Seven Giants of Thorsteinn’s Tale

Overview

Thorsteinn enters an empty house with seven enormous beds and prepares food and bedding. Its returning inhabitants look more like trolls than men; the largest, their leader, protects the intruder because of the service he has performed. The prince stays as a paid cook and housekeeper. He receives keys to every room except one, which the chief giant visits morning and evening. Their welcome and wages therefore coexist with a secret the prince is forbidden to inspect.

After four years, Thorsteinn tricks the household into rushing outside and takes a dough impression of the leader’s key. In the locked room he finds an abducted princess suspended by her hair and starved because she refuses the giant’s proposed marriage. He secretly feeds her. Eventually he bargains for whatever the room contains as another year’s wages; the giant reluctantly agrees and later releases her, astonished by her restored health.

The household attacks after their departure: three giants first, two next, then the chief and his brother. Thorsteinn kills the first six, but the leader throws away his weapon and wrestles him to the ground. The princess kills the last giant with an axe and helps free Thorsteinn from beneath the body. Their rescue is subsequently threatened by the false claimant Raudr, a separate human antagonist. The tale does not turn the household’s seven members into one seven-headed creature, and only one of his six companions is explicitly identified as the leader’s brother.

Origins & earliest records

Icelandic Legends, second series (1866), The Story of Thorsteinn, the King’s Son, pp. 527–540.

Records & interpretation

Complete narrative from the prince’s prodigality through stable revelation and royal succession; anonymous figures are not supplied invented personal names.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Icelandic Legends, second series: The Story of Thorsteinn, the King’s Son, pp. 527–540

   Collected by Jón Árnason; translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkr Magnússon · 1866

   Complete collected tale. Seven-giant household pp. 531–538; returned debtor pp. 539–540.

Family & connections

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textIcelandic Legends, surviving 1866 alternate copyResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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