Viking Romance
The Saga of Arrow-Odd
13th century, Old Norse.
The giant mother of Ogmund Eythjof's-Killer has taken on the form of a dragon.
Arrow-Odd and his new companions travel to England where they soon encounter the mother of Arrow-Odd’s perennial enemy, Ogmund Eythjof’s-Killer, who is a giantess but has now taken on the form of a creature with the head of a woman and – huge fangs, a long thick tail and talons of fantastic size with a great gleaming sword in each claw.
Arrow-Odd need not worry, for it has been foretold that he will live for three hundred years. and then a horse will kill him. The horse that it was prophesied would kill him has been long dead, killed by his own hand, but as he is walking near the place of its burial one day, much later in the story, he stumbles over this horse's skull. It has found its way to the surface again, a poisonous snake emerges from it and Odd dies of the bite.