VI.[°] Bring up the child, etc. It was customary for men in high station to send their children to be brought up and educated in the houses of relatives and friends.
Reithgotaland is here explained as Jutland; but in ch. 9, Heithrek's subjects are described as Gotar, i.e. Goths; and in the latter part of the Saga, from ch. 12 onwards, the subject is clearly a war between the Goths and Huns. The earliest occurrence of the word (in the Swedish Inscription of Rök; cf. also Vafþrúþnismál, str. 12) gives not Reithgotaland, but Hraithgotaland, which suggests that the name may be connected in some way with Hrethgotan, a name applied to the Goths in Anglo-Saxon poetry.
VII.[°] Divination. The phrase means literally, 'The casting of bits of wood at the sacrifice.' Cf. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 10.
Every second man. annanhvárn, apparently for annanhvern.
Hall of the Dís. It is not clear who the dís was, as the word is used rather loosely for supernatural female beings. Another reference to the Hall of the Dís occurs in Ynglingasaga, ch. 33. One of the goddesses (Freyja?) may be meant; or it may be the guardian spirit of the family.
VIII.[°] Land of the Saxons. Cf. the Tháttr of Nornagest, ch. 10 and note.
Sifka and Hlöth. The names here mentioned, together with Heithrek and Angantyr, are believed by some scholars to recur in Widsiþ, l. 116, where we find