128
PROSE EDDA
- Earth's Son became familiar
- With knowledge strange; the cave-men
- Of the land of stone o'ercame not,
- Nor long with ale were merry:
- The frightful elm-string's plucker,
- The friend of Sudri, hurtled
- The hot bar, in the forge fused,
- Into the hand of Odin's Gladdener.
- So that Gunnr's Swift-Speeder
- Seized (the Friend of Freyja),
- With quick hand-gulps, the molten
- High-raised draught of metal,
- When the fire-brand, glowing,
- Flew with maddened fury
- From the giant's gripping fingers
- To the grim Sire of Thrúdr.
- The hall of the doughty trembled
- When he dashed the massy forehead
- Of the hill-wight 'gainst the bottom
- Of the house-wall's ancient column;
- Ullr's glorious step-sire
- With the glowing bar of mischief
- Struck with his whole strength downward
- At the hill-knave's mid-girdle.
- The God with gory hammer
- Crushed utterly Glaumr's lineage;
- The Hunter of the Kindred
- Of the hearth-dame was victorious;
- The Plucker of the Bow-String
- Lacked not his people's valor,—
- The Chariot-God, who swiftly
- Wrought grief to the Giant's bench-thanes.
