Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/128

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Poetic Edda

Of all the homes whose roofs I beheld, My son's the greatest meseemed.

25.^[1] Heithrun is the goat who stands by Heerfather's hall, And the branches of Lærath she bites;The pitcher she fills with the fair, clear mead, Ne'er fails the foaming drink.

26.^[2] Eikthyrnir is the hart who stands by Heerfather's hall And the branches of Lærath he bites;From his horns a stream into Hvergelmir drops, Thence all the rivers run.

note) has nothing to do with that of Valhall. Snorri quotes the stanza in his account of Thor.

↑ The first line in the original is, as indicated in the translation, too long, and various attempts to amend it have been made. Heithrun: the she-goat who lives in the twigs of the tree Lærath (presumably the ash Yggdrasil), and daily gives mead which, like the boar's flesh, suffices for all the heroes in Valhall. In Snorri's Edda Gangleri foolishly asks whether the heroes drink water, whereto Har replies, "Do you imagine that Othin invites kings and earls and other noble men, and then gives them water to drink?"
↑ Eikthyrnir ("The Oak-Thorned," i.e., with antlers, "thorns," like an oak): this animal presumably represents the clouds. The first line, like that of stanza 25, is too long in the original. Lærath: cf. stanza 25, note. Hvergelmir: according to Snorri, this spring, "the Cauldron-Roaring," was in the midst of Niflheim, the world of darkness and the dead, beneath the third root of the ash Yggdrasil. Snorri gives a list of the rivers flowing thence nearly identical with the one in the poem.

[94]

[Grimnismol_25-1] The first line in the original is, as indicated in the translation, too long, and various attempts to amend it have been made. Heithrun: the she-goat who lives in the twigs of the tree Lærath (presumably the ash Yggdrasil), and daily gives mead which, like the boar's flesh, suffices for all the heroes in Valhall. In Snorri's Edda Gangleri foolishly asks whether the heroes drink water, whereto Har replies, "Do you imagine that Othin invites kings and earls and other noble men, and then gives them water to drink?"

[Grimnismol_26-2] Eikthyrnir ("The Oak-Thorned," i.e., with antlers, "thorns," like an oak): this animal presumably represents the clouds. The first line, like that of stanza 25, is too long in the original. Lærath: cf. stanza 25, note. Hvergelmir: according to Snorri, this spring, "the Cauldron-Roaring," was in the midst of Niflheim, the world of darkness and the dead, beneath the third root of the ash Yggdrasil. Snorri gives a list of the rivers flowing thence nearly identical with the one in the poem.

[1]

[2]