Hamðir- Norse HeroHero
Also known as: Hamdir and Hamðir Jónakrsson
Description
Swords hew off the Gothic king's hands and feet, but the head remains because the brother they killed on the road is not there to strike the third blow. Stones fly where iron cannot bite, and the last of the Gjúkungs dies in a foreign hall.
Mythology & Lore
Guðrún's Last Vengeance
Guðrún Gjúkadóttir had survived the deaths of Sigurðr, Atli, and her sons by Atli, but one grief remained. Her daughter Svanhild, born of Sigurðr, had been accused of adultery with her stepson Randvér at the court of the Gothic king Jörmunrekr. On the counsel of the treacherous Bikki, Jörmunrekr had Randvér hanged and Svanhild trampled to death beneath horses' hooves. When the horses shied from her beauty, Bikki ordered a sack thrown over her face, and only then did the hooves find their mark (Guðrúnarhvöt 1-8, Poetic Edda; Völsunga saga ch. 42).
Guðrún turned to her surviving sons by her third husband Jónakr. She taunted Hamðir and Sörli for their inaction, comparing them unfavorably to her dead brothers Gunnarr and Högni, who would never have let such a killing go unavenged. Her goading worked. The brothers armed themselves and rode south toward Jörmunrekr's hall, though Guðrún knew she would never see them alive again (Guðrúnarhvöt 9-21).
The Road and the Killing
On the journey they met their half-brother Erpr, son of Jónakr by another woman. Erpr offered his help in riddling terms, saying he would aid them as hand aids foot. Hamðir and Sörli took his words for mockery and killed him on the road. Only later, when they broke into Jörmunrekr's hall and hacked off the king's hands and feet but could not take his head, did they understand what Erpr had meant: he would have been the third blow, the one that finished the work. "Off would be the head," Hamðir said, "if Erpr lived" (Hamðismál 26-28, Poetic Edda).
The brothers' attack left Jörmunrekr maimed but alive. As the Gothic warriors rallied, their weapons broke against Hamðir's and Sörli's enchanted war-coats, which no iron could pierce. Then a one-eyed old man appeared among the Goths and called out that the brothers should be stoned, for what iron could not harm, stone could shatter. The hall filled with hurled rocks, and Hamðir and Sörli fell under the weight of them. With them the line of the Gjúkungs perished (Hamðismál 29-31, Poetic Edda).