[79]. The name of the great Ash.
[80]. Pigott’s Manual of Scandinavian Mythology.
[82]. This expression, we suppose, is for the sake of the metre.
[83]. The keys hung from the girdle of a housewife. They were wanted, we suppose, in Giant-land, as well as on earth. However, they were a symbol of marriage; and none could be effected without them.
[84]. Frost giants.
[85]. The Scandinavians reckoned by nights instead of days, and by winters instead of years.
[86]. This poem has been thus versified by the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, in his “Select Icelandic Poetry”:—
Wroth waxed Thor, when his sleep was flown, And he found his trusty hammer gone; He smote his brow, his beard he shook, The son of earth ’gan round him look; And this, the first word that he spoke; “Now listen what I tell thee, Loke; Which neither on earth below is known, Nor in Heaven above—my hammer’s gone.” Their way to Freyia’s bower they took, And this, the first word that he spoke; “Thou, Freyia, must lend a winged robe, To seek my hammer round the globe.”
Freyia (sung).—“That shouldst thou have, though ’twere of gold, And that, though ’twere of silver, hold.”[[87]] Away flew Loke; the wing’d robe sounds, Ere he has left the Asgard grounds, And ere he has reach’d the Jotunheim bounds. High on a mound in haughty state Thrym the king of the Thursi sate; For his dogs he was twisting collars of gold, And trimming the manes of his coursers bold.