Groa hears his prayer, and sings from the grave an incantation of protection against the dangers which her prophetic vision has discovered on those journeys that now lie before Svipdag: first, the incantation that can inspire the despondent youth who lacks confidence in himself with courage and reliance in his own powers. It is, Groa says, the same incantation as another mother before her sang over a son whose strength had not yet been developed, and who had a similar perilous task to perform. It is an incantation, says Groa, which Rind, Vale's mother, sang over Ránr. This synonym of Vale is of saga-historical interest. Saxo calls Vale Bous, the Latinised form for Beowulf, and Beowulf's grave-mound, according to the Old English poem which bears his name, is situated on Hrones næss, Ránr's ness. Here too a connection between Vale and the name Ránr is indicated.
Groa's second incantation contains a prayer that when her son, joyless, travels his paths and sees scorn and evil before his eyes, he may always be protected by Urd's lokur (an ambiguous expression, which may on the one hand refer to the bonds and locks of the goddess of fate, on the other hand to Groa's own phrophetic magic song: lokur means both songs of a certain kind and locks and prisons).
On his journey Svipdag is to cross rivers, which with swelling floods threaten his life; but Groa's third incantation commands these rivers to flow down to Hel and to fall for her son. The rivers which have their course to Hel (falla til Heljar hedan—Grimnersmal, 28) are subterranean rivers rising on the Hvergelmer mountain (59, 93).
Groa's fourth and fifth incantations indicate that Svipdag is to encounter enemies and be put in chains. Her songs are then to operate in such a manner that the hearts of the foes are softened into reconciliation, and that the chains fall from the limbs of her son. For this purpose she gives him that power which is called "Leifnir's fires" (see No. 38), which loosens fetters from enchanted limbs (str. 9, 10).
Groa's sixth incantation is to save Svipdag from perishing in a gale on the sea. In the great world-mill (ludr) which produces the maelstrom, ocean currents, ebb and flood tide (see Nos. 79-82), calm and war are to "gang thegither" in harmony, be at Svipdag's service and prepare him a safe voyage.
The seventh incantation that comes from the grave-chamber speaks of a journey which Svipdag is to make over a mountain where terrible cold reigns. The song is to save him from becoming a victim of the frost there.
The last two incantations, the eighth and the ninth, show what was already suggested by the third, namely, that Svipdag's adventurous journeys are to be crowned with a visit in the lower world. He is to meet Nat á Niflvegi, "on the Nifel-way," "in Nifel-land." The word nifl does not occur in the Old Norse literature except in reference to the northern part of the Teutonic Hades, the forecourt to the worlds of torture there. Niflhel and Niflheim are, as we know, the names of that forecourt. Niflfarinn is the designation, as heretofore mentioned, of a deceased whose soul has descended to Nifelhel; Niflgódr is a nithing, one deserving to be damned to the tortures of the lower world. Groa's eighth incantation is to protect her son against the perilous consequences of encountering a "dead woman" (daud kona) on his journey through Nifelhel. The ninth incantation shows that Svipdag, on having traversed the way to the northern part of the lower world, crosses the Hvergelmer mountain and comes to the realm of Mimer; for he is to meet and talk with "the weapon-honoured giant," Mimer himself, under circumstances which demand "tongue and brains" on the part of Groa's son:
ef thú vid inn náddgöfga
ordum skiptir jötun:
máls ok mannvits
sé ther á Mimis hjarta
gnóga of getit.
In the poem Fjölsvinnsmal, which I am now to discuss, we read with regard to Svipdag's adventures in the lower world that on his journey in Mimer's domain he had occasion to see the ásmegir's citadel and the splendid things within its walls (str. 33; cp. No. 53).