ed up on the lintel of the house, and as she
came running out they cast a millstone on her head. It struck her and
Gilling's wife fell down dead. More and more the Dwarfs were delighted
at the destruction they were making.

They were so insolent now that they made up songs and sang them, songs
that were all a boast of how they had killed Kvasir the Poet, and
Gilling the Giant, and Gilling's wife. They stayed around Joetunheim,
tormenting all whom they were able to torment, and flattering themselves
that they were great and strong. They stayed too long, however. Suttung,
Gilling's brother, tracked them down and captured them.

Suttung was not harmless and simple like Gilling, his brother. He was
cunning and he was covetous. Once they were in his hands the Dwarfs had
no chance of making an escape. He took them and left them on a rock in
the sea, a rock that the tide would cover.

The Giant stood up in the water taller than the rock, and the tide as it
came in did not rise above his knees. He stood there watching the Dwarfs
as the water rose up round them and they became more and more terrified.

"Oh, take us off the rock, good Suttung," they cried out to him. "Take
us off the rock and we will give you gold and jewels. Take us off the
rock and we will give you a necklace as beautiful as Brisingamen." So
they cried out to him, but the Giant Suttung only laughed at them. He
had no need of gold or jewels.

Then Fialar and Galar cried out: "Take us off the rock and we will give
you the jars of the Magic Mead we have brewed."

"The Magic Mead," said Suttung. "This is something that no one else has.
It would be well to get it, for it might help us in the battle against
the Gods. Yes, I will get the Magic Mead from them."

He took the band of Dwarfs off the rock, but he held Galar and Fialar,
their chiefs, while the others went into their caverns and brought up
the jars of the Magic Mead. Suttung took the Mead and brought it to a
cavern in a mountain near his dwelling. And thus it happened that the
Magic Mead, brewed by the Dwarfs through cruelty and villainy, came into
the hands of the Giants. And the story now tells how Odin, the Eldest of
the Gods, at that time in the world as Vegtam the Wanderer, took the
Magic Mead out of Suttung's possession and brought it into the world of
men.

Now, Suttung had a daughter named Gunnloed, and she by her goodness and
her beauty was like Gerda and Skadi, the Giant maids whom the Dwel