The 2nd Epic

Segersvårdet

THIRD SERIAL

 NY SVENSK TIDSKRIFT, 1884, pp. 169—187

Continued from Serial 2

VI.

The Giant-War's Continuation and End.

Od and the Sword of Victory.

       These were difficult days for Sif, when Od went away in order to take revenge on Mann, Borgar’s son.  

       The youth who rescued Freyja and killed so many giants, went into Midgard certain of victory. Mann got word that he was expected and went to meet him. Since neither hid the way he went, they met shortly. It happened in a forest at the hour of sundown. From Hlidskjalf the gods watched their duel with anxiety, since they could not wish for one or the other’s death. Od fought violently and full of passion, Mann calmly and defensively. Yet finally he had to summon all strength, and then Od collapsed conquered at his feet.

     After Borgar’s son disarmed him, he offered Od reparations and pledged faithful kinship. The gods, he said, wanted their reconciliation, and there was much that spoke for it. His son Jormun, of course, was Od’s brother, and soon shall he himself wed Ivald’s daughter Alveig, Idunn’s sister, and thereby tie a bond of kinship with Od’s family. He praised the youth’s exploits in Jötunheim and extended his hand to him. Od did not take it. Embittered by his defeat, he swore that if he survived, which he did not wish, he would by all available means he would pursue Mann for life. Midgard’s hero said: Then Fate may decide between us. I shall [170] bind you to this tree. If Urd or some other power that is kind to you loosens these bonds, it is I who will bear the consequences. If they don’t, then it is your own fault that you die by the teeth of the wild animals of the wood, rather than accept a hero’s friendship. — He bound him and left. Darkness fell and wild animals howled in the wood. Then it occurred to Od that his mother in the cairn sang to him a force that that was capable of exploding locks and burning bonds. He breathed on the bonds and they fell apart as if brittle. Od stood up and went, but with little joy at his rescue. He was ashamed to be seen by his kin and long roamed in the wilderness, gloomy and brooding.

        So he came to Alfheim and went with hesitant steps down to Vimur, in order to return to Thrymheim. The moon-god Nep held watch by Vimur with a band of Vanaheim’s warriors. Further up along the water, Ivaldi with elves and Alfheim’s giants held watch. Nep, all good creatures’ counsel-wise friend, led Od aside and had a talk with him, and dispelled his discouragement with the hope of new exploits worthy of amazement. He who liberated Freyja, was he out of condition to take possession of the sword of victory? Still, it was a tempting undertaking. Against a solemn promise to not allow the sword to come back into Völund’s hand, Nep gave the youth remarkable advice, how he could prepare himself for and seek to undertake a journey down in the underworld to the root of the world-tree, where Völund’s greatest artwork is kept.

      Shortly after Od’s homecoming, unbelievable, but nevertheless true, rumors spread. Höd, the high Asa-youth, had crossed over to the giants. Höd, Odin’s son and Baldur’s brother, on the back of the fire-snorting horse-giant Háfeti, by Loki’s side and followed by Offoti’s blood-drinking wolf-hounds, had ridden out after the giant-host’s drawn up line and had loudly let it be known that he wanted to be their chieftain and lead them into new battles. He had confirmed his union with Loki by obtaining for him as wife Sigyn, Gusi’s daughter, a darling giant-maid, to which Loki’s disfigured lips had not ventured to speak of love. The whole giant-world was in joy-filled amazement over what had happened. [171]

      When Freyja returned to Asgard, she long languished and imagined that it was Gullveig, the faithful servant she had among the giants that her mind eagerly awaited. Although the gods must have unwillingly sent for her, and consequently Heid returned in the shape of Gullveig to Asgard, made her dwelling in Vingolf and often presented the mead-horns in Valhalla. She quickly discovered that Höd harbored a restrained and silent love toward his foster-sister Nanna, who had become his brother’s happy wife. A magic-potion, passed to Höd by Gullveig, burnt the reins in which he held his passion, and in a senseless moment he promised aloud that Nanna would be his or he would lose his life. When his senses returned, he condemned his promise, but was too proud to not seek to honor it. With a woe-filled heart, he fled Asgard and came to Jötunheim. He met beforehand with Ivaldi and told him of deplorable plight. He did not warn him against seeking Jötunheim’s help, but on the contrary urged him to and promised him his support.

