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Overview
Helga searches for the lost cow Búkolla and reaches an ogress’s cave. Unlike her sisters, she does not steal the food; the ogress therefore spares her but imposes dangerous tasks. Dordingull appears as a hideous man with a dried, uneven skin jacket and phlegm hanging from his nose. He offers help in exchange for a kiss. Commanding a pickaxe and spade to dig, he recovers the brooch demanded by the ogress, although Helga cannot yet bring herself to kiss him.
He next guides her to the Dale-queen’s palace for a chess set. His warning enables Helga to avoid the hostile table implements and escape three pursuing wolves by feeding them portions of the queen’s food; the wolves die. When fixed bedding and an immovable slop pail make a final household task impossible, Dordingull can move them. He arranges a trap and tells Helga about the life-egg beneath the ogress’s pillow. Breaking it kills both the cave ogress and her sister, the Dale-queen.
Frightened by the resulting rumbling, Helga kisses Dordingull three times. Next morning a handsome prince lies beside her, with the Dordingull-shape separately beside him. She destroys that shape and the tale says his spell is ended. They marry, recover the cow and treasure, and eventually succeed his father as rulers. The source does not identify his enchanter, describe a permanent creature species or make Dordingull the sisters’ relative.
Origins & earliest records
Icelandic Legends, collected by Jón Árnason, translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkr Magnússon, second series (1866), Bukolla, pp. 511–519.
Records & interpretation
Complete first Búkolla narrative in the alternate surviving copy. The shared life-egg and discarded enchanted shape occur on pp. 518–519.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Icelandic Legends, second series: Bukolla, pp. 511–519
Complete Helga account, distinct from Another Story of another Bukolla on pp. 519–522.
Family, evolution & connections
Helga in the first Bukolla tale
After Helga burns the discarded Dordingull shape and sprinkles the prince with water, the narrative explicitly says he takes her as wife. This does not make Helga kin to either ogress.
Unnamed reigning father in the first Bukolla tale
The couple settles in the realm of the prince’s unnamed father and succeeds him after his death. The text supplies no further ancestry or identity for that king.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textIcelandic Legends, second series, alternate surviving 1866 copyResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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