watching the troll-wives, and Gridhr turned to look at them as well. The Thursar were beginning to change color, turning from red-faced, bellowing effort to a sallow corpse-color as their fantastic vocalizations deprived them of breath. They began to rock and weave back and forth, their heads lolling, their drooling even more accentuated.
Then, with a shriek, Gjalp threw herself forward almost into the fire. Gridhr noticed that she clutched straggly bunches of some herb in both fists, which she laid into the embers of the fire, not bothering to open her fists. Smoke curled up from the herb, and a charring scent from her bony fists. Gjalp was almost face-down in the firepit, and her sister flopped forward and followed suit. They panted, coughed, and howled, breathing the bitter herb-smoke as they did so, along with the air-depriving heat of the embers and the blowing ash. Both troll-wives were clearly far advanced in their trance, while the two cousins were nowhere near that state yet. Nor did Gridhr have the slightest desire to follow that particular pathway in.
“What shall we do?” she whispered to Skadhi.
“Before we go in ourselves I need to tell you this,” responded Skadhi. “Gjalp is after something of yours, some power or knowledge that you have.”
Gridhr felt like shrieking at her, but kept her voice low in spite of her anger. “Then why are we here? Why did you agree to let this happen?”
“And I am after something of theirs, Gridhr,” Skadhi answered grimly. “There is no time now to tell you my thoughts. But you must distract them, let them think they are winning over you, while I pursue my aim in secret.”
Gridhr felt her stomach roiling, uncertain whether she was angrier with the Thursar or with her own cousin. She felt maneuvered from all directions, but there was no time to delay and argue now. She would be very sure that Skadhi got to hear her opinion of this escapade as soon as it was over, however.
The noise of the Thursar was quieter now as they sank into trance, choked, almost asphyxiated by the heat and fumes. The scent of the charred herbs began to affect Gridhr as well, and her sight blurred as she peered through the dim, ember-lit cave at her cousin.
“Come, Gridhr–sit back to back with me,” said Skadhi. “If we hum deeply we’ll be able to feel it through each others’ bodies. And we can ward each other better this way.”
The cousins sat back to back and hummed deep inside their chests, creating vibrations that were more felt than heard. Very quickly Gridhr felt trance beginning to come upon her. As her blurring vision fell upon the walls of the cave, she was more heartened than she could say, to see the familiar shades of her beast-friends and Skadhi’s, pacing through strange, unearthly distances between the worlds toward their Jotunn-friends and the need that called them.
All four beasts looked alert and aggressive; clearly they realized this was no routine spaeworking, and their warding powers were needed even more than usual. Gridhr’s big, brown bear seemed even larger than normal, his fur standing on end and giving off swirling sparks of dark/bright shadow-light. Rather than being in his usual position on all fours, he was raised on his hind legs, his forelegs spread and claws curved in threat. From his claws extended dark rays of power that Gridhr had never seen before.
But her biggest surprise came when she saw her otter. Lithe, muscular, fur on end, the otter bared her sharp teeth and swirled her long body around in ever-changing knotwork patterns that bewildered eye and mind, and paid no attention to the constraints of ordinary space. Peering more closely through the dimness, Gridhr saw that there was some small, indeterminate mass in the center of the otter’s angry swirling. What could it be? In a flash of intuition, Gridhr saw: the mass was in reality two tiny baby otters, nestled together safely within their mother’s magical patterns of movement, hidden from sight and mind, and thus from the reach of evil powers.
Deeply relieved, Gridhr felt she could now concentrate on the ordeal in front of her, secure in the backing of her powerful allies and their warding of the children within her. As she sank deeper into trance she became aware of the mighty soul-energies of Skadhi and her pair of wolves beside her. No need to fear, Gridhr thought, as long as we keep our wits about us. And in wits as well as strength, we are far more than a match for these flea-ridden, drooling hags! She grinned suddenly, her battle-lust finally coming upon her.
Battle-lust or no, she was startled when a huge, bloated face leered into hers, even uglier in the soul-world than it was in the world of solid form.
“What took you so long?” the drooling mouth uttered, though Gridhr heard the sound only as unpleasant echoes in the back of her mind. “I can see, as I thought, that your powers are nothing like what people say they are–you barely even made it through here, and we have been waiting ages!”
