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The rest of the poem seems to be later; it tells how the earth shall rise again from the deep, and the Aesir dwell once more in Odin's halls, and there is a suggestion of Christian influence in it which is absent from the earlier part. Of the other general poems, the next four were probably composed before 950; in each the setting is different.
In the bright morning, when the sun rose over the mountains of Midgard, old Mimer drank from his bubbly well a draught of the wise water that flowed over Odin's pledge. Doing so, from his underground grotto he saw all that befell in heaven and on earth. So that he also was wiser by the bargain.
Not but what I hold with you that Steinar has been led away against his will, for I read it in his face. Well, his life must pay the price of it, for surely he shall bleed on Odin's altar. Now, be a man. Come out and face your trouble. You are not the first that a woman has fooled, nor will you be the last. Forget love and dream of vengeance."
Steinar said nothing, for he seemed confused, but Iduna ran to us and said: "Thanks be to the gods who send you, Olaf. The great storm caught us at Odin's temple, where we were forced to shelter. Then, fearing that you would grow frightened, we started, and lost our way." "Is it so?" I answered. "Surely Steinar would have known this road even in the dark. But what matter, since I have found you?"
His companions take up the parable in turn, "and the echoes, huddling in affright, like Odin's hounds," go baying down the valleys and clamouring amongst the pines, like a legion of invisible fiends after a strange cat. Then again all is hush, and tramp, and sanctity, and flop, and holy meditation! And so the pilgrimage is accomplished. Selah! Hee-haw!
"But we are sure of Odin's favor," returned Dankwart; and a wild light gleamed from his eyes, and he brandished his sword high over his head. "A place in Valhal is promised to us; for, him who bravely dies with his blood-stained sword beside him and his heart unrent with fears, the All-Father's victory-wafters will gently carry home.
"For do not we," they cried to Frigga, "love him even as you do? And why then should we harm him?" Gladly Frigga took her way toward home, feeling certain that she had saved Balder forever. As she was about to enter Odin's palace, Valhalla, she noticed on a branch of an oak that grew there, a tiny, weak-looking shrub.
He seized a sword; its sweeping edge soon laid the Hero low, But not before his sinking arm was felt upon his foe: "Thanks, youthful friend!" the Hero said; "now Odin's hall is won, Its rays already greet my soul, its raptures are begun." The true position of the creative musical power in the scale of human genius is difficult to determine; and will be differently estimated by different minds.
On which Gilbert of Ghent, inquiring what Odin's horse might be, and finding it to signify the ash-tree whereon, as sacred to Odin, thieves were hanged by Danes and Norse, made answer, That he Gilbert had not put his cook into Bourne, nor otherwise harmed Hereward or his. That Bourne had been seized by the king himself, together with Earl Morcar's lands in those parts, as all men knew.
And though I am no Christian as he was, I thought it no shame for Odin's man to take their blessing; nor will I to take this one's, Smid, son of Troll. 'Here am I, at last! said Raphael Aben-Ezra to himself.
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