The Witch in the Stone Boat

"The Witch in the Stone Boat" (Icelandic: Skessan á steinnökkvanum 'the giantess in the stone boat') is an Icelandic folktale, originally collected by Jón Árnason (1864), translated into English in Andrew Lang's fairy tale collection The Yellow Fairy Book (1894).

"Skessan á steinnökkvanum" (literally 'The skessa [giantess] in the stone boat'),[a] was a selection in Jón Árnason's folktale/fairy tale collection, Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri Vol.

[4] It was later translated into German as "Die Riesin in dem Steinboote" ('The giantess in the stone-boat') by Josef Poestion [de] in Isländische Märchen (1884),[5][6] a known source of Icelandic tales for Andrew Lang.

[7] Andrew Lang's English translation "The Witch in the Stone Boat" appeared in the Yellow Fairy Book,[8] whose first edition was published in 1894.

The little boy who used to be such a quiet child hardly stopped crying since that day, so he had to be given up to be raised by a wet nurse (or foster mother fostrá), one of the court ladies.

Two young courtiers who were in the habit of playing chess (actually Tafl games)in the room next to the queen eavesdropped and spied on her through a crack.

And through the floor of her room appeared her brother, a three-headed giant (þríhöfðaður þussi[c]), who brought her a trough full of meat, which she devoured.

When the wet nurse turned the [candle-]light on,[e] several planks from the floor rose up, and from underneath appeared an astonishingly beautiful white-clad woman, dressed in linen.

The next night, King Sigurd was in the nurse's room with a drawn sword in hand, awaiting the woman, whom he instantly recognized as his own wife.

The three-headed giant had tried to force her to marry him (actually, to sleep with him),[g] and at last she consented provided she could visit her son for three consecutive days, hoping for an opportunity to be liberated.