The Heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian MythologyKeary, Annie
General
The Heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian Mythology
Keary, Annie
Mythology, Norse -- Juvenile literature
"Little get I here by silence:
Of a well-assumed form I will make good use;
For few things fail the wise."
And then this strong wise Asa picked up from the ground the little,
mean, wriggling form of a worm and put it on and crept noiselessly
into the hole which he and Baugi had made,--
"The giant's ways are under me,
The giant's ways are over me,"
said Odin as he wriggled through the stone, but when he had got quite
through to the inner side, to Gunnlöd's room, Odin took his proper
form again.
"I see her upon her golden seat," he said as he looked upon the
sleeping Gunnlöd where she lay, and Odin was surprised to see a
giant-maid so beautiful. Surprised and sorry. "For I must leave her
weeping," he mused. "How shall she not weep, defrauded of her
treasure in an Evil Land." And Odin loved and pitied the beautiful
maiden so much, that he would have returned to Asgard without the
mead had that been possible. Alas for Gunnlöd, it was less possible
than ever since Allfather had seen her. For Gunnlöd awoke in the
light of Odin's glance and trembled, she did not know why, she did
not know at first that he was an Asa, but, when he asked her for her
treasure she could not keep it from him, she could not have kept
anything from him. She rose from her golden couch, her blue eyes
melted into the tenderness of a summer sky, she undid the bars and
bolts and coverings of Odhærir, which she had guarded so faithfully
till then, and knelt before Odin and stretched her hands towards him
and said, "Drink, for I think you are a god."
A draught, a draught, a long, deep draught, and the spirit of the Asa
was shaken through its height and through its depth, and again a
draught of love flowing forth to the outermost, to the abysses, and
one draught again--peace--in rushing, still.
Why are you weeping so, Gunnlöd? Oh! Why do you weep? Did you not
give him your whole treasure, "your fervent love, your whole soul;"
you kept nothing back, and Odhærir is for ever the inheritance of the
gods. The dwarfs sold it for their lives, the giantess lost it of her
love, gods win it for the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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