Ut á mar mætir
mannskædr lagar tanna
ræsinadr til rausnar
rak vebrautar Nökkva.
In prose order: Lagar tanna mannskædr mætir út á mar rak rausnar ræsinadr til Nökkva vebrautar ("The assailants of the skerry (the teeth of the sea), dangerous to man, flung out upon the sea the splendid serpent of the vessel's stem to the holy path of Nokve").
All interpreters agree that by "the skerry's assailants, dangerous to man," is meant the waves which are produced by the storm and rush against the skerries in breakers dangerous to seamen. It is also evident that Hornklofve wanted to depict the violence of the sea when he says that the billows which rise to assail the skerry tosses the ship, so that the figure-head of the stem reaches "the holy path of Nokve." Poems of different literatures resemble each other in their descriptions of a storm raging at sea. They make the billows rise to "the clouds," to "the stars," or to "the moon." Quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam, jam tacturos sidera summa putes, Ovid sings (Trist., i. 18, 19); and Virgil has it: Procella fluctus ad sidera tollit (Æn., i. 107). One of their brother skalds in the North, quoted in Skaldskaparmal (ch. 61), depicts a storm with the following words:
Hraud i himin upp glódum
hafs, gekk sær af afli,
bör hygg ek at sky skordi,
skaut Ránar vegr mána.
The skald makes the phosphorescence of the sea splash against heaven; he makes the ship split the clouds, and the way of Ran, the giantess of the sea, cut the path of the moon.
The question now is, whether Hornklofve by "Nokve's holy path" did not mean the path of the moon in space, and whether it is not to this path the figure-head of the ship seems to pitch when it is lifted on high by the towering billows. It is certain that this holy way toward which the heaven-high billows lift the ship is situated in the atmosphere above the sea, and that Nokve has been conceived as travelling this way in a ship, since Nokve means the ship-captain. From this it follows that Nokve's craft must have been a phenomenon in space resembling a ship which was supposed to have its course marked out there. We must therefore choose between the sun, the moon, and the stars; and as it is the moon which, when it is not full, has the form of a ship sailing in space, it is more probable that by Nokve's ship is meant the moon than that any other celestial body is referred to.
This probability becomes a certainty by the following proofs. In Sonatorrek (str. 2, 3) Egil Skallagrimson sings that when heavy sorrow oppresses him (who has lost his favourite son) then the song does not easily well forth from his breast:
Thagna fundr
thriggia nidja
ár borinn
or Jötunheimum,
lastalauss
er lifnadi
á Nökkvers
nökkva Bragi.
The skaldic song is here compared with a fountain which does not easily gush forth from a sorrowful heart, and the liquid of the fountain is compared with the "Thrigge's kinsmen's find, the one kept secret, which in times past was carried from Jotunheim into Nokve's ship, where Brage, unharmed, refreshed himself (secured the vigour of life)."
It is plain that Egil here refers to a mythic event that formed an episode in the myth concerning the skaldic mead. Somewhere in Jotunheim a fountain containing the same precious liquid as that in Mimer's well has burst forth. The vein of the fountain was discovered by kinsmen of Thrigge, but the precious find eagerly desired by all powers is kept secret, presumably in order that they who made the discovery might enjoy it undivided and in safety. But something happens which causes the treasure which the fountain gave its discoverers to be carried from Jotunheim to Nokve's ship, and there the drink is accessible to the gods. It is especially mentioned that Brage, the god of poetry, is there permitted to partake of it and thus refresh his powers.