Ulrikke (short Story)

"Ulrikke" (original Spanish title: "Ulrica") is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, collected in the anthology The Book of Sand. It is notable because it is one of the few of Borges' stories in which women and sex play a central role. The story begins with an epigraph quoting a verse of Chapter 27 of Volsunga saga, "Hann tekr sverðit Gram ok leggr i meðal þeira bert", which means: "He takes the sword Gram and lays it bare between them". The short story is about a meeting between Ulrica, a Norwegian woman, and a Colombian teacher, Javier Otálora (who tells the story), in York. In this meeting, the couple falls in love each other and takes possession of the names of the heroes of the legendary saga contained in the epigraph: Brynhild and Sigurd, respectively.

Jorge Luis Borges
Bibliography
Original
collections
A Universal History of Infamy
"On Exactitude in Science"
Ficciones
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
"The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim"
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"
"The Circular Ruins"
"The Lottery in Babylon"
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain"
"The Library of Babel"
"The Garden of Forking Paths"
"Funes the Memorious"
"The Form of the Sword"
"Theme of the Traitor and the Hero"
"Death and the Compass"
"The Secret Miracle"
"Three Versions of Judas"
"The End"
"The Sect of the Phoenix"
"The South"
The Aleph
"The Immortal"
"The Dead Man"
"The Theologians"
"Emma Zunz"
"The House of Asterion"
"Deutsches Requiem"
"Averroes's Search"
"The Zahir"
"The Writing of the God"
"The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths"
"The Wait"
"The Aleph"
Dreamtigers
"Borges and I"
Dr. Brodie's Report
"The Encounter"
"The Gospel According to Mark"
The Book of Sand
"The Other"
"Ulrikke"
"The Congress"
"There Are More Things"
"The Disk"
"The Book of Sand"
Shakespeare's Memory
"Blue Tigers"
"Shakespeare's Memory"
Other works
  • A New Refutation of Time
  • Borges on Martín Fierro
  • "El Golem"
  • Book of Imaginary Beings
  • Labyrinths
Fictional works,
characters etc.
  • Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge
  • The Conversation with the Man Called Al-Mu'tasim
  • H. Bustos Domecq
  • Pedro Mata
  • Uqbar