of whom are merely personified epithets, occurring nowhere else. Of
the sixteen, Frigg, Gefion, Freyja and Saga (really an epithet only)
are Goddesses in the poems, and Fulla is Frigg's handmaid. In another
chapter, Snorri adds Idunn, Gerd, Sigyn and Nanna, of whom the latter
does not appear in the Elder Edda, where Idunn, Gerd (a giantess)
and Sigyn are the wives of Bragi, Frey and Loki; and two others,
the giantess Skadi and Sif, are the wives of Njörd and Thor.

A striking difference from classical mythology is that neither Tyr
(who should etymologically be the Sky-god), nor Thor (the Thunder-god),
takes the highest place. Tyr is the hero of one important episode,
the chaining of the Wolf, through which he loses his right hand. This
is told in full by Snorri and alluded to in _Lokasenna_, both in the
prose preface ("Tyr also was there, with only one hand; the Fenris-wolf
had bitten off the other, when he was bound") and in the poem itself:

_Loki_. "I must remember that right hand which Fenri bit off thee."

_Tyr_. "I am short of a hand, but thou of the famous wolf; to each
the loss is ill-luck. Nor is the wolf in better plight, for he must
wait in bonds till Ragnarök."

Otherwise, he only appears in connexion with two more popular Gods:
he speaks in Frey's defence in _Lokasenna_, and in _Hymiskvida_ he
is Thor's companion in the search for a cauldron; the latter poem
represents him as a giant's son.

Thor, on the other hand, is second only to his father Odin; he is
the strongest of the Gods and their champion against the giants,
and his antagonist at Ragnarök is to be the World-Snake. Like Odin,