Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/161

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

Harbarthsljoth

  Harbarth spake:16.[1] Five full winters  with Fjolvar was I,And dwelt in the isle  that is Algrön called;There could we fight,  and fell the slain,Much could we seek,  and maids could master."
  Thor spake:17.[2] "How won ye success with your women?"
  Harbarth spake:18.[3] "Lively women we had,  if they wise for us were;Wise were the women we had,  if they kind for us were;For ropes of sand  they would seek to wind,And the bottom to dig  from the deepest dale.Wiser than all  in counsel I was,And there I slept  by the sisters seven,And joy full great  did I get from each.What, Thor, didst thou the while?"

    head, but part of the grindstone knocked Thor down, and the giant fell with his foot on Thor's neck (cf. note on stanza 9). Meanwhile Thjalfi dispatched the dummy giant without trouble.

  1. ↑ Fjolvar: not elsewhere mentioned in the poems; perhaps the father of the "seven sisters" referred to in stanza 18. Algrön "The All-Green": not mentioned elsehwere in the Edda.
  2. ↑ Thor is always eager for stories of this sort; cf. stanzas 31 and 33.
  3. ↑ Lines 1-2 are obscure, but apparently Harbarth means that the women were wise to give in to him cheerfully, resistance to his power being as impossible as (lines 3-4) making ropes of sand or digging the bottoms out of the valleys. Nothing further is known of these unlucky "seven sisters."

[127]

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.