       When Ivaldi did this, it was for the following reason. Between him and his father-in-law Nep, the relationship had never been good. Unwillingly had Nep seen his daughter Hildigun married to the hard-tempered and fight-seeking elf-prince, who ever had his ears open for Loki’s evil counsel. After Hildigun gave birth to the swan-dises she returned to her father and was adopted in Valhalla, where she is the leader of the Valkyries and presents mead to Odin. Already, previously had hostility happened between the father-in-law and son-in-law. Nep departed with the victory and peace was established with the promise that one should forget the past and observe the unity of kinship. But Ivaldi’s disposition was vengeful and awaited a favorable occasion to break out. Now, when Höd stood armed against his foster-father and had threatened to make him his father-in-law by force, Ivaldi found the occasion was at hand. But to assault Nep himself was to make the Aesir and the Vanir his enemies. Therefore Ivaldi, intent on taking revenge, allied himself with Höd and Jötunheim’s battle-forces. In order to have the crossing of Vimur free and the way through Thrymheim open he probably reconciled with his sons Slagfinn and Egil. He debated how this would happen and [172] gathered during the time his treasures of gold and weapons in order to convey them to Jötunheim. To the giant-chieftain Fjalar, who possessed a daughter, Gunnlöd, he send runes that let it be known that he wanted to appear in the Deep-dales to ask for her as wife.

        Od had delivered to Thrymheim the intelligence that Mann, Borgar’s son, had received the promise of Alveig’s hand from Ivaldi. By all their kin, this information aroused the greatest resentment. With Sif’s consent, Egil decided to send a message to Ivaldi and freely put a choice before him, between a feud or consenting to Egil’s wish to make Alveig Sif’s co-wife. The offer was timely for Ivaldi, and he answered yes, adding that the wedding must be celebrated at once, because Mann could be expected anytime.

       As a matter of fact, he came the same day that the wedding torches were lit. In his company were two famous fighters of giant-birth, Vagnhöfdi and Hafli, who were his father Borgar’s friends, and a well-selected troop of Midgard’s strongest warriors. The wedding hall was engulfed in flames. Egil took his bow and hurried out, but he had barely shot two of his arrows out into the darkness before he fell dead under a deathblow from Mann’s club. The hall was stormed so suddenly and violently that Slagfinn, Od and Ull had to save themselves through flight. To Ivaldi, Borgar’s son put reproachful words for his treacherous mind. He carried away Sif and Alveig. Afterward, Thor took Egil’s mourning widow to Thrudvang.

       Barely was this spread in Alfheim, before new tidings approached. Ivaldi had ambushed and burnt Nep and the same night crossed over Vimur with his treasures and a following of Alfheim’s giants.

       To one of Thrymheim’s giants that ferried him across the river, he had presented a jewel. The following day the ferryman came to meet Slagfinn, who when he caught sight of this jewel, recognized it as having belonged to Ivaldi and inquired of the giant how he came into its possession. Then Slagfinn, Od and Ull gathered all of Thrymheim’s warriors that they could find in haste and hurried after Ivaldi. They believed the wedding’s tragic conclusion was caused by his treacherous subvention, and they hated him many times over, when they considered that he, who never allowed his sons to be the object of a father’s [173] benevolence, had murdered the good Vana-chieftain, who raised Slagfinn in his father’s place and always promoted the welfare of Ivaldi’s children.

Ivaldi had reached the Deepdales in the shadow of Heaven’s mountains [Himinbjörg] when he that he was being pursued by a superior warband. He sent a message to Höd and pulled himself up onto the side of the mountain into a cove that with its narrow opening formed a cliff-stronghold. On one side stood the mountain, on the other lay wooded slopes, easy to defend. It had rained during the night, and gravel mixed with stone-blocks on the upper slopes lay loose and was cut through by rivulets.

        On one of the mountain’s ledges ever since morning, a tall, handsome man, but not of giant-size, had stood tending a drill concealed by a thicket of bushes. The man was one-eyed and wore a broad-brimmed hat. The drill operated as if under its own power and lengthened itself in degree of the hole’s depth. It was a tool that belonged to Sindri’s shop.

       Down in the cove by the foot of the mountain laid a multitude of slabs turned over on one another. They formed a corridor that lead to a hidden door. Within were Fjalar’s halls.

