FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Sæmundur fróði, Snorri Sturluson, Blackwell, Joseph Andrew, and Thorpe, Benjamin
Source notes
[14] Odin is the "High One." The poem is a collection of rules and maxims, and stories of himself, some of them not very consistent with our ideas of a supreme deity.
[15] In the Copenhagen paper Ms. F. this strophe begins with the following three lines:—
Wit is needful to him who travels far: harm seldom befalls the wary:
They are printed in the Stockholm edition of the original Afzelius and Bask, and in the Swedish translation by Afzelius.
[16] The sense of this line seems doubtful; I have adopted the version of Finn Magnusen.
[17] The public meeting.
[18] That is dead on the funeral pyre.
[19] This line is evidently an interpolation.
[20] Odin.
[21] From this line it appears that the poem is of Norwegian or Swedish origin, as the reindeer was unknown in Iceland before the middle of the 18th century, when it was Introduced by royal command.
[22] The story of Odin and Billing's daughter is no longer extant; but compare the story of Odin and Rinda in Saxo, p. 126, edit. Muller & Veleschow.
[23] In the pagan North oaths were taken on a holy ring or bracelet, as with us on the Gospels, a sacred ring being kept in the temple for the purpose.