Told by the Northmen: Stories from the Eddas and SagasWilmot-Buxton, E. M. (Ethel Mary)
General
Told by the Northmen: Stories from the Eddas and Sagas
Wilmot-Buxton, E. M. (Ethel Mary)
Mythology, Norse; Mythology, Norse -- Juvenile literature
Hurrying to the giant's house they told his wife, with a fine pretence
of sympathy, that her husband had fallen into the sea and was drowned.
At this the poor giantess began to sob and groan until the walls shook
with the noise. Then Fialar said to his brother:
"Tired am I of this bawling. I will now take her out, and as she
passes through the doorway, drop a millstone on her head; and then
there will be an end to them both."
Forthwith he asked if it would not comfort her to look upon the sea
where her dear husband lay drowned; and she said it would. But as she
passed through the doorway wicked Galar, who had scrambled up above
the lintel, dropped a millstone on her head, and so she too fell an
easy victim to the malice of the cruel brothers.
Now while the two dwarfs were jumping and skipping about in their
wicked glee at the success of their evil plans, the Giant Suttung, son
of Gilling, came home, and finding that his mother and father were
both dead, he quickly guessed who were at the bottom of the mischief,
and determined to put an end to the wretches.
Before they could evade his wrath, he grasped one of the dwarfs in
each of his great hands, and, wading out into the ocean, he set them
down upon a rock which he knew would be flooded at high tide, and
there left them.
Then Fialar and Galar began to scream with terror, and to offer
anything that Suttung chose to ask for, if only he would spare their
lives.
Now Suttung had heard, as most people had done, of the Magic Mead, and
he thought that this was a fine opportunity of getting it into his
possession. So he bargained with the dwarfs, and they gladly promised
to give him the whole brew if only he would save them from their
perilous plight.
Suttung waited till they had had a good fright, and then, as the first
wave washed over them, he waded to the rock and lifted them off. He
took good care, however, not to give them their liberty until they had
handed over the three jars of Magic Mead.
The moment he had got the precious jars into his possession Suttung
hid them in a cave deep down in the centre of a mountain, and he set
his daughter, Gunlod, the Giant-Maiden, to keep watch and ward,
charging her to guard the cavern night and day, and to allow neither
gods nor men to have so much as a sip of the marvellous liquid.
Meantime, All-Father Odin had sent forth his ravens, Hugin and Munin,
to find out what had become of the wise Kvasir. For a while even they
were puzzled by his complete disappearance, but presently they heard
men talk of the Magic Mead that had been made from his blood, and so,
little by little, they learned the truth, and flying back to Odin,
they perched on his shoulders, and whispered it into his ears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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