A rast in depth.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Only the women were at home, however, and Tyr recognized in the eldest—an ugly old hag with nine hundred heads—his own grandmother, while the youngest, a beautiful young giantess, his mother, hospitably received him and his companion and gave them a drink.
After learning their errand, this woman bade Tyr and Thor hide under some huge kettles resting upon a beam at the end of the hall, for her husband Hymir was very hasty and often slew his would-be guests with a single baleful glance. The gods had no sooner followed her advice than the old giant Hymir came in. When his wife told him that visitors had come, he frowned so portentously, and flashed such a wrathful look towards their hiding place, that the rafter split and the kettles fell with a crash, and were all dashed to pieces with the exception of the largest.
“In shivers flew the pillar
At the Jötun’s glance;
The beam was first
Broken in two.
Eight kettles fell,
But only one of them,