Gridhr knew that time flowed differently in the spae-realms, and it might well have seemed long to the two Thursar who had gone ahead of them. At a glimpse of movement and sense of clammy presence, she glanced over her left shoulder to see the other ugly mask leering at her as well. In a moment, she felt their fingers prodding and pinching her soul-skin, one set of fingers long and bony, the other thick as fire-tongs. Searching for something, Gridhr thought, though she had no idea what it was that they sought. She backhanded the nearest troll-wife, throwing into it the power of her bear-friend’s burly limbs as well as her own, and the owner of the thick fingers flew sprawling through the mists with a howl.
But the other voice muttered and whispered in her ear, eluding her blows and her grip. “I’ll find it, I’ll take it!” Gjalp hissed over and over.
Gridhr was stabbed with apprehension as the prodding fingers finally caught a grip on something, some part of her, some fiber of her being. Plucking delicately at it, trying to loosen but not break it, Gjalp gurgled and hissed and chuckled to herself.
“I’ll have it, I’ll have it, you’ll see!” The mad voice seemed a part of Gridhr’s very brain.
Gridhr felt a growing sense of panic. She could fight what she could see and understand, but she was completely bewildered by what was happening here. Gjalp was niggling away with her long, bony fingers at some part of herself that Gridhr could not identify, gripping it in a way that she did not understand. How was she to fight this? If she threw Gjalp away from her, would that part of herself be torn out and lost? What would happen to her then?
Gridhr called on her bear-friend and was relieved to see his dark bulk rising behind the form of the mad troll-wife. But then the bear’s head came up, looking away from the struggling giantesses into the mists, and in a moment he had turned away and shuffled off. He had never before deserted her; Gridhr’s surprise and hurt added to her confusion and growing panic as she struggled. She could not understand any of this.
Gridhr let out a roar as frustration and anger took over all sense of caution and clearheadedness, and prepared to tear the troll-wife to bits regardless of the consequences to herself. She shifted into berserk mode and thought no further than blood and mayhem, and the satisfaction that would bring her.
Gridhr had no sooner gotten a good stranglehold on the Thurs-wife’s neck, however, than she felt first a bone-deep quiver running through the other giantess’s soul-skin, and then a tearing scream echoed straight through her head. The troll-wife’s form faded into insubstantiality and drifted away, out of Gridhr’s grasp and sight.
Gridhr stood there panting, her whirling emotions causing her to feel dizzy and disoriented. She wondered where Skadhi and all their beast-friends were, and what in all the worlds was going on. A moment later she saw Skadhi coming toward her through the mists, accompanied by all four of their soul-beasts. Gridhr did not know whether to feel glad and relieved or furiously angry, and compromised by feeling all of them together.
Beyond words, Gridhr watched them come toward her, while her first and most urgent thoughts turned toward the otter and that which she guarded. To Gridhr’s unutterable relief, two tiny otterlets scampered behind the big one, frisking and nipping each others’ tails. Gridhr’s relief was so great that her anger drained away. She grabbed up all three otters and held them in her embrace, burying her face in their fur and shedding grateful tears. The otters licked her face and squirmed in her arms, much as she knew her own little ones would squirm and nuzzle at her later on, eager on the one hand to snuggle with her, and on the other wanting to get down and play. Laughing, she let them go, then turned to Skadhi with a sober, questioning look on her face.
“Will you finally tell me what that was all about, Skadhi? And what has happened, and will happen now? And why–to all of it?”
“Let’s go home, Gridhr, back to our bodies, and take care of matters there. We are not quite done with this, but should be soon if we move fast. Afterwards there will be time for talk.”
There had better be, muttered Gridhr to herself as they followed Skadhi’s sensible advice and allowed their bodies to draw their soul-skins back.
……..
Even by the dim light of a quarter moon they could see that the path they walked along, heading away from the cave, was the same one along which they had arrived, seemingly long ago but in actuality only a few hours. They left behind them two unconscious troll-wives lying face-down in a dead fire. One side of Greip’s face was deep black from the blow that Gridhr had struck her soul-skin. Gridhr hoped with all her heart that she would never find herself back in that cave nor in the company of such beastly folk again. Beastly, she thought, is certainly not the right word for it. Beasts are true to the best of their own natures, as those snoring abominations never were.
“Look around, Gridhr. Do you see anything different?”
Gridhr did so, unsure what she was looking for, but it did not take her long to perceive it. “I can see the land’s power beginning to return,” she said in surprise, and turned to look at her cousin.
“Yes, Gridhr–that is what I was about, there in the spaelands with those wretched troll-wives. When I saw what they were doing to their own lands, I decided someone must put a stop to this. Bad enough it is, to ruin what is theirs, but when they had sucked their lands dry, perhaps they would reach beyond to those of their neighbors–like us, Gridhr.”