       From a wagon loaded with weapons and ornaments, Ivaldi collected a multitude of spears, all of the heavy kind, which was his sport to throw. They lay by the cove’s entrance, and when an enemy approached Ivaldi placed himself there, clad in a helmet and a mail-coat, with a large shield whose many iron supports that would defy Slagfinn’s arrows. His men were positioned on the heights around the dell.

       The man in the broad-brimmed hat had pulled the drill up out of the mountain, blew in the hole and found that it was finished. Now he devoted his entire attention to what was happening in the dale below him. His ears caught with pleasure the wild battle cries that were raised by the attackers and returned by the defenders; his eye shone, when it followed the furious weapon-storm. By the nook’s door, the fight was incited. Attack after attack failed on the point of Ivaldi’s spears. Huge bodies of punctured Thrymheim-giants were stacked up forming a wall outside there. Smoke rose up. Flames whirled: the woods ignited in a circle around the nook like a pyre. The defenders fought [174] amidst the flames. With charred roots and burning crowns sputtering pines fell down the slopes toward the attackers and helped to protect them, as they burned. Ull cast himself against the cove’s door, but Ivaldi’s spear penetrated his shield and compelled him to yield wounded. Od, who followed in Ull’s footsteps, advanced forward, but took a blow from Ivaldi’s heavy shield that struck him to the ground senseless. The shield was studded by Slagfinn’s arrows, the shield-bearer stung by flames and bleeding from a shot-wound. Slagfinn stormed forth with sword in hand. His father’s spear struck him in the groin beneath his mail-coat, and he yielded backward with a wound that justifies the Gjukung name, Hengst and another name this hero bore, Geld.

        From the mountainside, through the roar of battle, a strange voice intoned: “Stones are weapons of victory.” Thrymheim’s giants, who understood the cry, climbed up the mountain and set shoulders to stone blocks along the high slope. A large eagle beat down among them: the eagle-guise fell away and Völund stood there fiercely, tall, with fetters around his knees, but his hands gripping a block of stone, too heavy for anyone else to move. The loose rocks set themselves in motion and pulled the gravel with it.

Down in the cove, the man in the broad-brimmed hat saw a dwarf, who came out between the slabs and waved and called to Ivaldi: Follow me! It roared above.  The avalanche came.

       The one-eyed disappeared into the hole he drilled; the dwarf vanished in between the slabs. Ivaldi and many of his warriors perished beneath the gravel and stone. The remainder fled.

       After the fight, Völund and Slagfinn joyfully met one another again. When the artist had finished his eagle-guise, he took a heart-rending revenge on Mimir, which all knew, and immediately thereafter left the Wolfdales. Now, he said to Slagfinn that Höd and his giant-host were still far away, so Thrymheim’s tired warriors could rest before they departed. He bandaged Slagfinn’s and Ull’ wounds and found that Od was barely scathed. After they spoke of what had happened during his absence, Völund made clear that he himself understood that the future of the Ivaldi-family depended on reconciliation with the gods, among which was found one who was worthy of the name god: Baldur. For his own part, he nevertheless [175] could not be included in conciliation. Henceforth he and Idunn and Skadi would be as lost to the world. They intended to appear before no one, not even their kin. For the family, there remained one thing to do that must happen in spite of the Aesir: Mann, who increased his crimes with Egil’s murder, must die. The revenge was the duty of Od and Ull foremost. But Völund’s help was necessary, should it be rendered. Finally he said that he expected that a daughter of Mimir would present him a child. For its sake, and also to decorate the halls where he intended to live with Idunn and Skadi, he placed great value in the gold that he had inherited and in the treasures that he had concealed. — Thereafter, the brothers divided Ivaldi’s gold into three lots, of which a third was Egil’s children’s. Dividing such an inheritance sometimes causes disputes, but these brothers conducted it so silently that during it they did not drop

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       The dwarf who invited Ivaldi to take refuge within the mountain was a servant of Fjalar.

