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Alvissmol

'Ever Green' by the giants,  'The Grower' by elves,  'The Moist' by the holy ones high."
  Thor spake:11.[1] "Answer me, Alvis!  thou knowest all, Dwarf, of the doom of men:What call they the heaven,  beheld of the high one, In each and every world?"
  Alvis spake:12. "'Heaven' men call it,  'The Height' the gods, The Wanes 'The Weaver of Winds';Giants 'The Up-World,'  elves 'The Fair-Roof,' The dwarfs 'The Dripping Hall.'"

    answers, the Wanes (Vanaheim) in nine, and the dwarfs (who occupied no special world, unless one identifies them with the dark elves of Svartalfaheim) in seven. The dwellers "in hell" appear in six stanzas; the phrase probably refers to the world of the dead, though Mogk thinks it may mean the dwarfs. In stanzas where the gods are already listed appear names elsewhere applied only to them,—"holy ones," "sons of the gods" and "high ones,"—as if these names meant beings of a separate race. "Men" appears twice in the same stanza, and so do the giants, if one assumes that they are "the sons of Suttung." Altogether it is useless to pay much attention to the mythology of Alvis's replies.

  1. ↑ Lines 1, 2, and 4 of Thor's questions are regularly abbreviated in the manuscript. Beheld, etc.: the word in the manuscript is almost certainly an error, and all kinds of guesses have been made to rectify it. All that can be said is that it means "beheld of" or "known to" somebody.

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