ead, the Mead whose taste
gives wisdom, and wisdom in such beautiful words that all love and
remember it. And Gunnloed, who had tasted a little of the Magic Mead,
wandered through the world singing of the beauty and the might of Odin,
and of her love for him.

[Illustration]

ODIN TELLS TO VIDAR, HIS SILENT SON, THE SECRET OF HIS DOINGS

It was not only to Giants and Men that Odin showed himself in the days
when he went through Joetunheim and Midgard as Vegtam the Wanderer. He
met and he spoke with the Gods also, with one who lived far away from
Asgard and with others who came to Midgard and to Joetunheim.

The one who lived far away from Asgard was Vidar, Odin's silent son. Far
within a wilderness, with branches and tall grass growing around him,
Vidar sat. And near by him a horse grazed with a saddle upon it, a horse
that was ever ready for the speedy journey.

And Odin, now Vegtam the Wanderer, came into that silent place and spoke
to Vidar, the Silent God.

"O Vidar," he said, "strangest of all my sons; God who will live when
all of us have passed away; God who will bring the memory of the
Dwellers of Asgard into a world that will know not their power; O Vidar,
well do I know why there grazes near by thee the horse ever ready for
the speedy journey: it is that thou mayst spring upon it and ride
unchecked, a son speeding to avenge his father.

"To you only, O Vidar the Silent One, will I speak of the secrets of my
doings. Who but you can know why I, Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, hung
on the tree Ygdrassil nine days and nine nights, mine own spear
transfixing me? I hung upon that windy tree that I might learn the
wisdom that would give me power in the nine worlds. On the ninth night
the Runes of Wisdom appeared before mine eyes, and slipping down from
the tree I took them to myself.

"And I shall tell why my ravens fly to thee, carrying in their beaks
scraps of leather. It is that thou mayst make for thyself a sandal; with
that sandal on thou mayst put thy foot on the lower jaw of a mighty wolf
and rend him. All the shoemakers of the earth throw on the ground scraps
of the leather they use so that thou mayst be able to make the sandal
for thy wolf-rending foot.

"And I have counseled the dwellers on earth to cut off the fingernails
and the toenails of their dead, lest from those fingernails and toenails
the Giants make for themselves the ship Naglfar in which they will sail
from the North on the day