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Poetic Edda

For a single drink  shalt thou never receive
 A greater gift as reward.

4.[1] The land is holy  that lies hard by
 The gods and the elves together;
And Thor shall ever  in Thruthheim dwell,
 Till the gods to destruction go.

5.[2] Ydalir call they  the place where Ull
 A hall for himself hath set;
And Alfheim the gods  to Freyr once gave
 As a tooth-gift in ancient times.

6.[3] A third home is there,  with silver thatched
 By the hands of the gracious gods:
Valaskjolf is it,   in days of old
 Set by a god for himself.

7.[4] Sökkvabekk is the fourth,  where cool waves flow,

    Veratyr ("Lord of Men"): Othin. The "gift" which Agnar receives is Othin's mythological lore.

  1. ↑ Thruthheim ("the Place of Might"): the place where, Thor, the strongest of the gods, has his hall, Bilskirnir, described in stanza 24.
  2. ↑ Ydalir ("Yew-Dales"): the home of Ull, the archer among the gods, a son of Thor's wife, Sif, by another marriage. The wood of the yew-tree was used for bows in the North just as it was long afterwards in England. Alfheim: the home of the elves. Freyr: cf. Skirnismol introductory prose and note. Tooth-gift: the custom of making a present to a child when it cuts its first tooth is, according to Vigfusson, still in vogue in Iceland.
  3. ↑ Valaskjolf ("the Shelf of the Slain"): Othin's home, in which is his watch-tower, Hlithskjolf. Gering identifies this with Valhall, and as that is mentioned in stanza 8, he believes stanza 6 to be an interpolation.
  4. ↑

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