“So what did you do?”
“While they were distracted trying to steal from you, I sought behind them until I found the cords that bind them to their land, and I pinched them off. I could not cut them away entirely; they were too strong. But I pinched them off tightly enough so that the the troll-wives will be able to draw very little power from their land, from now on. That’s why Greip did not come back after you gave her that mighty blow. She might have recovered–she is big and strong, after all, but her strength was gone after I pinched her cord. When I had taken care of her, I came and did the same thing to Gjalp. She lost her strength and faded back into her body again.”
“And not a moment too soon, Skadhi! She already had hold of some fiber of myself, and was trying to tug it loose. I was fighting with her, but I was afraid that if I was too violent with her she would jerk out this fiber she had hold of, and I would lose it–whatever it was. I don’t even know. I just know it was a part of my being, and I had no intention of giving it up to her.”
After a moment of silence, Gridhr’s sense of resentment took hold of her again. “I can see that what you did was a good thing, and agree that it needed to be done. But I’m still angry with you, Skadhi. You put me at risk, which is alright. We’ve both done that with each other before, and it’s always been for a good reason. But you put my children at risk as well, without my knowledge and agreement, and with no chance for me to prepare myself. That is a hard thing to forgive you for. For all we know, it might have been the children themselves that Gjalp was after! Did you think of that?”
Skadhi looked startled and shamefaced. “Gridhr, I…..I’m sorry that I didn’t think. The idea of you being a mother is new to me, and with the other matters going on, I must admit that this did not figure into my plans.”
An uncomfortable silence followed, as they trailed through the strange, moonlit landscape. Gridhr’s anger was still with her, and Skadhi felt shame and regret for her carelessness. She had to agree with Gridhr that risking the children was not justified, could not have been justified no matter how she argued. The thought of Gjalp plucking the life-threads of the children out of Gridhr’s soul-skin, as might well have happened, gave Skadhi the horrors. After about half an hour of walking, Skadhi drew a deep breath and spoke again.
“It is clear, Gridhr, that I owe your children wergild for this. I did them a wrong and I must pay for it. I give my oath that from now until they are grown and can defend themselves, I will be their faithful warder, as faithful as you are yourself. In all need, whether I am near or far from them, you and they must call on my aid and you will have it. I will give my life if there is need, or anything else I have that will help them. And with this, I ask for your forgiveness, and for theirs.”
Gridhr answered Skadhi formally, as her words required. “Your oath is witnessed and accepted, Skadhi, and well I know the value of it. My children’s lives will be the better for it.” Then momentarily, tears stung her eyes. She groped for Skadhi’s hand in the dark, and her touch was returned by Skadhi’s strong grip, callused from her constant work with her great bow. Forgiveness was given and taken without words.
“I should tell you for your ease, Skadhi, that my children were not unwarded, in spite of the unpreparedness of both you and me to do so. My otter-friend took that task upon herself, and well she accomplished it.” Gridhr went on to tell Skadhi what she had seen. In the dawning light of day, Gridhr saw a great smile break out on Skadhi’s face at this news.
“That otter is a powerful and wise beast indeed, Gridhr! I can see I owe her a gift as well, for giving her care where I failed to do so. We must find a stream or river now.”
The sun had not risen far above the horizon before they came to a sizeable stream, dappled by the shade of overhanging trees. Skadhi strung her bow and nocked an arrow to it, then stood as still as stone in the shadow of a tree, waiting. She waited for some little time, then as quickly as a thought, the arrow was gone from her bow and there was a great thrashing in the water. Skadhi and Gridhr both leaped into the stream and wrestled the huge, arrow-struck salmon onto the bank. They laid the salmon out on a sheaf of fresh green leaves after removing the arrow from it.
Gridhr called out to the otter-spirit, “Come, my friend, and take this gift from us that you have well-earned. Enjoy it, and may it make you still stronger and wiser than before! And may there be friendship between you and your offspring, and my children and their children, always. Our thanks and blessings to you!”
As the two giantesses turned to leave the place of offering, both cast longing glances back at the salmon.
“Well, Skadhi, my thanks for that splendid offering. Few there are, I know, who have the eye and hand to hunt with an arrow through the shifting surface of the water. Do you suppose, if we walked down to some other quiet spot of this stream, that you might hunt the same prey for our own breakfast?”
Skadhi gave a confident grin, shouldered her bow, and set off along the shady bank of the river with her cousin striding beside her.