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 vocabulary that Snorri wrote one of the sections of the Prose Edda. As an illustration, in a single stanza of one poem in the Egilssaga, a sword is called "the halo of the helnn," "the wound-hoe," "the blood-snake" (possibly; no one is sure what the compound word means) and "the ice of the girdle," while men appear in the same stanza as "Othin's ash-trees," and battle is spoken of as "the iron game." One of the eight lines has defied translation completely.

Skaldic diction made relatively few inroads into the earlier Eddic poems, but in the Hymiskvitha these circumlocutions are fairly numerous. This sets the poem somewhat apart from the rest of the mythological collection. Only the vigor of the two main stories—Thor's expedition after Hymir's kettle and the fishing trip in which he caught Mithgarthsorm—saves it from complete mediocrity.

Of old the gods made feast together, And drink they sought ere sated they were; Twigs they shook, and blood they tried: Rich fare in Ægir's hall they found.