after having subdued an extensive kingdom in Saxland lie set his sons to defend the country. He himself v^ent northward to the sea, and took up his abode in an island which is called Odinse (see note below), in Funen. Then he sent Gefjun across the sound to the north to discover new countries, and she came to King Gylfe, who gave her a ploughland. Then she went to Jotunheim and bore four sons to a giant, and transformed them into a yoke of oxen, and yoked them to a plough and broke out the land into the ocean, right opposite to Odinse, which was called Seeland, where she afterward settled and dwelt.[1] Skjold, a son of Odin, married her, and they dwelt at Leidre.[2] Where the ploughed land was, is a lake or sea called Laage.[3] In the Swedish land the fjords of Laage correspond to the nesses of Seeland. Brage the old sings thus of it:
Gefjun glad
Drew from Gylfe
The excellent land,
Denmark's increase,
So that it reeked
From the running beasts.
Four heads and eight eyes
Bore the oxen.
As they went before the wide
Robbed land of the grassy isle.[4]
Now when Odin heard that things were in a prosperous condition in the land to the east beside Gylfe,
- ↑ Compare this version of the myth with the one given in the first chapter of The Fooling of Gylfe. Many explain the myth to mean the breaking through of the Baltic between Sweden and Denmark.
- ↑ Leidre or Leire, at the end of Isefjord, in the county of Lithraborg, is considered the oldest royal seat in Denmark.
- ↑ Laage is a general name for lakes and rivers. It here stands for Lake Malar, in Sweden.
- ↑ The grassy isle is Seeland.