     When he returned, a man whom he believed was the invited one followed him through the dark passage and when one came into the illuminated hall, the full brilliance of the torches shone on a guest, who in all resembled the stately and proud elf-chieftain, but who appeared to be hardly exerted from the fight. Fjalar conducted him to a golden high-seat beside the host’s own, at a prepared dining-table. The giant-chieftain’s daughter Gunnlöd looked upon the stranger with shy admiration, then she filled his horn with giant-brew. Conversation came in time and there was much to speak of: the battle that had just passed outside, events in the great war between the gods and the giants, Höd’s defection to them and now too Ivaldi’s decision to join his fate with Jötunheim’s. Gunnlöd willingly sought the guest’s gaze, while he himself spoke or listened to the guest’s words, and he noticed that he had made a good impression. After dinner he pressed his suitor’s errand. Fjalar responded evasively and with giant-pride let it be understood that he could not pursue the union due to the guest’s birth, because giant-blood in his opinion was the noblest and finest.  But the suitor laid his words so wisely and eloquently that gradually he won over all objections. Fjalar consented and Gunnlöd, directly and happily, said ‘yes.’ Then the holy ring was brought forth and, with hands upon it, vows of fidelity breathed. A festive bout followed, at which the drink, which was the gods’ envy and desire, was ultimately presented. Gunnlöd filled her betrothed’s horn to the rim with the incomparable juice, and had to fill it again and again and again. A rumor went round in Jötunheim that Ivaldi, the mead-preparer, could outdrink Thor and Hrungnir, and so they actually wanted to see. The wisdom-thick words on his lips were accompanied by laughter and jesting, and on toward night when the torches started to burn down, one thought he noticed that even for Ivaldi there was a limit past which sense accompanied indulgence with a tottering gait. He began to talk in similes and it seemed as if sometimes he thought Fjalar’s hall was Valhall and his golden high-seat was Odin’s throne.

After the feast had ended, the bridegroom and bride were accompanied to the bed-chamber and the mountain’s inhabitants went to bed. But Fjalar’s son, a sharp-sighted giant could not sleep. He thought over what his brother-in-law had said and he thought, that after the precious mead had loosened his tongue, he had said many things which required special interpretation. The young jötun probably went out into the moonlit night and rambled around in the dale, strewn with dead bodies and ravaged by the fire and the landslide. If so, he could have found a corpse at the edge of the landslide, half covered in stone and earth that resembled Ivaldi in its face, height and armor. As it was now, Fjalar’s son took a sword and crept into the bridal couple’s bedchamber.  

     In the morning, he was seen lying dead inside, beside Gunnlöd who bewailed her vanished husband and her fallen brother. Fjalar’s son-in-law was gone and the mead of inspiration was too.

       Afterward, when Odin spoke of this adventure he said: “I doubt that I could have come out of that giant-estate, if I had not had the help of Gunnlöd, the good woman that I took in my embrace. Ill I repaid her innocent nature and strong devotion.” But with the plunder that he thereby won, [177] he mitigates many sorrows for others. He has benevolently presented the holy mead to mankind’s children in order to adorn life in Midgard and spur praiseworthy enterprises, and preserve the memory of heroes through the ages. 

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        Od was now ready to perform the feat upon which Nep had fixed his thoughts. He had, as he was advised, found and harnessed giant-reindeer and crafted for himself a covered sleigh. Among his kin, he had carefully inquired about the best way over the frost-mountains. It was difficult to retain body-heat as one crossed over them, as the cold up there was frightful. It was a fight with death as his kin on skis or swan wings, hastened over these mountains where the icy winds never gathered their breath.

       Od traveled, and when it was the worst for him in Hraesvelgr’s realm, he remembered the galder that Groa had sung:

If it happens that you tremble

by frost on the mountains’ heights,

death’s cold shall still not

slip into your arteries —

may life be in your limbs!

       He successfully came down into the Wolfdales, where he saw Völund’s blockhouse and mountain-island. He drove up onto the rock-strewn ridge over looking it and, following Nep’s directive, found the mountain-door, through which one who has the courage to and who knows himself to be conducted by Urd’s leads, may climb down. Nep had said further what he should do in order to not waste the small hope of entering. When he neared the door, Od placed his residence, the covered sleigh, so that neither it nor its shadow could be noticed from within. During the course of the day, he had to hunt, tend to his reindeer and rest; by night he had to unceasingly sit up and focus his attention. Mimir always has a guard down in the tunnel. At night, preferably when the moon shines, he steps out and walks around the vicinity. He is concealed in a cap that makes him invisible, but one can still see his shadow. [178] In corporal strength he can hardly measure himself against an elf-hero; if one successfully holds him fast, he would probably not be difficult to conquer.

