Böðvar Bjarki (Bjarke)

Bödvar Bjarki is the mightiest of Hrólf Kraki's champions — the bear-warrior at the heart of the great Danish legend, and the Norse cousin of Beowulf. Of a line touched by bear-nature, he is the strongest and most feared of the ring of heroes around King Hrólf at Lejre. His most famous deed comes at the king's last battle: while Bödvar's body sits as if entranced in the hall, a great bear fights at the front of Hrólf's line, dealing death no weapon can match — for the warrior's spirit has gone out in the shape of the beast. When a well-meaning friend rouses the seated Bödvar, the bear vanishes and the battle turns against the king. Bödvar Bjarki is the corpus's grandest image of the shape-strong warrior — the man whose fighting-soul takes the form of a bear, and whose loyalty to his king is so total that he gives his strange double life in the doomed defence of Hrólf's burning hall.