THE SCENE: The heroes Smid and Herraud meet their match when they fight against King Harek who is schooled in black magic. Fortunately, they get assistance in the form of a shape-shifting ally, and the battle of the werebeasts begins.
THE TEXT: Smid was fighting bravely. King Harek boarded his ship with twelve men and mowed down anyone in his way. Smid turned to face him and struck at him with the knife that the old crone Busla had given him, because only charmed weapons would bite him. The blow hit him in the teeth and knock all of them out, breaking his upper jaw and splitting both lips, and plenty of blood gushed from his mouth. He reacted to this blow so violently that he turned into a flying dragon and spewed poison over the ship, and many men died.
Now the men saw a bird flying down from the land, the kind called a skerry-vulture. It has such a huge and hideous head that it’s compared with the devil. It rushed at the dragon, and their attack was terrifying. Their encounter ended when they both fell down; the skerry-vulture fell into the sea, but the dragon landed on [the] ship.
King Harek came to his senses and suddenly turned into a wild boar. He seized Herraud with his tusks and tore off all his armor, and sunk his teeth in his breast and ripped off both his nipples to the bone. Herraud struck at the boar’s snout in return and cut it off in front of the eyes. Herraud was so exhausted that he fell on his back, and the boar trampled him underfoot, but couldn’t bite him because his snout was cut off. Then a huge and deadly bitch-hound with great big fangs came onto the ship. She tore a hole in the boar’s groin and pulled out his intestines and leaped overboard. Harek turned into human shape and plunged overboard after her. They both sunk to the bottom, and neither one came up after that.
People think that [the bitch-hound] must have been the old crone Busla, because she was never seen again.
– The Saga of Bosi and Herraud, 14th Century AD
