[32]. Helmet-stem: head.
[33]. The manuscripts have no superscription. Line 4 in the manuscripts is somewhat obscure, and Bugge, followed by some editors, suggests a reading which may be rendered (beginning with the second half of line 3): “No more can I speak / Ever again | as I spoke of old.”
[35]. The father of Mothi and Sif’s husband: Thor. [[149]]
[36]. The many-headed: The giants, although rarely designated as a race in this way, sometimes had two or more heads; cf. stanza 8, Skirnismol, 31 and Vafthruthnismol, 33. Hymir’s mother is, however, the only many-headed giant actually to appear in the action of the poems, and it is safe to assume that the tradition as a whole belongs to the period of Norse folk-tales of the märchen order.
[37]. No gap is indicated in the manuscripts. Some editors put the missing line as 2, some as 3, and some, leaving the present three lines together, add a fourth, and metrically incorrect, one from late paper manuscripts: “Who with Hymir | followed after.” Whales of the waste: giants.
[38]. According to Snorri, when Thor set out with Loki (not Tyr) for the giants’ land, he stopped first at a peasant’s house (cf. stanza 7 and note). There he proceeded to cook his own goats for supper. The peasant’s son, Thjalfi, eager to get at the marrow, split one of the leg-bones with his knife. The next morning, when Thor was ready to proceed with his journey, he called the goats to life again, but one of them proved irretrievably lame. His wrath led the peasant to give him both his children as [[150]]servants (cf. stanza 39). Snorri does not indicate that Loki was in any way to blame.
[39]. This deliberate introduction of the story-teller is exceedingly rare in the older poetry.
[40]. The translation of the last two lines is mostly guesswork, as the word rendered “gods” is uncertain, and the one rendered “at the autumn-time” is quite obscure. [[151]]