[88]. This stanza follows stanza 89 in the manuscript. Many editors have changed the order, for while stanza 89 is pretty clearly an interpolation wherever it stands, it seriously interferes with the sense if it breaks in between 87 and 88. [[48]]
[96]. Here begins the passage (stanzas 96–102) illustrating the falseness of woman by the story of Othin’s unsuccessful love-affair with Billing’s daughter. Of this person we know nothing beyond what is here told, but the story needs little comment. [[49]]
[102]. Rask adds at the beginning of this stanza two lines from a late paper manuscript, running:
“Few are so good | that false they are never
To cheat the mind of a man.”
He makes these two lines plus lines 1 and 2 a full stanza, and lines 3, 4, 5, and 6 a second stanza. [[50]]
[103]. With this stanza the subject changes abruptly, and apparently the virtues of fair speech, mentioned in the last three lines, account for the introduction, from what source cannot be known, of the story of Othin and the mead of song (stanzas 104–110).
[104]. The giant Suttung (“the old giant”) possessed the magic mead, a draught of which conferred the gift of poetry. Othin, desiring to obtain it, changed himself into a snake, bored his way through a mountain into Suttung’s home, made love to the giant’s daughter, Gunnloth, and by her connivance drank up all the mead. Then he flew away in the form of an eagle, leaving Gunnloth to her fate. While with Suttung he assumed the name of Bolverk (“the Evil-Doer”).
[105]. Rati (“the Traveller”): the gimlet with which Othin bored through the mountain to reach Suttung’s home. [[51]]
[106]. Probably either the fourth or the fifth line is a spurious addition.