      He waited many days before the night came, when Od, spying from within the sleigh-door saw a shadow from the mountain-door fall against it. Then cast a spear toward the point in the moon-lit snow at which the shadow’s foot glided: it hit the target. Od ran after him, grabbed the unseen in his arms and struck him to the ground, removed his cap and threatened him with all evil, if he attempted to resist. The life-loving watchman willingly let himself be bound, and Od carried him into his sleigh, bandaged his wounds and gave him a sleeping potion. With the cap of invisibility on his own shoulders, the elf-hero entered the tunnel.

        It was as if the cap had bewinged his journey down the steep, ever darker path. This was not death’s highway, and only shadowlike beings were glimpsed passing him in the darkness. When he approached the hel-way’s lower opening, it brightened some. Over the whole expanse before him spanned a vault, from which filaments and threads of the world-ash’s root that went to Mimir’s well hung down like enormous stalactites. In the middle of the plain, where the root-bundles hung tightest, an active although silent life prevailed. The many sons and kinfolk of Mimir, who guarded the root and watered it from stone-circles out of which the holy sap that gives the world life streamed down in loam-white falls, busied themselves there. There one also saw Mimir, noble in appearance, deep in his gaze, and clad in a floor-length robe not unlike a woman’s.

      Od knew that Mimir’s treasure chamber must be sought in the Ash’s deep twilight. Nevertheless, there were many paths to chose that led away from the crowd around the spring, and he long went uncertain and undecided if it was the right path. On one of these paths came dises, dark-skinned sisters of Night, bearing stalks of cowbane. He listened to the jewelry-loving maidens converse and guessed [179] by their words that they came from the treasure-chamber. He then followed the path; it led him to a river without a bridge or plank. He set foot in its murky bottom; the black water suddenly swelled up and threatened to drown him. But Groa had sung that streams that wished to become her darling’s bane, shall hasten down to Niflhel with a desiccating flood, and so he came across successfully. Still he had to walk through one such river; cowbanes and hemlock grew in its edge-water. He took a stalk of cowbane and went further. It was now so dark that the path could not be discerned; but only a few more steps and he stood before a gate whose locks sprung when touched by the stalk. The treasure-chamber was illuminated by light from the wonderful smithery that Mimir gathered there. On the floor stood an oblong iron-case with nine locks. The stalk of cowbane opened them too. In the case lay a sword. It bore Frey’s name in victory-runes. The blade depicted the primeval-giant’s drowning, the gold hilt’s experienced workings testified to Völund’s hand. Od successfully hid the inestimable weapon under the cap of invisibility and turned back on the path he had come. The gate and locks shut themselves behind him.

      Od could not persuade himself to immediately seek his way up to the upper world, before he looked around some more in the wonderful realm in which he ventured down into. Had he now gone to the north, where the blackest darkness prevails, he would hit upon a street, which after this has become increasingly tread with heavy unwilling steps, since it leads down to anguish’s dwelling and leads through unspeakable horrors to the Nastrands and Amsvartnir’s sea. But Od returned to the great plain, where Yggdrasill’s root is watered. In the east and the west ha, the subterranean heavenly vault down near its rim has openings which the upper heaven’s stars, when they go up or down, are visible. Into the eastern opening Hrimfaxi draws Night’s wagon for Mimir’s daughter, when the day up there ends; he withdraws in the west, wet with morning-dew. Through this opening now streams a light in a broad streak over the plain; it was from the moon that just went down, and in the streak Od could see that in Mimir’s realm the objects cast no shadow. Then he himself was safer against discovery. [180] He daringly walked into the crowd of Mimir’s busy kinfolk to step close to Mimir himself, the ruler of the underworld, Ymir’s son, whose appearance clearly reveals that he is of a higher birth than other giants: he was born in time’s morning, he and Urd, under Ymir’s arm, while Jötunheim’s remaining inhabitants originate from the monster that the primeval giant’s feet produced with one another. Od went forth to the Ash’s root, and contemplated with deep thought the sign-marked Gjallarhorn, glittering with gems, and in a sappy root-fiber engraved runes of misfortune against Odin with the sword of victory’s point. Still — Odin knew the galder that cast such runes back on their author. Among the rivers in the underworld, Slid is the greatest. No one can wade or swim over it: a multitude of pointed and edged-weapons roll in its swift rapids; but a gold-bridge watched by a kinswoman of Urd leads over its eddies. Od followed the strand of this river south, because he was enticed in this direction by increasing daylight. He walked through meadows over which laid a dawn, resembling that which precedes daybreak. The meadows were bathed with ethereal mists. This is presumably the neighborhood in which the souls of unborn children sleep or play. The mists disperse themselves, one sees, further south, a high wall over which rises leafy, flower covered trees of multitudinous kinds against a heaven that shines light in the light of daybreak. Within the wall never came old age, sickness, disability or death, nor sorrow or dispute. Not one of the blessed dead got to tread therein, because here is Mimir’s celebrated grove, the Acre of Immortality. But the art-rich gate’s grating allowed insight, and there Od saw there within two children, a boy and a girl, playing. They were beautiful and clad in shining clothes. Before the first fimbul-winter began, Mimir established this grove, grown completely from seed and from Midgard he conveyed down there two children, who were in mind and body the noblest he could find. They would live there as long as the world stands and have their shelter there when the world-conflagration rages. When its flames died out and the sea’s billows washed away the upper earth’s slag and ash, the Acre of Immortality shall rise up, as the middle land in a new Midgard, in the renewed sun’s shine, and these children shall become [181] the parents of a new human family. Until then, they nourish themselves with the morning dews and amuse themselves with games. The tafl-game, with which the gods played on Idavellir, is with them now.

