The Saga from which this incident has been derived was written by a Norwegian, who certainly held Thor to be the equal, if not the superior, of Odin. It is not unlike the magian scene at the creation of the world, when to every good thing decreed by Ormusd, an evil one was joined by Ahriman. That Odin and Thor were rival deities, and that they gave rise to hostile sects, is evident. And there is another point from which this hostility may be viewed. The warriors who went to Valhalla were all of noble birth; they were jarls or herser, were rich and powerful. But what became of meaner freemen and thralls (serfs) who fell in battle? They went to Thrudheim to the palace of Thor, Bilskirner[55], which that the owner might not be outdone, had the same number of gates as the palace of Odin, viz. five hundred and forty. Does not this prove that Thor was the native, Odin the foreign, god?—that the former belonged to the vanquished, the latter to the victorious people? The very name of Thor shows that he was a Celtic divinity. He is the _Taranis_ of Lucan, the Toron of the Scottish Highlands, and the Tiermes of the Lapps.[56] The visit of Odin to the giant Vafthrudnir, and his contest with him[57], may also serve to illustrate his boasted knowledge, as well as power. Frigga, his wife, was alarmed when she first heard of her husband’s intention to visit “that learned giant.” He conquers, indeed, in the strife, but not through any superiority of knowledge: it is rather by an unworthy artifice. _Frigga_, the wife of Odin, was a distinguished personage in the northern Olympus. She is the queen and mother of the gods. Her palace, called Fensale, was magnificent; and it was a sort of drawing-room for all the goddesses. Her prescience was great; she could foresee the future, and she was invoked by women in childbed.