But when the bandage was removed, she discovered to her secret chagrin that she had chosen Niörd, to whom her troth was plighted, and with whom she nevertheless spent a very happy honeymoon in Asgard, where all seemed to delight in doing her honor. This time passed, however; Niörd took his bride home to Nôatûn, where the monotonous sound of the waves, the shrieking of the gulls, and the cries of the seals so disturbed Skadi’s slumbers that she finally declared it was quite impossible for her to remain there any longer, and implored her husband to take her back to her native Thrym-heim.
“Sleep could I not
On my sea-strand couch,
For screams of the sea fowl.
There wakes me,
When from the wave he comes,
Every morning the mew (gull).”
Norse Mythology (R. B. Anderson).
Niörd, anxious to please his new wife, consented to take her to Thrym-heim and dwell there with her nine nights out of every twelve, providing she would spend the remaining three with him at Nôatûn; but when he reached the mountain region, the soughing of the wind in the pines, the thunder of the avalanches, the cracking of the ice, the roar of the waterfalls, and the howling of the wolves appeared to him as unbearable as the sound of the sea had seemed to his wife, and he could not but rejoice when his time of exile was ended, and he once more found himself domiciled at Nôatûn.
“Am weary of the mountains;