Page:The Prose Edda (1916 translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur).pdf/62

 And it is further said:


 * More serpents lie
 * under Yggdrasill's stock
 * Than every unwise ape can think:
 * Góinn and Móinn
 * (they're Grafvitnir's sons),
 * Grábakr and Grafvölludr;
 * Ófnir and Sváfnir
 * I think shall aye
 * Tear the trunk's twigs.

It is further said that these Norns who dwell by the Well of Urdr take water of the well every day, and with it that clay which lies about the well, and sprinkle it over the Ash, to the end that its limbs shall not wither nor rot; for that water is so holy that all things which come there into the well become as white as the film which lies within the egg-shell,&mdash;as is here said:


 * I know an Ash standing
 * called Yggdrasill,
 * A high tree sprinkled
 * with snow-white clay;
 * Thence come the dews
 * in the dale that fall&mdash;
 * It stands ever green
 * above Urdr's Well.

That dew which falls from it onto the earth is called by men honey-dew, and thereon are bees nourished. Two fowls are fed in Urdr's Well: they are called Swans, and from those fowls has come the race of birds which is so called."

XVII. Then said Gangleri: "Thou knowest many tidings to tell of the heaven. What chief abodes are there more than at Urdr's Well?" Hárr said: "Many places are there,