Who is the man That in my hall Speaks to me? Thou shalt not Get out of it Unless thou art the wiser. _Odin._ I am called _Gagnrad_,[23] I have now come from my walking Thirsty to thy hall; Needing thy bidding And thy welcome, Jötun; Long time have I travelled. _Vafthrudnir._ Why standing on the floor Dost thou speak to me? Take a seat in the hall. Then we shall try Who knows more, The guest or the old wise one. _Odin._ When a poor man Comes to a rich one Let him speak useful things or be silent; Great babbling I think turns to ill For one who meets a cold-ribbed[24] man. We are told in the Völuspa that Odin, in the quest of information, went to visit the Völva, or Sybil, Heid, who was possessed of supernatural powers of knowledge and foresight. She asks for a hearing from the sons of Heimdal, or mankind, and then proceeds to tell what she recollects:— I remember Jötnar Early born, Who of yore Raised me;[25] I remember nine worlds, Nine ividi[26] The famous world-tree (Yggdrasil) Beneath the earth. The nine worlds were—1, Muspel; 2, Asgard; 3, Vanaheim (home of the Vanir); 4, Midgard; 5, Alfheim (world of the Alfar); 6, Mannheim (home of men); 7, Jötunheim (the home of the Jötnar); 8, Hel; 9, Niflheim. The first beginnings of all things were apparently as obscure to the Völva as to others; nothing existed before the Creation. The world was then a gaping void (Ginnungagap), and there the Jötun Ymir, or the Hrim Thursar, lived. On each side of Ginnungagap there were two worlds, Niflheim, the world of cold, and Muspelheim, the world of heat. When Ymir lived In early ages Was neither sand nor sea, Nor cool waves, No earth was there Nor heaven above, There was gaping void And grass nowhere. “First there was a home (a world) in the southern half of the world called Muspel; it is hot and bright, so that it is burning and in flames; it is also inaccessible for those who have no _odals_ (or family estates); there the one that sits at the land’s end to defend it is called a Surt. He has a flaming sword, and at the end of the world he will go and make warfare and get victory over all the gods, and burn the whole world with fire” (Later Edda, c. 4).[27]