     South of the Acre of Immortality is another grove that lies in a light resembling the sunrise’s. Here Mimir has built a shining stronghold, an underworld Breidablik. The day when it will receive Baldur and Nanna, shall its walls and benches be adorned with the most beautiful smithery from Mimir’s treasure-chamber and on the table stand a shield-covered horn, filled with his precious mead. The children in the Acre of Immortality await Baldur. He shall be their teacher and the family of men stemming from them shall call him father.

     In a southerly meadow of Mimir’s realm stands a gold-covered stronghold that the Vana-god Sindri, his brother and their kinfolk reside. From there the way goes upwards to the world-ash’s uppermost root, that is watered out of the Norn’s well. And further up and separated by a wall from the underworld is the Aesir’s thingstead to which they ride over many streams.

     On the other side of Slid, an enormous stretch of land is opened for colonization by human spirits, gone from Midgard. Farthest south are dwellings for the upright and pious, who did not die on the battlefield; below there dwell the sword-fallen. They possess great fields on which they practice sports and play war-games. Later, when the great folk-war occurs, out of this throng shall Odin choose the einherjar that are Valhall’s oldest. After Od had seen all this and much more that he cannot report, he turned back to the path on which he came down into Mimir’s world and without further adventure found again his covered-sleigh, his prisoner, and his reindeer. He loosed the bonds and handed back the invisibility cap to which he had no right. He harnessed the reindeer and Od travelled through the Wolfdales in a race with the storm-winds over the frost-mountains.

     During his absence Slagfinn and the bigger part of his battle forces had fallen in an encounter with Höd and Loki. During the persecution, Jötunheim’s thurses had mercilessly killed Thrymheim’s giants, in whom they saw traitors against their race’s cause; but Höd mourned his slain foster brother and had honored him with a splendid pyre. The victory-intoxication of the giant host was short. Aesir [182] and Vanir rode over Vimur toward the apostate Höd. He was vanquished in slaughter after slaughter, despite his bold death-seeking spirit and now wandered as a fugitive in the interior of the giant-land. The last flaring fires of this war had subsided again and seemed to have died out.

     Mimir hastened to inform the Aesir that the sword of victory had vanished For Asgard, it was terrifying news. In Odin’s own words, during these days, the world of the gods trembled on the point of Od’s weapon. Who had taken the sword was immediately revealed, as Mann’s fate was now sealed.

     On the way between Alfheim and Mannheim, Borgar’s son’s realm, is a great forest that was the haunt of one of the few giants that still possessed a residence in Midgard: Vidolf, brother to Gymir’s shepherd. Vidolf was widely known as a sorcerer, healer and father of many völvas. His reputation was not good. Nevertheless, like Vagnhöfdi and Halfi he had come into friendly relations with the just Borgar, and surely for that reason, Thor’s hammer left him in peace. Now he had occasion to do Thor a favor.

