The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnfoder

"The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnföder" is an Icelandic fairy tale, included by Andrew Lang in The Crimson Fairy Book (1903). It was adapted from "das Pferd Gullfaxi und das Schwert Gunnfjödur", a German translation by Josef Poestion () in his Islandische Märchen (1884). Poestion acquired the Icelandic text from his contact, "Prof. Steingrimr Thorsteinsson",

This tale was the only one in Poestion's book that he did not derive from Jón Árnason's Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri Vol. 2 (1862–64), and hence the only one not orally sourced. The Icelandic text, "Sagan af hestinum Gullfaxa og sverðinu Gunnfjöður" was in the manuscript JS 287 4to, dated 1857-1870, now in the possession of the National and University Library of Iceland. The Icelandic text was eventually published in volume 4 (1956) of the full expanded edition of Jón Árnason's collection.

There are a number of other Icelandic tale specimens in the collection that feature a horse or sword of similar names: Glófaxi og Gunnfjöður,Sagan af hestinum Gullskó og sverðinu Gullfjöður,Þorsteinn karlsson og hesturinn Gullskór,Hesturinn Gullskór og sverðið Dynfjöður. The variants give different names of protagonists, featured motifs, etc.

A retold version of by Ruth Manning-Sanders, retitled "Sigurd the King's Son" is in her anthology, A Book of Ogres and Trolls (1972).

There was once a king whose queen bore her one son named Sigurd (Icelandic: Sigurður), but she died when the prince was ten years of age. The king grieved his loss for a long time, until one day at the queen's grave (or , a burial mound) he struck friendship with a woman named Ingiborg (Ingibjörg), and some days later the king married her. Sigurd became very fond of his stepmother.

One evening Ingiborg spoke to Sigurd and advised him to accompany the king on his hunt the following day. When Sigurd refused, Ingiborg predicted nothing good would come out of his refusal, and hid Sigurd under the bed during the king's absence. In a while, a giantess (or Icelandic: tröllkona "troll-woman" in the original) came to visit, addressing Ingiborg as her sister, pressing to know if Sigurd was home. Ingiborg entertained the giantess but persevered in deny Sigurd's presence. The process is repeated the following day, with another giantess asking for Sigurd, without success. The giantess who arrived the third time too would leave empty-handed, so it seemed, but she cleverly managed to lay a spell, which she said would work on Sigurd if he were within earshot. The spell left him horribly disfigured, half scorched and half withered, with an irrepressible longing to seek out the giantess to gain peace of mind.

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