30-32. The closing lines present, as does the poem as a whole, a picture of the entire period known as the Middle Ages.
SNÖFRID.
Snöfrid is a mythical being idealized by Rydberg into a guiding genius pointing the way of ambition, strife and self-sacrifice, while most poets dealing with similar characters, so common in literature, make them out wanton and seductive agencies of destruction, like the sirens.
35. troll i dvärgaham, dwarflike trolls. Hamn, shape, apparition, is sometimes, and probably more correctly, written ham; so also by LEVERTIN in En gammal nyårsvisa:
som en svart och spöklik ham sorgens fåle dröjer.
99. ju himlen närmare, for ju närmare himlen, is a poetic innovation; ju and desto, as conjunctions, immediately precede the comparative form of the adjective.
109-10. Allusion to the Eddic song Voluspá, stanzas 8 and 63, where it is said of the gods:
8. Guldtavel på gården de glade lekte —allt av guld de i överflöd hade.
63. Därefter varda de underbara guldtavlorna i gräset funna, dem de i urtiden ägt hade.