Michael Ridpath - Where the Shadows Lie

The name cropped up several times on each page. Isildur wasn’t a bit player in this saga, he was a main character.

‘Wow,’ said Arni. ‘Shall we take it back to headquarters to get forensics to look at it?’

‘I’m going to read it,’ Magnus said. ‘Then forensics can take a look.’

So he sat down in a comfortable armchair, and began to read, passing each page carefully to Arni as he finished with it.

Isildur and Gaukur were two brothers who lived at a farm called Stong. Isildur was strong and brave with dark hair. He had a hare lip and some people thought he was ugly. He was a skilled carver of wood. Gaukur, although two years younger than Isildur, was even stronger. He had fair hair and was very handsome, but he was vain. He was an expert with a battleaxe. Both brothers were honest and popular in the region.

Their father, Trandill, wanted to pay a visit to his uncle in Norway and to go on Viking raids. Their mother had died when the boys were small, so Trandill sent them to a friend, Ellida-Grimur of Tongue, to be fostered. Ellida-Grimur agreed to manage the farm at Stong in Trandill’s absence. Ellida-Grimur had a son, Asgrimur, who was the same age as Isildur. The three boys became fast friends.

Trandill was away for three years, spending the summers raiding and trading in the Baltic and in Ireland, and the winters with his uncle, Earl Gandalf the White, in Norway.

One day a traveller returning to Iceland from Norway arrived at Tongue with a message. Trandill had been killed in a fight with Erlendur, Earl Gandalf’s son. Gandalf was willing to pay the compensation that was due to Trandill’s sons, and to hand over the inheritance if one of the brothers would come to Norway to collect it.

When Isildur was nineteen, he decided to travel to Norway to visit his great uncle and claim his inheritance. Gandalf and his son Erlendur welcomed him with great warmth and hospitality. Gandalf said that Erlendur had killed Trandill in self-defence when Trandill had attacked him in a drunken rage. The other men at the court who had witnessed Trandill’s death agreed that this was the case.

Isildur decided to spend the summer on Viking raids with Erlendur. They went to Courland and Karelia in the East Baltic. Isildur was a brave warrior and won much booty. After many adventures, he returned to the house of Gandalf a wealthy man.

Isildur told Gandalf that he wanted to return to Iceland. Gandalf gave Isildur the compensation he was owed for his father’s death, and also Trandill’s treasure. But the night before Isildur was due to set sail, Gandalf said he had something else to give him. It was locked in a small chest.

Inside was an ancient ring.

Gandalf explained that Trandill had won the ring on a raid in Frisia when he had fought the famous warrior chieftain, Ulf Leg Lopper. Ulf Leg Lopper was ninety years old, but he appeared to be no older than forty and he was still a fearsome fighter. After a long struggle, Trandill felled him. He saw the ring on Ulf Leg Lopper’s finger and chopped the finger off.

Despite the fact that he was dying, Ulf Leg Lopper smiled. ‘I give you thanks for relieving me of my burden. I found this ring in the River Rhine seventy years ago. I have worn it every day since then. During that time I have won great victories and wealth in battle. Yet although I wear the ring, I feel that the ring owns me. It will bring you great power, but then it will bring you death. And now I can die, in peace at last.’

Trandill examined the ring. Inside were inscribed in runes the words ‘The Ring of Andvari’. He was going to ask Ulf more about the ring, but when he looked down, Ulf was dead, a smile on his face, no longer a great warrior, but a wrinkled old man.

Gandalf told Isildur the legend of the ring. It had belonged to a dwarf named Andvari, who used to fish by some waterfalls. The ring was seized from Andvari, together with a hoard of gold, by Odin and Loki, two ancient gods. Andvari laid a curse on the ring, saying it would take possession of its bearer and use the bearer’s power to destroy him, and would continue to do so until it was taken home to Hel. [Translator’s footnote: Hel was the domain of Hel, the goddess of death and Loki’s daughter.]

Odin, foremost of the gods, reluctantly gave the ring to a man named Hreidmar as compensation for killing his son. The ring had drawn great power from Odin. In the following years the ring fell into the possession of a number of keepers, each of which was corrupted, including Hreidmar’s son Fafnir, who became a dragon; the hero Sigurd; the Valkyrie Brynhild and Sigurd’s sons Gunnar and Hogni. Everywhere it went it left a trail of treachery and murder in its wake, until finally it was hidden by Gunnar in the Rhine so that his father-in-law Atli could not get hold of it.

There it lay for centuries until it was found by Ulf Leg Lopper.

When Trandill returned to Norway he was a changed man: secretive, cunning and selfish. He constantly taunted Erlendur and one evening, in a drunken rage, he attacked him. Erlendur killed him with a lucky blow.

Erlendur was going to take the ring, but Gandalf laid claim to it. That evening he put it on. At once he felt different: stronger, powerful, and also greedy.

Later that evening a Sami sorceress from the North knocked at the door of Gandalf’s house seeking shelter. She saw that Gandalf was wearing the ring. She was overcome with terror and tried to leave into the night, but Gandalf stopped her. He demanded to know what she had seen.

She said that the ring had a terrible power. It would consume all who owned it, until a man so powerful wore it that he would rule the world and destroy everything good in it. The world would be plunged into eternal darkness.

Gandalf was concerned. He could feel the effect that the ring was having on him, but he was not yet in its power. He took off the ring at once and told the sorceress that he would destroy it. She said that the only way the ring could be destroyed was as Andvari had prophesied; it must be thrown into the mouth of Hel.

‘Tell me, woman, where is Hel?’

‘It is a mountain in the land of fire and ice,’ the sorceress replied.

‘I know where she means,’ said Erlendur. ‘Trandill told me of it. It is Hekla, a great volcano near his farm at Stong.’

So Gandalf decided never to wear the ring again and to keep it safe for Trandill’s sons. He told Isildur to take the ring to Hekla in Iceland and throw it into the volcano.

That night Isildur had a dream that he was leading a glorious raiding party through England and he won a hoard of gold. He woke up before it was light and put on the ring. Immediately he felt taller, stronger, invincible. And he was determined to earn an even greater fortune overseas.

He went to Gandalf and demanded that the earl give him a ship and permit him to lead a raiding party to England. Gandalf saw he was wearing the ring and ordered him to take it off. Isildur felt a surge of anger shoot through him. He took up an axe and was just about to split Gandalf’s skull when Erlendur grabbed him from behind.

As they struggled, Erlendur shouted: ‘Stop, Isildur. You don’t know what you are doing! It is the ring! You will make me have to kill you just like I killed your father!’

Isildur felt a burst of strength course through his veins and he threw Erlendur off him. He raised his axe high above the defenceless Erlendur. But when he looked down on his cousin and his friend with whom he had shared so many adventures that summer, he stopped himself. He threw down the axe and pulled the ring off his finger. He replaced the ring in its box and left for Iceland immediately.

He returned home to Iceland with the ring and his treasure. Gaukur had taken over the management of the farm at Stong, and was betrothed to a woman named Ingileif. When Asgrimur heard that Isildur had returned he travelled to Stong to meet his foster-brother. Isildur told his brother and his foster-brother about his adventures in Norway and the Baltic. Then he told them all about Andvari’s Ring, and Earl Gandalf’s instruction that he toss it into Hekla. He described the immense sense of power he had felt when he put on the ring, and the constant temptation to try it on again. He said that he intended to take the ring up the mountain the very next day and he asked Gaukur and Asgrimur to accompany him to make sure that he went through with the quest.