Surf-swine

As I’m on holiday and I have lots of free time, I’ve started reading Poetic Edda again. There was a bit of a break when I was too tired to do much of anything.

Anyhow, according to the translator’s notes of Poetic Edda:

Surf-swine: the whales.

Now, I might be the only one who finds this funny but in Japan there’s a wild boar which is also known as yama kujira. This literally translates as “mountain whale”.

I just thought that was the funniest coincidence.

But I also made a joke about the Japanese word 好き in a fan fiction which I’m pretty sure no one noticed. So, you know.

And now I probably need to go to sleep because my head is killing me.

10

For the fellow’s chin-forest | frozen was.

Chin-forest. Ha ha, that’s the cutest word for beard I’ve ever heard. I need to start using it.

Elivagar

(“Stormy Waves”): possibly the Milky Way.

If it’s a sky reference, wouldn’t the aurorae make more sense?

Ægir

Ægir: a giant who is also the god of the sea.

Mountain-dweller: the giant (Ægir).

The Arnamagnæan Codex has “Ægir” instead of “Egil,” but, aside from the fact that Thor had just left Ægir’s house, the sea-god can hardly have been spoken of as a goat-herd.

But it’s totally normal to speak of the sea-god as a mountain-dweller?