410 



RELIGION. SACRIFICES TO THE ALFAR, ETC. 



the Fenris-wolf was kept tied ; also the ship Skidbladnir, Odin's 

 spear Gungnir, and Sif s golden hair, &o. 



" Why is gold called the hair of Sif? ' Loki, son of Lanfey, 

 had, through cunning, cut off all the hair of Sif (wife. of Thor). 

 When Thor knew it he took Loki and would have crushed 

 every bone in him if he had not sworn to get the Svartalfar 

 (black Alfar) to make hair of gold for Sif which would grow 

 like other hair. Thereafter Loki went to the Dvergar, called 

 the sons of Ivaldi, 1 and they made the hair and Skidbladnir 

 and the spear of Odin, Gungnir. Then Loki staked his head 

 to the Dverg Brok that his brother Sindri would not be able 

 to make three things as good as these. When they came to 

 the smithy, Sindri laid the skin of a swine on the hearth and 

 asked Brok to blow (the bellows), and not to stop before he 

 had taken from the hearth what he had put on it. When he 

 had left the forge and Brok had made the bellows blow, a fly 2 

 sat down on his hand and pecked at it ; he continued until 

 the smith took from the hearth a boar with golden bristles. 

 Then Sindri put gold on the hearth and asked him to blow 

 and not to stop till he came back. He went, and the fly came 

 and sat down on his neck and pecked twice as hard, but he 

 blew until the smith took from the hearth a gold ring called 

 Draupnir. Then Sindri laid iron on the hearth and asked 

 him to blow, as this would be of no use if he stopped it. Then 

 the fly settled down between his eyes and pecked at his 

 eyelids. When the blood ran down into his eyes so that he 

 saw nothing he swept away the fly as quickly as he could, and 

 the bellows fell down ; then the smith came and said that now 

 all that was on the hearth had been made nearly useless. He 

 took a hammer from it and gave all these (three) things to his 

 brother Brok, and asked him to take them to Asgard for the 

 wager. . . . Loki gave to Odin the spear Gungnir, to Thor 

 the hair for Sif, to Frey Skidbladnir. . . . Then Brok gave 

 the ring (Draupnir) to Odin, and said that every ninth night 

 eight rings equally heavy would drop from it ; he gave the 

 boar to Frey, and said it could run over sea and air by night 

 and day faster than any horse, and that the night or mijrk- 

 heimar (the black world) would never get so dark but there 

 would be enough light from the shining of its mane. He 

 gave the hammer to Thor, and said that whatever he met, 

 however large the object was, he might strike it with the 

 hammer and it would never fail ; if he threw it at anything it 



1 Here we see that Svartalfar are 

 Dvergar. 



2 From this it is supposed that Loki 



had come in the shape of a fly to make 

 them lose the wager. 



