"To get a comprehensive view of the king's luck, we have to ask: what was demanded, in the old days, to make a man a true king? War-speed, the power of victory, is but one of the distinguishing marks which place the leader in a class apart from everyday characters. His constitution is marked throughout by greater strength and hardihood. Life is more firmly seated in him, whether it be that he is proof against weapons, or that they seem, perhaps, to turn aside from the spot where he stands.
 
"In the ancient wise, it is said of Harald Hilditonn, that Odin had granted him immunity from wounds, so that no cutting edge could scathe him. And even though perhaps such a degree of hardiness was only found among the very few particularly favoured, we must presume that the king had this advantage over ordinary warriors, that his wounds healed more easily and more completely. At any rate, he possessed a healing power which could be communicated to others.
 
"At the time when Olaf's brother Harald Hardrada and his son Magnus reigned jointly over Norway, a mother came with her son, who had lost his memory, to ask advice of King Harald; the king opined that the patient suffered from dreamlessness, and counselled her to let the boy drink of Magnus' washing water, and thereafter sleep on Magnus' couch. The effect was instantaneous: both kings appeared to him in a dream, and said: the one: 'Have health,' and the other: 'Have quickness and memory,' and then the boy woke laughing, having recovered the power of remembering. The kings of the Franks had not less of this healing power: a mother cured her son with a decoction from the fringe of King Gunntbram's cloak. In earlier times, it was presumably a common belief that the king had 'hands of healing', as we find in the invocation of Sigdrifa: 'Give us two athelings (herself and Sigurd) speech and wit and hands of healing, while we live.'
 
"The most violent attacks of nature, too, fell scatheless upon the king's luck. 'Kings never drown,' said William Rufus when he put out into the Channel in a boat during a gale, to quell a revolt in Normandy on its first outbreak. Olaf the Saint, on his crossing to Norway, was in great danger during a storm, but 'the good men with him, and his own luck, brought him unscathed to land.'
 
"At any rate, it was one of a chieftain's natural attributes, that his luck always gave him a favouring wind. The waters, too, carried shoals of fish in to the ruler's lands, we may suppose; it is said of Earl Hakon, that in his time, fish came up into all the fords. Luck of fertility prevailed over his fields, giving close ears of corn and good weight in the ear."

It's interesting in this regard to note that some of the characteristics considered native to Kings are precisely those powers conferred on them by Rig's runes -- ability to allay the winds, etc.

—BETTER THAN ALL THE REST— Yggdrasill of Trees

However, the Codex Regius text of Snorri's Edda, Gylfaginning 16, reads instead:

Might the original version of these lines have read Ask....Yggdrassils, in agreement with all other instances of the tree's name? Of course, there is no way to know.  As it stands, at least one manuscript does.

Like all things in Eddaic mythology, the world-tree has many names. In Grímnísmál 25 and 26, it was known as Lærað. The late poem Fjölsvinnsmál provides three additional designations. The first is Mimameiðr, Mimir's Tree, in stanza 20.  The other two are reflexive forms of one another, designating the upper and lower halves of the tree. They are Vedurglasir, the tree of winds, in Fjölsvinnsmál 24, which is comparable to the term vindga meiði, 'the windswept tree" in Hávamál 138, and Aurglasir in stanza 28. Both of these terms are formed on the base Glasir, "the glassy", which Snorri informs us is a tree with golden leaves growing outside of Valhalla's door.  The designations Vedurglasir and Aurglasir found in Fjölsvinnsmál thus tell us that Glasir was a name for Yggdrassil, whose branches envelop Asgard. The name Glasir may refer to the transparent quality of the tree, making it invisible to the human eye from Midgard. Vedurglasir is that part of the tree exposed to the winds. Aurglasir designates that part of the tree hidden below the earth, the Glasir of the aur, "soil, clay, loam." Aurglasir, indicating the root system of the tree, is perhaps best interpreted as "the loam tree" (Carolyne Larrington, Poetic Edda, 2014, p. 319).

Skidbladnir of Ships

Skiðblaðnir, as described in Gylfaginning 43, is a ship big enough for all of the gods to board with their wargear and weapons in tow.  It was given to Freyr by the Sons of Ivaldi (verse 43). Ynglingasaga 7 names Odin as its owner. Constructed with 'a great deal of magic," the ship finds a favorable wind as soon as its sail is hoisted, taking it wherever it needs to sail. It is made up of so many parts and with such great art that, when it is not needed at sea, it can be folded up like cloth and placed into one's pocket.  The name Skidbladnir itself means "thin slips of wood."

