Hotherus-Svipdag's perilous journey across the frosty mountains, mentioned by Saxo, is predicted by Groa in her seventh incantation of protection over her son:
thann gel ek thér in sjaunda, ef thik sækja kemr frost á fjalli há hávetrar kuldi megit thinu holdi fara, ok haldisk æ lik at lidum.
[5] According to Gheysmer's synopsis. Saxo himself says nothing of the kind. The present reading of the passage in Saxo is distinctly mutilated.
[6] This Bugge, too, has observed, and he rightly assumes that the episode concerning the sword has been interpolated from some other source.
[7] This analysis will be given in the second part of this work in the treatise on the Balder-myth.
SVIPDAG'S SYNONYM EIREKR. ERICUS DISERTUS IN SAXO.
We have not yet exhausted Saxo's contributions to the myth concerning Svipdag. In two other passages in his _Historia Danica_ Svipdag reappears, namely, in the accounts of the reigns of Frode III. and of Halfdan Berggram, in both under the name Ericus (_Eirekr_), a name applied to Svipdag in the mythology also (see No. 108).
The first reference showing that Svipdag and Erik are identical appears in the following analogies:
Halfdan (Gram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Svipdag.
Halfdan (Berggram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Erik.
Svipdag is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.
Erik is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.
Saxo's account of King Frode is for the greater part the myth about Frey told as history. We might then expect to find that Svipdag, who becomes Frey's brother-in-law, should appear in some _rôle_ in Frode's history. The question, then, is whether any brother-in-law of Frode plays a part therein. This is actually the case. Frode's brother-in-law is a young hero who is his general and factotum, and is called Ericus, with the surname _Disertus_, the eloquent. The Ericus who appears as Halfdan's enemy accordingly resembles Svipdag, Halfdan's enemy, in the fact that he is a son of the daughter of the Swedish king slain by Halfdan. The Ericus who is Frode-Frey's general, again, resembles Svipdag in the fact that he marries Frode-Frey's sister. This is another indication that Erik and Svipdag were identical in Saxo's mythic sources.