[120] He is actually a reduplication of Thor; for his name means thunder, as does Thor’s. Thor is of course much more than a god of thunder only; but his hammer is undoubtedly the thunder-bolt. Thrym represents the same power associated with beings of frost and snow, the winter thunder, in fact. This stealing Thor’s hammer is merely a repetition of the idea implied by his name and character.
[121] Which Freyja wore.
[122] Giant does not really translate Thurs. Most of the Thursar were giants as opposed to the Dvargar, the dwarfs. But this Alvîs (all-wise) is spoken of as a dwarf.
[123] There is a clear recollection of this in the end of Rumpelstiltskin.
[124] This story, be it said, comes only from the younger Edda. No hint of it in the older.
[125] ‘Beowulf,’ we have said, is thought to have been first composed in English at the end of the seventh century. There was probably an earlier and more simple version of the poem which has come down to us. I do not mean to say that either Beowulf or Sigurd are simply personifications of the sun; only that some of their belongings and adventures have descended to them from sun-heroes.
[126] Valkyria, sing.; Valkyriur, pl.
[127] Kinder-u. Hausmärchen.
[128] I.e. the sky. See Grimm, Deutsche Myth., s.v. (Hackelberg); and also two very interesting articles by A. Kühn, Zeitsch. für deutsch. Alterth., v. 379, vi. 117, showing relationship of Hackelbärend and the Sârameyas.
[129] These twelve nights occupy in the middle-age legends the place of a sort of battle-ground between the powers of light and darkness. One obvious reason of this is that they lie in midwinter, when the infernal powers are the strongest. Another reason, perhaps, is that they lie between the great Christian feast and the great heathen one, the feast of Yule. Each party might be expected to put forth its full power.