[92] Skidbladner, name of the bark given by Gerda to Frey. The following is probably the explanation of this mythe. Frey signifies the sun; Gerda, the earth. Skidbladner signifies the clouds or vapours extracted from the earth by the rays of the sun. See Skidbladner in the Alphabetical Catalogue.
[93] Hringhorn; name of Balder’s bark. The language of the ancient Scandinavians was highly poetical and metaphorical. A ship was often compared to an animal, and its masts to the horns of the said animal; the masts were made fast with iron rings round their circumference, and this I take to be the surest etymology of the word Hringhorn or Ringhorn. The ships of the Vikings were long and deep, and had usually but one mast.
[94] Naglefare: See the Catalogue.
[95] It seems to me as if the author has taken this idea from the account given in Cook’s voyages of the women of Otaheite swimming off from the shore to the ship, to look out for lovers among the sailors.
[96] I here acknowledge a plagiarism from Dryden, in his quaint translation of the Novimus et qui te in the Third Bucolic of Virgil.
[97] Alludes to Thor and his companions’ adventure related in the Second Canto.
NOTES TO THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CANTO.
The metre in the original is in couplets as follows:
Hen Loke flöd i Havet, som Orm, sli̱meṯ blaa,