(1) In regard to the names themselves, we note in the first place that, as has already been pointed out, the name of the father of Ide, as Aurnir-Gang, and of Thjasse appears with the variations Allvaldi, Ölvaldi, and Audvaldi. To persons speaking a language in which the prefixes I-, Id-, and All- are equivalents and are substituted for one another, and accustomed to poetics, in which it was the most common thing to substitute equivalent nouns and names (for example, Grjótbjörn for Arinbjörn, Fjallgyldir for Ásólfr, &c.), it was impossible to see in Ivaldi and Allvaldi anything but names designating the same person.
(2) Anent the variation Olvalde we have already seen that its equivalents Olmodr and Sumbl (Finnakonungr, phinnorum rex) allude to Slagfin's, Orvandel-Egil's, and Volund's father, while Olvalde himself is said to be the father of Ide, Aurnir, and Thjasse.
(3) Ajo's and Ibor's mother is called Gambara in Origo Longobardorum and in Paulus Diaconus. Aggo's and Ebbo's mother is called Gambaruc in Saxo. In Ibor-Ebbo and Ajo-Aggo we have re-discovered Egil and Volund. The Teutonic stem of which the Latinised Gambara was formed is in all probability gambr, gammr, a synonym of gripr (Younger Edda, ii. 572), the German Greif. According to the Younger Edda (i. 314), Thjasse's mother is the giantess Greip, daughter of Geirrödr. The forms grip, neuter, and greip, feminine, are synonyms in the Old Norse language, and they surely grew out of the same root. While Gambara thus is Volund's mother, Thjasse's mother bears a name to which Gambara alludes.
(4) The variation Audvaldi means "the one presiding over riches," and the epithet finds its explanation in the Younger Edda's account of the gold treasure left by Thjasse's father, and of its division among his sons (p. 214.) It is there stated that Thjasse's father was mjök gullaudigr. Ivalde's sons, who gave the gods golden treasures, were likewise rich in gold, and in Volundarkvida Volund speaks of his and his kinsmen's golden wealth in their common home.
(5) Of the manner in which Thjasse and his brothers divided the golden treasure the Younger Edda contains, in the above passage, the following statement: "When Olvalde died and his sons were to divide the inheritance, they agreed in the division to measure the gold by taking their mouths full of gold an equal number of times. Hence gold is called in poetry the words or speech of these giants."
It is both possible and assumable that in the mythology the brothers divided the gold in silence and in harmony. But that it should have been done in the manner here related may be doubted. There is reason to suspect that the story of the division of the gold in the manner above described was invented in Christian times in order to furnish an explanation of the phrase thingskil thjaza in Bjarkamal, of Idja glysmál in the same source, and of idja ord, quoted in Malskrudsfrædi. More than one pseudo-mythic story, created in the same manner and stamped by the same taste, is to be found in the Younger Edda. It should not be forgotten that all these phrases have one thing in common, and that is, a public deliberation, a judicial act. Mál and ord do not necessarily imply such an allusion, for in addition to the legal meaning, they have the more common one of speech and verbal statements in general; but to get at their actual significance in the paraphrases quoted we must compare them with thingskil, since in these paraphrases all the expressions, thingskil, glysmál, and ord, must be founded on one and the same mythic event. With thingskil is meant that which can be produced before a court by the defendant in a dispute to clear up his case; and as gold ornaments are called Thjasse's thingskil in Bjarkamal, it should follow that some judicial act was mentioned in the mythology, in which gold treasures made or possessed by Thjasse were produced to clear up a dispute which, in some way or other, touched him. From the same point of view Ide's glysmál and Ide's ord are to be interpreted. Ide's glysmál are Ide's "glittering pleadings;" his ord are the evidence or explanation presented in court by the ornaments made by or belonging to him. Now, we know from the mythology a court act in which precious works of the smiths, "glittering pleadings," were produced in reference to the decision of a case. The case or dispute was the one caused by Loke, and the question was whether he had forfeited his head to Sindre or not. As we know, the decision of the dispute depended on a comparison between Brok's and Sindre's works on the one hand, and those of the Ivalde sons on the other. Brok had appeared before the high tribunal, and was able to plead his and his brother's cause. Ivalde's sons, on the other hand, were not present, but the works done by them had to speak in their behalf, or rather for themselves. From this we have, as it seems to me, a simple and striking explanation of the paraphrases thjaza thingskil, Idja glysmál, Idja ord. Their works of art were the glittering but mute pleadings which were presented, on their part, for the decision of the case. That gold carried in the mouth and never laid before the tribunal should be called thingskil I regard as highly improbable. From heathen poems we cannot produce a single positive proof that a paraphrase of so distorted and inadequate a character was ever used.
(6) Saxo relates that the same Fridlevus-Njord who fought with Anund-Volund and Avo-Egil wooed Anund's daughter and was refused, but was married to her after Anund's death. Thus it would seem that Njord married a daughter of Volund. In the mythology he marries Thjasse's daughter Skade. Thus Volund and Thjasse act the same part as father-in-law of Njord.
(7) Saxo further relates that Freyja-Syritha's father was married to the soror of Svipdag-Otharus. Soror means sister, but also foster-sister and playmate. If the word is to be taken in its strictest sense, Njord marries a daughter of Volund's brother; if in its modified sense, Volund's daughter.
(8) In a third passage (Hist., 50, 53), Skade's father appears under the name Haquinus. The same name belongs to a champion (Hist., 323) who assists Svipdag-Ericus in his combat with the Asa-god Thor and his favourite Halfdan, and is the cause that Thor's and Halfdan's weapons prove themselves worthless against the Volund sword wielded by Svipdag-Ericus. There is, therefore, every reason for regarding Haquinus as one of Saxo's epithets for Volund. The name Hákon, of which Haquinus has been supposed to be the Latinised form, never occurs in the Norse mythic records, but Haquinus is in this case to be explained as a Latinisation with the aspirate usual in Saxo of the Old German Aki, the Middle German Ecke, which occurs in the compositions Eckenbrecht, Eckehard, and Eckesachs. In "Rosengarten," Eckenbrecht is a celebrated weapon-smith. In Vilkinasaga, Eckehard is, like Volund, a smith who works for Mimer; and Eckesachs is a sword made by the three dwarfs, of which in part the same story is told as of Volund's sword of victory. Thus while Haquinus and what is narrated of Haquinus refers to the smith Volund, a person who in Saxo is called Haquinus assumes the place which belongs to Thjasse in his capacity of Skade's father.