     When Mann heard that Od was expected with Völund’s finest sword, he took a primeval club, which among the men of those times only he could swing, a holy weapon from the progenitors’ days, and confidently rode to meet his enemy. They ran into one another in Vidolf’s forest one foggy autumn evening. The meeting’s outcome is quickly told. The primeval club at first contact with the sword of victory burst into splinters; the shield too. His mail-coat slashed, Mann bled from a deep wound. He could have called on Thor for help but hadn’t done it before, nor did he do it now. He spurred his horse and fled —- fled the only time in his life. This sword, of course, was an irresistible as the lightning bolt. The horse ran through the darkness toward a dim light between the spruce trunks. The light shone from Vidolf’s place, and he, who observed the [183] pursuit and the pursuer, conjured so that Od lost the trail and was far misled. Vidolf his Borgar’s son and healed his wound.

     To meet Od in a duel was now hopeless. If Mann did not want to seek constant protection with Thor, he would have to seek refuge behind his stronghold’s walls, surrounded by many brave men. From Vidolf’s, he set out on uncleared paths through the course of lonely dales to his stronghold. But Od who incessantly sought after him reached him between the mountains. The Midgard’s hero invoked his fatherly defender’s name, because he could not nor would he flee more than once. The heavens were enveloped in clouds at once, the mountains roared as if by thunder’s crack, vultures and falcons shrieked, and Asa-Thor stood with Mjöllnir raised at Mann’s side. “Back arrogant one!” he yelled. Od responded “The hammer in which you trust was secured through evil, but this sword is hardened with just hate. Go and, in submission, see your son’s fall!” Then Mjöllnir streaked toward Od’s head. The dale shone blue with the brilliance of lightning. But the hammer and its shaft, severed by the sword of victory, came back to the Asa’s hand in powerless, unusable pieces. Unscathed, the elf-hero with blade held high rushed toward the thundergod. And now the unbelievable happened: Thor fled. He and his ward climbed up the nearest mountain slope and from there cast down rocks and stone blocks toward the victory-winner, who skillfully dodged out of the way of the enormous weapons thrown, observing carefully to hasten beyond the range of the throws. This day Völund’s smithery proved better than when the Aesir passed judgment in the wager that Loki caused.

     Sometime thereafter the third encounter occurred. It was night. Mann’s stronghold is the stage. It burns. The Aesir and Vanir mounted their horses and see what has happened down there. The sword of victory rampages in Midgard’s warrior’s weakening flocks. Ull fights by Od’s side. Grani kicks with flashing giant hooves, and from a saddle on his back Völund and Idunn cast infallibly killing spears into the battle-throng. Mann falls cut through by the sword of victory. Jormun, his and Groa’s son, stretched weapons before his brother. Alveig had already fled with his young son Hadding in her embrace.  The fight moved outside [184] of the stronghold, but it was no a longer fight, but flight and blood-thirsty prosecution.

     Still, after he who was Groa’s robber and Egil’s murderer, fell, Völund had nothing more to strive for here.  He and Idunn left the battlefield. It was the hour that the Aesir and the Vanir awakened. To exchange weapons with Od was forbidden by fate; they now knew that he shall become Freyja’s husband. Nor could they exchange weapons with Völund, as Idunn was close to him. But perhaps one could pin them between shields. Around Völund and Idunn they drew horse by horse, shield by shield, but in vain. Völund’s well-armed giant-arms and Grani’s hooves blew up one shield-ring after another. Pursuing him served nothing. His horse is Sleipnir’s kin equal and the night obscured his way.

     With the giant Vagnhöfdi, Thor obtained a sanctuary for Hadding. Vagnhöfdi accepted his duty as foster father toward Mann’s darling son. Jormun proceeded to the giant Halfi, who became his fosterer. Mannheim was without king, but Od let it be known, that he would soon send it one, whose lineage went back to the primeval Vana-chieftains. Mann’s only daughter should accompany him to Alfheim and immediately return with the prince. She returned, acknowledged as queen and bore to Od a son who received the name Asmund, but was more often called Yngvi as a sign of his origin from the lad who came with the sheaf to Midgard. Jormun got the message that he would be secure, because he was Groa’s son. Od himself took in inheritance all the land in Alfheim that Ivaldi and the Ivaldi sons owned.

     In Asgard, one inquired with dread what Od would undertake now. Would he ally himself with Höd and awake a new giant-war, whose outcome must be teeming with evil? The sword of victory in one scale-cup; the powerless pieces of Mjöllnir in the other.

