Making there kingly roads, drinking from running brooks counted by hundreds.
But in the valleys wide, on the smooth greensward were quietly grazing
Glossy-skinned herds, which with udders distended now long for the milk-pail.
Scattered among them were myriads of white-wooled sheep, constantly moving,
Looking like fleecy clouds sailing serenely across the blue heavens,
Wafted now hither now thither in crowds by the winds in the spring-time.

Twelve times two coursers, fierce whirlwinds, defiant though fettered,
Stood in the rows of stalls, stamping and restless, the meadow-hay chewing,
Knotted their long manes with red, and their hoofs were with iron shoes
glistening.

Standing apart was the drinking-hall, built of the choicest fir timber;
Counting ten twelves to the hundred, not five hundred warriors assembled
Filled up the spacious apartment, when all met to drink mead at Yule-time.
Down through the middle, from end to end, ran a strong table of stone-oak,
Polished with wax and like steel shining; carved on two pillars of elm-wood,
Far at one end, Frey and Odin supported the dais of honor,
Odin with lordly look, Frey with the sun for a crest on his bonnet.

'Twixt the two, on a bear-skin (black as a coal was this bear-skin,
Scarlet the mouth, while the tips of the claws were with bright silver
shining),
Thorstein among his friends sat--hospitality ministering to Gladness.


Oft when the moon in the heavens was riding, the old man related
Wonders of foreign lands seen by him when as a viking he journeyed,
Far on the waves of the Baltic, the White, and the Northern seas tossing.
Mutely the company listened. Fixed were their eyes on the speaker,