Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/206

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The slayer of Hrungnir    shall send thee to hell,
And down to the gate of death."

Loki spake:
64."'1 have said to the gods    and the sons of the god,
The things that whetted my thoughts;
But before thee alone    do I now go forth,
For thou fightest well, I ween.

65.[1] "Ale hast thou brewed,    but, Ægir, now
Such feasts shalt thou make no more;
O'er all that thou hast    which is here within
Shall play the flickering flames,
(And thy back shall be burnt with fire.)"

[2]And after that Loki hid himself in Franang's waterfall in the guise of a salmon, and there the gods took him. He was bound with the bowels of his son Vali, but his son Narfi was changed to a wolf. Skathi took a poison-snake and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the poison dropped thereon. Sigyn, Loki's wife, sat there and held a shell under the poison, but when the shell was full she bore away the poison, and meanwhile the poison dropped on Loki. Then he struggled so hard that the whole earth shook therewith; and now that is called an earthquake.

  1. The flames: the fire that consumes the world on the last day; cf. Voluspo, 57. Line 5 may be spurious.
  2. Snorri tells the same story, with minor differences, but makes it the consequence of Loki’s part in the slaying of Baldr, which undoubtedly represents the correct tradition. The compiler of the poems either was confused or thought the incident was