Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/216

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

Poetic Edda

31. The heart in the breast  of Hlorrithi laughedWhen the hard-souled one  his hammer beheld;First Thrym, the king  of the giants, he killed,Then all the folk  of the giants he felled.
32. The giant's sister  old he slew,She who had begged  the bridal fee;A stroke she got  in the shilling's stead,And for many rings  the might of the hammer.
33.[1] And so his hammer  got Othin's son.

    references to other kinds of consecration, though not of a bride, with the "sign of the hammer." According to Vigfusson, "the hammer was the holy sign with the heathens, answering to the cross of the Christians." In Snorri's story of Thor's resuscitation of his cooked goat (cf. Hymiskvitha, 38, note) the god "hallows" the goat with his hammer. One of the oldest runic signs, supposed to have magic power, was named Thor's-hammer. Vor: the goddess of vows, particularly between men and women; Snorri lists a number of little-known goddesses similar to Vor, all of them apparently little more than names for Frigg.

  1. ↑ Some editors reject this line, which, from a dramatic standpoint, is certainly a pity. In the manuscript it begins with a capital letter, like the opening of a new stanza.

[182]

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.