Hrog and Dare

The great love story known by everyone in the country is the tale of two albatrosses.

Hrog was a warrior, greatest of his clan. He served his king well, winning many battles, and was honored for his prowess. Then one day, leading his king's warriors into battle, he faced a woman who roared at him with a ferocity equal to his own. 

And Hrog respected her. 

Their armies clashed, and the battle was mighty. After a day and a night, as the dawn broke, Hrog's warriors began to fail. He thought he would watch his fighters be slaughtered, but the woman ordered her warriors to refrain, saying they had fought well and deserved to retreat with their lives and honor. 

And Hrog was grateful to her.

Two days later, Hrog stopped to look over a valley as his warriors walked on. He mused how he would break the news of this loss to his king. He was surprised by a small, lean man who introduced himself as a courtier of the rival at the hands of whose army Hrog had just suffered defeat, and he asked if Hrog would negotiate a different kind of resolution. He promised to deliver the princess and the kingdom, whom Hrog had seen on the battlefield, if Hrog would promote him when he came into power.

Hrog promised to return to the man. When they entered the city of the rival king, Hrog disguised himself as the man directed and they went to the king's stronghold. As they entered the fortress, Hrog threw off his concealing cloak and announced himself, saying to the king and his court, including the watching princess, that he had been brought by the treacherous courtier and that such a brave and honorable woman deserved better than to be bartered like cargo for traitorous gain. The king looked at the aghast courtier, who tried to protest his innocence, but he had brought Hrog into the fortress and his guilt was quickly determined. The king struck him down himself.

The princess, impressed with Hrog's honesty and unwillingness to take advantage of dishonorable aid, said he would be welcome to stay one week, guaranteed safe under the binding laws of hospitality, though he was a warrior of the enemy. Hrog stayed with the court, coming to know the princess Dare.

And Hrog loved her.

They were married, and he stayed with the court another three months. Then she agreed to return to him to his own king, to announce the new alliance they had forged with their marriage.

But Hrog's king had heard first of the defeat and then of Hrog's disappearance, and he had been told that Hrog had fled to avoid reporting his failure. When word came of Hrog's approach, with a woman of the rival kingdom and servants, a jealous captain suggested to the king that Hrog had defected after the defeat -- had perhaps defected before it and so had arranged the defeat -- and was coming now to demand the king's surrender.

The king called his wizard, a cunning man who who hated those who held the king's favor and loved magic for the chaos it could bring. The wizard promised the king he could devise a spell which would sound Hrog's heart. If Hrog were loyal to the king after all, he would be unaffected, but if Hrog came with ill in his heart, the king would see him unmade and punished for his ill intentions.

Of course this was a lie; magic cannot discern the desire of one's heart. But the king did not understand magic and took the wizard at his word.

And so, as Hrog and Dare rode to the gate, the king and the wizard stood atop the wall, and the wizard set his spell. Regardless of the intention of Hrog's heart, the spell changed him into an albatross, and in confusion he rose and circled into the air.

At the sight of this magical attack, Princess Dare turned her horse and galloped away, and the wizard delighted in the distress and confusion. He pointed after her and told the king this was proof of her complicit ill will against the rightful king. 

The king sent his warriors in pursuit of the princess. She fled before them, for she had come as a princess expecting welcome and not as a warrior, and she had no weapon in her hand while they had swords and bows. The king's men cut down her servants, but she continued to flee.

She took refuge in a dark forest, hiding among the tangles of the woods. She smeared her fine dress and her skin with mud to mute their brightness in the night. She hid in a thicket all the cold night, and when the dawn came she saw a mad witch's house.

Now the difference between a wizard and a witch is the king's favor, and this witch had served the king's father but had been banished when he came to the throne. She had no love for him, and she welcomed the princess into her hut and listened to her tearful story of what seemed like betrayal.

The witch took pity on the princess and offered to help her to return home undetected. But Dare asked if Hrog her husband might still be alive and himself, since she had seen him transform and fly away.

The witch said he was certainly alive, if she had seen him flying, and that he was himself in mind, because magic could not change an essence, only a form.

(Note, young reader, that this is a tale of magic, and your mage masters will tell you it cannot change form any more than it can change essence or discern the heart's intent. But this is a tale and should be accepted for more than its inaccurate recounting.)

Princess Dare said she would not leave her new husband trapped in the form of a bird and alone.

The witch then turned the princess into an albatross as well, and Princess Dare went to find her husband Hrog.

But Hrog, shocked and confused in his new form, had fled to the sea. Dare searched among the birds of the rocks, calling and calling in her albatross's voice, never knowing if he would understand her.

At last she saw other albatrosses taking flight for their long journeys, and in hope and despair she joined them.

In the meantime, Princess Dare's father had sent to learn why he had not heard from his daughter or a confirmation of the new peace, and the ugly truth of the wizard's betrayal finally was made clear. He was beheaded, and the two kings set a reward for the discovery of Hrog and Dare. Many birds were brought to the kings, but none seemed to be great warriors in albatross form.

On a far island, Dare found Hrog, and the two danced and piped together. They lived a season on the island, taking comfort in each other's company, and then when the winds were favorable they, with the other albatrosses, flew home.

They did not trust to fly to Hrog's king, not after what had been done, so they flew to Dare's father. The appearance of two albatrosses in the courtyard was important news, and the king dashed into the courtyard to see if they were the birds he had long sought. They bowed and piped to him, and the court rejoiced, and word went out that a wizard was needed to return them.

Alas, said the witch who came (though no longer a witch, now that she answered a king's call, but a sorceress), that the wizard who had cast Hrog's spell had died with it unbroken, for now the spell could not be wholly undone.

(Again, students and young readers, this is not the way of magic as we know it. Answering thusly on your exams will result in poor marks.)

She could but partly undo the spell, but each year on the day he had been cursed, he would again become an albatross for twenty eight days.

Dare immediately said that she wished to bear the same curse, to accompany her husband.

Hrog's king came to view the bending of the spell (for it could not be broken), and all perceived some brittle air between them as they faced one another for the first time since before the fateful battle. The king knew that he enjoyed an alliance owed solely to Hrog, but whether he would have apologized and asked Hrog's forgiveness will never be known, for Dare spoke first. She said that a king should have known his servants, that Hrog should not have been even suspected, much less punished without having been asked to give an accounting of his actions. She said that if the king had the faith in Hrog that she had, he would have done well, but as he had stolen honor from his most loyal warrior, he would be known as a thief for all his days.

At that moment, the sorceress cast her own spell.

Each year, on the anniversary of the day Hrog had been cursed, the three of them were transformed. Hrog and Dare became albatrosses, soaring high over the kingdoms, and for this reason albatrosses were honored and presented with tidbits, for one did not know if one greeted a bird or a warrior. The king who did not consider the character of those sworn to him became a frigate bird, and he was reviled for his theft of fish from other sea birds.

Dare's devotion is honored still, and Hrog and Dare are esteemed for a legendary romance.