[Illustration: KING SVAFRLAME SECURES THE SWORD TYRFING.
In the Icelandic Hervar's Saga is an account of the mythical sword called Tyrfing, which Odin commanded the dwarfs Durin and Dvalin to forge for his grandson, King Svafrlame. When, against their will, they were compelled to deliver the sword to the king, the dwarfs pronounced a curse upon it, declaring that it should never be drawn from its sheath without causing the death of some one. Soon after Svafrlame was killed by Arngrim and the sword passed to Angantyr, who, in turn, was slain by Hjalmar and, to abate the curse, Tyrfing was buried with him. Angantyr's daughter, Hervor, however, by a spell, exorcised the spirit of her father and obtained the sword, after which it had many owners in succession, but the curse remained, for it brought death as before to every one who unsheathed it.]
Meanwhile we obtain from these scattered mythic fragments preserved in the heroic poems, when compared with the statements found in the mythology itself, the following connected story as the myth about the mead:
Originally, the mead, the _soma_, belongs to Mimer alone. From an unknown depth it rises in the lower world directly under the world-tree, whose middle root is watered by the well of the precious liquid. Only by self-sacrifice, after prayers and tears, is Odin permitted to take a drink from this fountain. The drink increases his strength and wisdom, and enables him to give order to the world situated above the lower regions. From its middle root the world-tree draws liquids from the mead-fountain, which bless the einherjes of Asgard as a beverage, and bless the people of Midgard as a fructifying honey-dew. Still this mead is not pure; it is mixed with the liquids from Urd's and Hvergelmer's fountains. But somewhere in the Jotunheims, the genuine mead was discovered in the fountain Byrger. This discovery was kept secret. The keeper of the secret was Ivalde, the sworn watchman near the Elivagar. In the night he sent his son Slagfin (afterwards called after his adopted father Hjuke) and his daughter Bil (Idun) to dip liquid from the fountain Byrger and bring it to him. But the children never returned. The moon-god had taken them and Byrger's liquids unto himself, and thus the gods of Asgard were able to partake of this drink. Without the consent of the moon-god, Ivalde on his part secured his daughter the sun-dis, and doubtless she bears to him the daughters Idun, Almveig, and other dises of growth and rejuvenation, after he had begotten Slagfin, Egil, and Volund with the giantess Greip. The moon-god and Ivalde have accordingly taken children from each other. The circumstance that the mead, which gives the gods their creative power and wisdom, was robbed from Ivalde--this find which he kept secret and wished to keep for himself alone--makes him the irreconcilable foe of the moon-god, is the cause of the war between them, and leads him to violate the oath which he had taken to him. He attacks Gevar in the night, kills and burns him, and recaptures the mead preserved in the ship of the moon. He is henceforth for ever a foe of the gods, and allies himself with the worst enemies of their world, the powers of frost and fire. Deep down in Hades there has long dwelt another foe of the gods, Surt-Durin, the clan-chief of Suttung's sons, the father of Fjalar. In the oldest time he too was the friend of the gods, and co-operated with Mimer in the first creation (see No. 89). But this bond of friendship had now long been broken. Down into the deep and dark dales in which this clan hostile to the gods dwells, Ivalde brings his mead-treasure into safety. He apparently gives it as the price of Fjalar's daughter Gunlad, and as a pledge of his alliance with the world of giants. On the day of the wedding, Odin comes before him, and clad in his guise, into Surt's halls, marries Gunlad, robs the liquids of Byrger, and flies in eagle guise with them to Asgard. On the wedding day Ivalde comes outside of Surt's mountain-abode, but never enters. A dwarf, the keeper of the halls, entices him into his ruin. It has already been stated that he was probably buried beneath an avalanche.