The saga of the hero Einar Light-Bringer tells of the pursuit of a monster in the sunless wastes, of the lives she drank and the devastation she left behind her. Enveloped in darkness, she thought herself safe. But she hungered fiercely, and in time her pain drove her to the place where Einar and his men lay waiting. And Einar, unbeknownst to her, had been gifted by the god Baldr a miniature sun. When he pulled it from his pocket, it dispelled the darkness and turned her to stone.
Most surviving texts end there, preferring to present the legend as a victory. They make no mention of the six she felled before the light struck her, including Einar’s only son. They do not describe how Einar wept as he cut the still-warm heart from his child’s chest and it petrified in his hands.
When the hunting party did not return, men from the village set out to recover them. They found Einar there, frozen in the snow, heart in one hand and sun in the other.
And of the vampire, they say only that she was called Millarca, and that when the men found her, her heart was still beating.
