All the warriors accompanying Thor were eager to fight Ymer's descendants, as we have seen in the second strophe. But the last lines of strophe 4 represent one in particular as longing to contend with one of the warlike and terrible giantesses of giant-land. This champion is not mentioned by name, but he is characterised as _bragdmildr_, "quick to conceive and quick to move;" as _brædivændr_, "he who is wont to offer food to eat;" and as _bölkveitir_ or _bölkvetir Loka_, "he who compensated Loke's evil deed." The characterisations fit Orvandel-Egil, the nimble archer and skee-runner, who, at his chalet, receives Thor as his guest, when the latter is on his way to Jotunheim, and who gave Thor Thjalfe and Roskva as a compensation, when Loke had deceitfully induced Thjalfe to break a bone belonging to one of Thor's slaughtered goats for the purpose of getting at the marrow. If Thorsdrapa had added that the champion thus designated also was the best archer of mythology, there could be no doubt that Egil was meant. This addition is made further on in the poem, and of itself confirms the fact that Egil took part in the expedition.
_Strophe 5_, compared with strophes 6 and 7, informs us that Thor, with his troop of champions, in the course of his march came into one of the wild mountain-regions of Jotunheim. The weather is bad and hail-showers fall. And here Thor finds out that Loke has deceived him in the most insolent manner. By his directions Thor has led his forces to the place where they now are, and here rushes forth from between the mountains a river into which great streams, swelling with hail-showers, roll down from the mountains with seething ice-water. To find in such a river a ford by which his companions can cross was for Thor a difficult matter.
_Strophe 6._ Meanwhile the men from Ide's chalet had confidently descended into the river. A comparison with strophes 7 and 8 shows that they cautiously kept near Thor, and waded a little farther up the river than he. They used their spears as staffs, which they put down into the stony bottom of the river. The din of the spears, when their metallic points came in contact with the stones of the bottom blended with the noise of the eddies roaring around the rocks of the river (_Knátti hreggi höggvinn hlymthel vid möl glymja, enn fjalla fellihryn thaut med Fedju stedja_).