To visit the remotest end
Of Utgard’s realm the chiefs pretend:
Not easy will this project prove
Through wastes of endless frost and snow;
At each third step they onward move
O’er the glazed frost, they fall back two.
The road, on which their course they bent,
Now form’d a deep and dark descent:
They grope along through ice and snow,
And though pitch dark, they hear cocks crow.