“If thou hast a friend whom thou canst not trust, but yet wouldst obtain a benefit from him, speak fairly to him, but keep thine own secret: return him falsehood for falsehood.” “Trust not to a woman’s word: her heart is moveable as the wheel at which she spins, and deceit is cherished in her breast.” “The child of one’s old age is the most precious.” “Flocks and herds perish; so do friends and kindred; such will be our own lot. But one thing there is that will never perish,—the good man’s fame.” 3. The poems purely mythological are of a more interesting class. The _Hymis-guida_, or song concerning Hymir, describes an entertainment given by Ægir, the sea-god, to the deities of the Scandinavian Olympus. Ægir, to his great dismay, has no cauldron large enough to brew mead in for such thirsty guests; and Thor goes to borrow or steal one from the great Hymir. This entertainment gave rise to another poem, the _Loka-glespa_, or quarrelling of Loka with the assembled guests. It is curious as showing the estimation in which the gods were held by one of their own number. A more imaginative production is the _Hamars-heimt_, or recovery of Thor’s mallet, which the guests had stolen, and which Thrym, one of the number, had buried eight miles below the surface of the ground. The _Rafna-galdur-Odins_, or raven song of Odin, describes the lamentations of the gods at their approaching annihilation. The _Skirnirs-for_, or journey of Skirnir to the region of the giants, in search of a wife for Freyr, one of the gods, is graphic, and strikingly illustrative of northern mythology. The _Vegtams-guida_, or Song of the Traveller, contains the descent of Odin to consult the charmed prophetess Vala concerning the fate of Baldur. This piece we have already translated.[17]