Poetry (or _Scaldship_) was reckoned among the Idróttir, and was considered a gift from the gods. The people looked to their poets to perpetuate in songs and transmit to future generations the deeds of their heroes, and the fame which was to cling to their names when they had gone to Valhalla. From these poets, or _scalds_, we learn all we know of the history of the earlier Norse tribes; from their songs the people heard of the birth of their religion; of the creation of the world, of the wisdom of the past, &c. Without them the history and deeds of the race must have been lost to us, and we would only have had left the antiquities of the early times to ponder over. These songs filled the youth of the country who listened to them with ambition, urging them to emulate the deeds of those whose praises were sung. In no literature which has come down to us do we see dying heroes such as Ragnar Lodbrok, Hjalmar, Orvar Odd, and others, singing the deeds they had accomplished as life is ebbing away from them, and they are ready to enter into _Hel_. Whether these heroes sang these songs at such a time or not, or whether they were written by poets at a later time, matters little. The people of the land believed in them. In this peculiar branch of poetry the earlier Norsemen stand wholly apart from those of other lands. The figurative names given to scaldship[278] by the poets show how the earlier traditions were impressed upon the mind—_Kvásirs blood_, _Dvergar mead_, _Suttungs mead_, _Asar’s mead_, _Odreyris liquid_, _Odin’s gift_, _Odin’s freight_, _The Dvergar’s sea_, _The Dvergar’s ale_, _Jötnar’s mead_. Bragi was supposed to be the most eloquent scald among the Asar. The origin of poetry is given in Hávamál; but in the later Edda we have a more minute account of how it was learned by the Asar. When Hler of Hlessö, who was also called Ægir, came to Asgard to visit the Asar, he made many inquiries, among which was the following:—