Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

it is said that an immense subterranean dragon comes flying from the west (Vestan sá eg
fljúga Vánar dreka) 25 - the opposite direction of that the shades have to take when they
descend into the lower world - and obstruct "the street of the prince of splendor"
(glævalds götu). The ruler of splendor is Mimir, the prince of the Glittering Fields (see
Nos. 45-51). 26
The Hadding-land's "unharvested ears of grain" belong to the flora inaccessible to
the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding in the blooming meadows of the
world below (see No. 47). The expression refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not
only imperishable flowers and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require
harvesting. Compare this with what Völuspá 63 says about the Odain's-acre 27 which in
the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea: "unsown shall the fields yield
the grain" (munu ósánir akrar vaxa).
Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were also seen on
the Hadding-land horn innleið dýra. Some interpreters assume that "animal entrails" are
meant by this expression; others have translated it with "animal gaps." 28 There is no
authority that innleið ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical
sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means a way, a way
in, in contrast with útleið, a way out. As both Gorm's saga and that of Erik Vidfórli use it
in regard to animals watching entrances in the lower world this gives the expression its
natural interpretation.
So much for the staves carved on the horn. They all refer to the lower world. Now
as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It consists of three liquids:
25 "From the west I saw Ván's dragon's fly" Thorpe translation. According to Gylfaginning 34, Ván is the
river pouring from Fenrir's open mouth.
26 Referring to Rydberg's identification of Mimir with Gudmund of Glasirvellir.
27 "The field of the not-dead," the home of Lif and Lifthrasir in the lower world.
28 The dictionaries do not agree on the meaning of ínnleið. The La Farge-Tucker Glossary of the Poetic
Edda (1992) defines inn-leið as entrance, and innleið dýra as "the jaws of animals," after Hugo Gering
(1927-31), or "the intestines of animals," after Hugo Gering (1903); Ferdinand Detter and Richard Heinzel
(1903) noting both as uncertain.