When, therefore, Odin presented himself before the king’s palace he was dragged into Geirrod’s presence and questioned roughly. He gave his name as Grimnir, but refused to tell whence he came or what he wanted, so as this reticence confirmed the suspicion suggested to the mind of Geirrod, he allowed his love of cruelty full play, and commanded that the stranger should be bound between two fires, in such wise that the flames played around him without quite touching him, and he remained thus eight days and nights, in obstinate silence, without food. Now Agnar had returned secretly to his brother’s palace, where he occupied a menial position, and one night when all was still, in pity for the suffering of the unfortunate captive, he conveyed to his lips a horn of ale. But for this Odin would have had nothing to drink—the most serious of all trials to the god.
At the end of the eighth day, while Geirrod, seated upon his throne, was gloating over his prisoner’s sufferings, Odin began to sing—softly at first, then louder and louder, until the hall re-echoed with his triumphant notes—a prophecy that the king, who had so long enjoyed the god’s favour, would soon perish by his own sword.
“The fallen by the sword
Ygg shall now have;
Thy life is now run out:
Wroth with thee are the Dísir:
Odin thou now shalt see:
Draw near to me if thou canst.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
As the last notes died away the chains dropped from his hands, the flames flickered and went out, and Odin stood in the midst of the hall, no longer in human form, but in all the power and beauty of a god.