Æger having expressed a wish to know how poetry originated, Brage, the god of poetry, informed him that the asas and vans having met to put an end to the war which had long been carried on between them, a treaty of peace was agreed to and ratified by each party spitting into a jar. As a lasting sign of the amity which was thenceforward to subsist between the contending parties, the gods formed out of this spittle a being, to whom they gave the name of Kvaser, and whom they endowed with such a high degree of intelligence that no one could ask him a question that he was unable to answer. Kvaser then traversed the whole world to teach men wisdom, but the dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar, having invited him to a feast, treacherously murdered him. They let his blood run into two cups and a kettle. The name of the kettle is Odrœrer, and the names of the cups are Son and Bodn. By mixing up his blood with honey they composed a drink of such surpassing excellence that whoever partakes of it acquires the gift of song (becomes a poet or man of knowledge, _skáld_, _eða fræðamaðr_). When the gods inquired what had become of Kvaser, the dwarfs told them that he had been suffocated with his own wisdom, not being able to find anyone who, by proposing to him a sufficient number of learned questions, might relieve him of its super-abundance. The dwarfs invited a giant, by name Gilling, and his wife. They proposed to the giant to take a boat-ride with them out on the sea, but they rowed on to a rock and capsized. Gilling could not swim, and perished, but the dwarfs rowed ashore, and told his wife of his death, which made her burst forth in a flood of tears. Then Fjalar asked her whether it would not be some consolation to her to look out upon the water, where her husband had perished; and when she consented to this, Fjalar said to his brother Galar that he should get up above the door, and, as she passed out through it, he should let fall a mill-stone upon her head, for he was sick and disgusted with her crying. The brother did so, and thus she perished also. A son of Gilling, a giant by name Suttung, avenged these treacherous deeds. He took the dwarfs out to sea and placed them on a shoal, which was flooded at high water. In this critical position they implored Suttung to spare their lives, and accept the verse-inspiring beverage, which they possessed, as an atonement for their having killed his parents. Suttung, having agreed to these conditions, released the dwarfs, and, carrying the mead home with him, committed it to the care of his daughter Gunlad. Hence poetry is indifferently called Kvaser’s blood, Suttung’s mead, the dwarfs’ ransom, etc.