Now bēow, 'grain, barley,' corresponds to Old Norse bygg, just as, corresponding to O.E. trīewe, we have O.N. tryggr, or corresponding to O.E. glēaw, O.N. glǫggr. Corresponding to the O.E. proper name Bēow, we might expect an O.N. name, the first letters in which would be Bygg(v)-.
And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the Old Comedy. When Loki strode into the Hall of Ægir, and assailed with clamour and scandal the assembled gods and goddesses, there were present, among the major gods, also Byggvir and his wife
Beyla, the servants of Frey, the god of agriculture and fertility. Loki reviles the gods, one after the other: at last he exchanges reproaches with Frey. To see his lord so taunted is more than Byggvir can endure, and he turns to Loki with the words:
Know thou, that were my race such as is that of Ingunar-Frey, and if I had so goodly a seat, finer than marrow would I grind thee, thou crow of ill-omen, and pound thee all to pieces[[540]].
Byggvir is evidently no great hero: he draws his ideas from the grinding of the homely hand-mill, with which John Barleycorn has reason to be familiar:
A miller used him worst of all,
For he crushed him between two stones[[541]].
Loki, who has addressed by name all the other gods, his acquaintances of old, professes not to know who is this insignificant being: but his reference to the hand-mill shows that in reality he knows quite well:
What is that little creature that I see, fawning and sneaking and snuffling: ever wilt thou be at the ears of Frey, and chattering at the quern[[542]].
Byggvir replies with a dignity which reminds us of the traditional characteristics of Sir John Barleycorn, or Allan O'Maut. For: