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Poetic Edda

38.[1] In front of the sun  does Svalin stand, The shield for the shining god;Mountains and sea  would be set in flames If it fell from before the sun.
39.[2] Skoll is the wolf  that to Ironwood Follows the glittering god,And the son of Hrothvitnir,  Hati, awaits The burning bride of heaven.
40.[3] Out of Ymir's flesh  was fashioned the earth, And the ocean out of his blood;Of his bones the hills,  of his hair the trees, Of his skull the heavens high.

    which the gods had made to light the world from the sparks which flew out of Muspellsheim. The horses were called Alsvith and Arvak, and under their yokes the gods set two bellows to cool them, and in some songs these are called 'the cold iron.'"

  1. ↑ Svalin ("The Cooling"): the only other reference to this shield is in Sigrdrifumol, 15.
  2. ↑ Skoll and Hati: the wolves that devour respectively the sun and moon. The latter is the son of Hrothvitnir ("The Mighty Wolf," i. e. Fenrir); cf. Voluspo, 40, and Vafthruthnismol, 46-47, in which Fenrir appears as the thief. Ironwood: a conjectural emendation of an obscure phrase; cf. Voluspo, 40.
  3. ↑ This and the following stanza are quoted by Snorri. They seem to have come from a different source from the others of this poem; Edzardi suggests an older version of the Vafthruthnismol. This stanza is closely parallel to Vafthruthnismol, 21, which see, as also Voluspo, 3. Snorri, following this account, has a few details to add. The stones were made out of Ymir's teeth and such of his bones as were broken. Mithgarth was a mountain-wall made out of Ymir's eyebrows, and set around the earth because of the enmity of the giants.

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