Aslaug- Germanic HeroHero
Also known as: Aslög, Kráka, and Randalin
Description
A murdered musician's harp concealed no treasure, only a child. After the deaths of Sigurd and Brunhild, their infant daughter Aslaug was hidden inside a hollow harp and smuggled across Norway, then raised under a false name with her beauty disguised by tar and rags.
Mythology & Lore
The Child in the Harp
According to the Ragnars saga Loðbrókar, after the deaths of Sigurd and Brunhild, the infant Aslaug was entrusted to Heimir, Brunhild's foster-father. To protect the child from enemies, Heimir concealed her inside a hollow harp and traveled the countryside disguised as a wandering musician. They arrived at a remote farmstead in Norway, where the farmer Áki and his wife Gríma murdered Heimir for the treasure they suspected he carried. Inside the harp they discovered not gold but a beautiful child.
The couple raised her as their own, naming her Kráka ("Crow") and smearing her with tar to disguise her beauty. They dressed her in rags and kept her as a servant.
The Riddle of Ragnar
When the Viking king Ragnar Lodbrok's men came ashore near the farmstead and saw the girl, they reported her to Ragnar. He devised a test of her wit, summoning her to come before him "neither dressed nor undressed, neither fasting nor eating, neither alone nor accompanied." Aslaug arrived wrapped in a fishing net, biting an onion, and accompanied by a dog. Ragnar married her.
The Serpent in the Eye
When Ragnar considered setting her aside to marry a Swedish princess, Aslaug revealed her true identity as the daughter of Sigurd and Brunhild. As proof, she prophesied that her next child would be born with the image of a serpent encircling his eye. When the boy Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye was indeed born with this sign, her claim was vindicated and Ragnar kept her as his queen.
Relationships
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