     From Sif came word that Urd shall proceed to Asgard. He obeyed and Thor fetched him in his wagon. The message had conveyed a prayer to Od to follow him. Od gave an evasive answer. This happened during the winter. For him, the cold phases of the moon pass brooding on the ensuing future, as comprehensive and as hostile to the gods as Völund’s. But with this [185] pretense, his dreams blended with a long resisted memory. The snow melted, the sun climbed higher in the heavens, trees and herbs budded, bands of flying birds came. The threatening future-intent melted with the snow, the memory of Freyja climbed higher with the sun, and the winged flocks in the blue led Od’s thoughts to the bridge, that leads through light space to the gods’ stronghold. At this time, a joy-filled occasion occurred for Valhalla. Baldur conducted the regretful Höd to his father’s breast. By night, between hostile weapons, brother had found brother. To the one bowed down in shame, Baldur said: Be consoled! I believe that beneath your deed lay a destiny that wanted to say to me that I soon shall die. To whom will I then entrust  Nanna, if not to you who loves her so deeply?” Höd replied “I am unworthy of your love and hers. She shall never be mine.”

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It was the time of day, when the dwarf outside of Heimdall’s door sings songs of awakening over Midgard, the galder song for power to the Aesir, for prosperous pursuit to the elves. It was the time, when Yggdrasill drops honeydew over the world and the sun-horses, snorting the morning air, neigh with desire for the traces and reins.

         The world of the god’s watchman, the white As, saw the most beautiful youth in battle-dress with sun-glittering sword go up on the bridge that no one treads except in the power of Urd’s degree, Heimdall said that the long expected one had come. The Asa-father himself went to meet him by the lattice gate, although not in his divinity, but in the form of a servant. One watchdog slept, a second let it be known with a howl that someone approached.

       When Od came up the Ida-meadows lay before him in the light of sunrise and Asgard’s enormous ring-wall that reflects in the glowing red-hot waters of Thjod’s stream. Over the wall itself rises Valaskjalf’s silver-roof and Hlidskjalf’s tower, between whose battlements outlooks open in all directions of the compass, wide over the world.

     Od went forth over the landing to the lattice gate. The man stood there, receiving him as of he were a [186] gate-forbidding giant. The youth gave him the giant-name back and asked, if it were fair, that he, who had seen such extraordinary beauty should be expected to turn away from his eye’s delight. Here, of course, glistened golden halls; here he could probably live happily.

     The man (friendlier): Young swain, tell me your name and your family!

    Od: My name is Windcold. My father is Springcold, my grandfather Frostcold. And now you tell me: Is it actually impossible to come in here? Do these watchdogs let no one go by them?

     The man: No one as long as the world stands.

     Od: Is there no food, with which one can entice them to be forgetful of watch duty? One laid down the food for them, and while they ate, crept by?

     The man: Truly there is such a food, one only.

     Od: Which and where?

     The man: The delicious bits under Vidofnir’s wings. Give them the joints and you come past.

     Od: Who is Vidofnir [“Wide-open”] ?

     The man: The gold-glittering cock at the world-tree’s top.

     Od: The cock has set itself high. Is there a weapon that can bring him down?

The man: There is. A certain Lopt forged it below the underworld-gate. But it was stolen on its forging.

     Od: What came of it since?

     The man: A night-dis laid it in a case with ninefold locks.

Od: If one tried to get it from her power, to you believe that he could return successfully?

     The man: Yes if he carries and presents the gold-rich dis with the glittering scythe-feather in the cock’s legbone.

     Od: How can the feather be gotten?

     The man: Through the fall of Vidofnir.

This watchman understood as well as the Asa-father himself to tie his words in an artful knot. In order to come in here, one must move Vidofnir, which requires a weapon that one can get once he has moved the cock. [187]

     Od saw in through the lattice gate. It was a splendid sight: Valhalla with a shield-tiled roof and an endless number of huge door-arches stretching far into the distance. But what had captivated Od’s whole attention was the shining castle that lay right before him. It was Freyja’s dwelling and he saw her pleasure-garden. And on a flower-held hillock, he saw the goddess herself with a dreaming face, and surrounded by a wreath of Vanir dises; Sindri’s human-friendly daughters, the physician Eir and her sisters Bright, Peace, Blithe and others. There, he also saw Gullveig, the giant-maid that he recognized from the Offoti-fjord.

Od (to the watchman): "What is she who rules over this stronghold called? "