Due to its collapsable nature, Skidbladnir is sometimes compared to the ship procession which travelled by land and water from Aachen to Loos in the year 1133, according to the Gestorum Abbatum Trudonensium (Book 12, Ch. 10-14). In a bog at Nors in Denmark, a clay jar yielded a cache of viking age ships in miniature, beautifully crafted of gilded bronze with concentric circles on the prows.  A recurring feature in Bronze Age rock carvings of the same region is the ship, often filled with figures. These lively ship scenes often include sun wheels, phallic figures, and figures dancing or playing instruments, all indicative of ritual activity. Sometimes the ship is carried by a giant figure thought to represent a deity. These carvings strongly imply that collapsable cult ships were carried or drawn in religious processions.

Elsewhere ships are frequently associated with the dead, another central theme of the poem. Baldur's ship Hringhorn becomes his funeral pyre in Gylfaginning 49. Ship graves, such as the Oseberg find, often hold noble figures, and smaller graves marked by standing stones in the form of ships dot the Scandinavian landscape.

In Lappland as late as the 1600s, natives placed food, saved from the Yuletide meal, in a small chest made of birch bark in the shape of a boat, with sails and oars and hung it on a tree for the use of the Juhlian Company or Wild Hunt, made up of deceased ancestors which wandered about in the air at Yule.  In widespread Germanic tradition, Odin and his wife lead the Wild Hunt or Furious Host, cleansing the air of evil spirits each winter.

Odin of the Æsir, Sleipnir of Horses

Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, is one of Loki's progeny, borne by him to the stallion Svaðilfari, according to Hyndluljóð 40. Snorri says that this stallion belonged to the giant who built Asgard's wall for the gods. At Loki's suggestion, the gods wagered the sun, moon and Freyja that the giant-builder could not complete the fortification in the space of one year.  But, with Svaðilfari's aid, he came so near to finishing it the gods feared he would win the wager. To delay the giant's progress, Loki transformed himself into a mare, luring the stallion away. Without the stallion's assistance, the giant failed to complete his task within the stipulated time, and fell before Thor's hammer when he objected violently. Loki soon returned with the eight-legged foal Sleipnir, whom he gave to Odin.

The anonymous Eiríksmál (stanza 3) and Eyvindr Finnsson's Hákonarmál (stanza 4), both place Bragi in Valhalla, welcoming fallen kings and their men into Odin's hall, which may be precisely why his name is included there. Known from Grímnismál 44, Lokasenna 11-18, Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, 26 and Sigurdrifumál 16, Bragi is the master-poet of the gods. Idunn is his wife.  Scholars have long speculated that the god Bragi may be the 10th century Norwegian skald, Bragi Boddason, elevated to divine status.  In Norse mythology, Bragi is most likely the son of Odin and Gunnlöd, the giantess who helped Odin obtain the poetic mead. According to Hakonarmál, Bragi and Hermod greet the Einherjar as they arrive at Valhalla over Bifröst. In the late eddic poem Hrafnagaldur Óðinns, Bragi travels over Bifröst with Heimdall and Loki to the underworld in search of his wife Idunn.   

Stanza 44 has a list of things that are best in the mythological world: Yggdrasil of trees, Skídbladnir of ships, Odin of æsir, Sleipnir of horses, Bilröst of bridges, Bragi of skalds, Hábrók of hawks, and, finally, Garm of hounds. In this company we would expect Garm to be a positive figure, but in his only other appearance in poetry, repeated three times more or less verbatim in Völuspá (stanzas 44, 49, and 58), he is anything but:

Garm howls loudly before Gnipahellir
the bond will burst and the wolf will run free.

The hawk Habrok and the dog Garm. Common to both sagas is the story of how Hrolf's hawk Habrok is caged together with the thirty hawks of the Swedish king so that they shall claw him to death; but Habrok kills all of them. Of Garm we are told in the Hrolfssaga that he rends a charmed boar sent against him by Athisl. One may be inclined to consider these elements late additions to the story; but it is well to recall that in the Elder Edda there are two lines saying that Habrok is the best of all hawks, Garm the best of all dogs.* ...It would seem, then, that the strong beasts of prey were associated with Hrolf kraki at a comparatively early time. Just as he is given a large company of berserkers to accompany him in war, likewise these animals are associated with him, personifying his heroic nature still more clearly.

The very fact that Hrolf is pictured with these warlike and heroic symbols is a new feature. Neither the Biarkamal nor the Danish stories are specific in this regard. The strong, fierce dog is the characteristic heroic animal in the Norn hero tales. Olaf Tryggvason has his hound Vigi who tears Thorir hjortr (the Hart) who has changed himself to a stag; the dog Snati follows Gest Bartharson to the Giants' cave and participates in the battle that takes place there; Ole froekni's dog fells one of the robbers whilst his master kills the other; in Saxo's Frithleifssaga, Biorn's powerful dog fights by his side and helps the king to gain the victory. In these heroic legends from the early Middle Ages King Hrolf with his two animals Habrok and Garm suits very well.