Land er heilact, er ec liggia se asom oc olfom nær; en i thrudheimi scal thórr vera, unz um rivfaz regin.
Ydalir heita. thar er Ullr hefir ser úm gorva sali; Alfheim Frey gáfo i árdaga tivar at tannfæ.
_Ýdalir_ means the "dales of the bow" or "of the bows." _Ýsetr_ is "the chalet of the bow" or "of the bows." That the first part of these compound words is _ýr_, "a bow," is proved by the way in which the local name _Ýsetr_ can be applied in poetical paraphrases, where the bow-holding hand is called Ysetr. The names refer to the mythical rulers of the region, namely, the archer Ull and his father the archer Orvandel-Egil. The place has also been called _Geirvadills setr_, _Geirvandills setr_, which is explained by the fact that Orvandel's father bore the epithet Geirvandel (Saxo, _Hist._, 135). Hakon Jarl, the ruler of northern Norway, is called (Fagrsk., 37, 4) _Geirvadills setrs Ullr_, "the Ull of Geirvandel's chalet," a paraphrase in which we find the mythological association of Ull with the chalet which was owned by his father Orvandel and his grandfather Geirvandel. The Ydales were described as rich in gold. _Ysetrs eldr_ is a paraphrase for gold. With this we must compare what Volund says (Volundarkvida, 14) of the wealth of gold in his and his kinsmen's home. (See further, in regard to the same passage, Nos. 114 and 115.)
In connection with its mention of the Ydales, Grimnersmal states that the gods gave Frey Alfheim as a tooth-gift. _Tannfé_ (tooth-gift) was the name of a gift which was given (and in Iceland is still given) to a child when it gets its first tooth. The tender Frey is thus appointed by the gods as king over Alfheim, and chief of the elf-princes there, among whom Volund and Orvandel-Egil, judging from the mythic events themselves, must have been the foremost and most celebrated. It is also logically correct, from the standpoint of nature symbolism, that the god of growth and harvests receives the government of elves and primeval artists, the personified powers of culture. Through this arrangement of the gods, Volund and Orvandel become vassals under Njord and his son.
In two passages in Saxo we read mythic accounts told as history, from which it appears that Njord selected a foster-father for his son, or let him be reared in a home under the care of two fosterers. In the one passage (_Hist._, 272) it is Fridlevus-Njord who selects Avo the archer as his son's foster-father; in the other passage (_Hist._, 181) it is the tender Frotho, son of Fridlevus and future brother-in-law of Ericus-Svipdag, who receives Isulfus and Aggo as guardians.