[ [81] ] This is the usual Esthonian euphemism for setting a house on fire. I understand that there is also some connection between red cocks and fire in Scottish folk-lore; and in Scandinavian mythology two of the three cocks which are to crow before Ragnarök are red. May they not have some connection with the fire of Surtur?
[ [82] ] Here we have the great oak-tree mentioned in Cantos [5] and [6] reappearing in another connection.
[ [83] ] The Flyer.
[ [84] ] In the present canto the Kalevide is never spoken of as of gigantic size, unless we may consider feats like this as implying it.
[ [85] ] Baring Gould considers this country to be the North Cape, but the geography of the voyage is confused.
[ [86] ] The Maelström?
[ [87] ] The commentators identify this island with Iceland, but the voyagers were apparently on the wrong side of Scandinavia to reach either the Maelström or Iceland. Still we have both geysers and volcanoes in the text.
[ [88] ] Here the Kalevide's sun begins to decline, for the first of his faithful companions leaves his side, as Hylas left Heracles.
[ [89] ] This is Chamisso's Alsatian legend, "Das Riesenspielzeug," "The Giant's Toy," usually called in English translations "The Giant's Daughter and the Peasant." The girl in the poem seems to have far exceeded even the Kalevide in stature; and we may remember Gulliver's remark respecting the Brobdingnagians—"Who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world whereof we have yet no discovery?"
[ [90] ] Throughout this passage the giant is usually called simply the magician, and the other "the wise man."