Bjorno is an Asa-god; and he is described as an archer who had confidence in his weapon, though he proved to be inferior to Avo in the use of it. Among the gods of Asgard only two archers are mentioned--_Hödr_ and _Ullr_. At the time when this event occurred Ull had not yet been adopted in Asgard. As has been shown above (see No. 102), he is the son of Orvandel-Egil and Sif. His abode is still with his parents when Svipdag, his half-brother, receives instructions from Sif to seek Frey and Freyja in Jotunheim (see No. 102), and he faithfully accompanies Svipdag through his adventures on this journey. Thus Ull is out of the question--the more so as he would in that case be opposing his own father. Hoder (_Hödr_) is mentioned as an archer both in the Beowulf poem, where he, under the name Hædcyn, shoots Balder-Herebeald accidentally with his "horn-bow," and in Saxo (_arcus peritia pollebat_--_Hist._, 111), and in Christian tales based on myths, where he appears by the name _Hedinn_. That Bjorno, mentioned by Saxo as a beautiful youth, is Hoder is confirmed by another circumstance. He is said to be _sequestris ordinis vir_ (_Hist._, 270), an expression so difficult to interpret that scholars have proposed to change it into _sequioris_ or _equestris ordinis vir_. The word shows that Bjorno in Saxo's mythological authorities belonged to a group of persons whose functions were such that they together might be designated as a _sequestris ordo_. _Sequester_ means a mediator in general, and in the law language of Rome it meant an impartial arbitrator to whom a dispute might be referred. The Norse word which Saxo, accordingly, translated with _sequestris ordo_, "the mediators," "the arbitrators," can have been none other than the plural _ljónar_, a mythological word, and also an old legal term, of which it is said in the Younger Edda: _Ljónar heita their menn, er ganga um sættir manna_, "_ljónar_ are called those men whose business it is to settle disputes." That this word _ljónar_ originally designated a certain group of Asa-gods whose special duty it was to act as arbitrators is manifest from the phrase _ljóna kindir_, "the children of the peacemakers," an expression inherited from heathendom and applied to mankind far down in Christian times; it is an expression to be compared with the phrase _megir Heimdallar_, "Heimdal's sons," which also was used to designate mankind. In Christian times the phrase "children of men" was translated with the heathen expression _ljóna kindir_; and when the recollection of the original meaning of _ljónar_ was obliterated, the word, on account of this usage, came to mean men in general (_viri_, _homines_), a signification which it never had in the days of heathendom.