King Hadingus (aka Haddingus or Hadding), a legendary figure from Denmark’s oldest legends and folktales, was an early member of the Danish Skjoldung Dynasty who was said to have ruled an empire in Scandinavia. Hadingus was a warrior-king who was frequently campaigning at the frontiers of his realm, often personally battling his foes in Sweden and Norway. Many of Hadingus’ wars and raids were uneventful and quite mundane, but one particular campaign against the Swedes supposedly led King Hadingus into a wild saga of godly encounters, deadly curses, and a ritualistic redemption arc that left a long legacy on his local culture.
As the old stories go, after one of Hadingus’ attacks on the Swedes failed, the frustrated king decided to cool off, physically and mentally, by washing himself with seawater. The king, however, was not alone on the shore. He found himself face-to-face with a peculiar creature that the king assumed to be a sea monster. Not taking any time for observation or communication, Hadingus immediately drew his weapon and slew the odd being. It was a laborious fight, for the monstrous entity was remarkably resilient, but the legendary king was able to finally strike the thing down. Hadingus, as monster slayers are wont to do, brought the carcass of the creature back to his camp and celebrated his victory. Yet, in the midst of his revelry, a messenger of the gods arrived to bring ill-omened news for the king. Hadingus’ prey had been a benevolent deity and the killing of the benign god consequently resulted in a curse being placed on the monarch. A Danish historian called Saxo Grammaticus (c. 12th-13th centuries) recorded the tale. Starting with the king’s defeat at the hand of the Swedes, the historian wrote:
“Hadding was conquered and fled to Helsingland, where, while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown kind, and having killed it had it carried into camp. As he was exulting in this deed a woman met him and addressed him in these words:…All things shall be tainted and shall lament that thy lot is there. Thou shalt be shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than thou. Such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dwellers above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god!” (Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Book I).
Unfortunately for King Hadingus, the divine messenger’s prophecy came true. All manner of natural disasters began to strike the king’s realm, with powerful sea storms and overwhelming ice being the most destructive. Hadingus’ ships were wrecked in the windy tempests and his people’s livestock faced annihilation by relentless ice storms. With no end to the weather’s torment in sight, the king decided his only salvation would be through placating the gods and convincing them to remove or counteract the curse. To accomplish this goal, Hadingus organized a great sacrificial feast to win back divine favor. Saxo Grammaticus wrote, “he atoned by sacrifice for his crime, and was able to return into favour with heaven. For, in order to appease the deities, he sacrificed dusky victims to the god Frey. This manner of propitiation by sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow. This rite the Swedes call Froblod (the sacrifice or feast of Frey)” (Gesta Danorum, Book I). As the story goes, the sacrifice was a success, and the storms and ice began to abate. With his divine punishment averted, King Hadingus rebuilt his fleet and returned to his life of warfare while his people continued to perform annual sacrificial feasts for the god, Frey.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Costume Design for Siegfried, by Hans Thoma (1839-1924), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the National Museum in Warsaw).
Sources:
- The Danish History by Saxo Grammaticus, translated by Oliver Elton (Norroena Society, 1905) and edited for reprint by Douglas B. Killings (2012).
