²² A ceremonial shot by which Óthin, the god of war, dedicates the opposing host to himself. This custom is instanced also elsewhere.

²³ “The home of the Æsir.”

²⁴ Freya. She was not, indeed, actually handed over. Snorri, in his “Gylfaginning,” Chap. 41, relates how, after the castle wall of Ásgarth had been battered down, a giant offered to erect in one winter’s time walls proof against the attack of the giants. As price he demanded the sun and the moon and the goddess Freya. The gods accepted, stipulating that the work must be done within that time. But when it neared completion, Loki by a stratagem foiled the builder, and Thór slew him.

²⁵ “Thunder,” the god of strength, archenemy of the giants.

²⁶ That is, the seeress. Alteration between the first and the third person, used by the speaker of himself, is frequent in the Edda.

²⁷ “Fjolnir’s pledge” is Óthin’s one eye: “But under that root [of Yggdrasil] which faces [the world of] the frost giants there is the well of Mímir [or Mím] in which wit and wisdom are hidden; and he is hight Mímir who owns that well. He is full of knowledge because he drinks its water out of the Gjallarhorn. Thither came Óthin and asked for a draught from the well, but got it not before giving his one eye as a pledge.” (“Gylfaginning,” Chap. 14). Óthin’s eye being hidden in the well, water from it may in skaldic language be said to come from “Fjolnir’s pledge” (Fjolnir, “the Concealer,” is one of Óthin’s many names).

²⁸ This dark and challenging refrain is used with the events of the present and the future divined by the seeress.

²⁹ “Sitting out” is the technical expression for the witches’ and sorcerers’ communing with spirits, out of doors at night.