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Poetic Edda

Of Bolverk they asked,  were he back midst the gods, Or had Suttung slain him there?
110. On his ring swore Othin  the oath, methinks; Who now his troth shall trust?Suttung's betrayal  he sought with drink, And Gunnloth to grief he left.
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111.[1] It is time to chant  from the chanter's stool; By the wells of Urth I was,I saw and was silent,  I saw and thought, And heard the speech of Hor.(Of runes heard I words,  nor were counsels wanting, At the hall of Hor, In the hall of Hor; Such was the speech I heard.)

    identical with Bolverk, possibly because the oath referred to in stanza 110 was an oath made by Othin to Suttung that there was no such person as Bolverk among the gods. The giants, of course, fail to get from Othin the information they seek concerning Bolverk, but Othin is keenly conscious of having violated the most sacred of oaths, that sworn on his ring.

  1. ↑ With this stanza begins the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138). Loddfafnir is apparently a wandering singer, who, from his "chanter's stool," recites the verses which he claims to have received from Othin. Wells of Urth: cf. Voluspo, 19 and note. Urth ("the Past") is one of the three Norns. This stanza is apparently in corrupt form, and editors have tried many experiments with it, both in rejecting lines as spurious and in rearranging the words and punctuation. It looks rather as though the first four lines formed a complete stanza, and the last four had

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