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Poetic Edda
40.[1] The giantess old in Ironwood sat,In the east, and bore the brood of Fenrir;Among these one in monster's guiseWas soon to steal the sun from the sky.
41.[2] There feeds he full on the flesh of the dead,And the home of the gods he reddens with gore;Dark grows the sun, and in summer soonCome mighty storms: would you know yet more?
42.[3] On a hill there sat, and smote on his harp,Eggther the joyous, the giants' warder;Above him the cock in the bird-wood crowed,Fair and red did Fjalar stand.
- ↑ The Hauksbok version inserts after stanza 39 the refrain-stanza (44), and puts stanzas 40 and 41 between 27 and 21. With this stanza begins the account of the final struggle itself. The giantess: her name is nowhere stated, and the only other reference to Ironwood is in Grimnismol, 39, in this same connection. The children of this giantess and the wolf Fenrir are the wolves Skoll and Hati, the first of whom steals the sun, the second the moon. Some scholars naturally see here an eclipse-myth.
- ↑ In the third line many editors omit the comma after "sun," and put one after "soon," making the two lines run: "Dark grows the sun in summer soon, / Mighty storms —" etc. Either phenomenon in summer would be sufficiently striking.
- ↑ In the Hauksbok version stanzas 42 and 43 stand between stanzas 44 and 38. Eggther: this giant, who seems to be the watchman of the giants, as Heimdall is that of the gods and Surt of the dwellers in the fire-world, is not mentioned elsewhere in
noise of a cat's step, the beards of women, the roots of mountains, the nerves of bears, the breath of fishes, and the spittle of birds." The chaining of Fenrir cost the god Tyr is right hand; cf. stanza 44.
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