Eil Þdr 20III/2 — hamri ‘hammer [= Þórr]’
Glaums niðjum fór gǫrva
gramr með dreyrgum hamri;
of salvanið Synjar
sigr hlaut arinbrautar.
Kom at tvíviðar tívi,
tollurr karms þás harmi,
-brautar liðs, of beitti,
bekk- fall, jǫtuns rekka.
Gramr með dreyrgum hamri fór gǫrva niðjum Glaums; hlaut sigr of salvanið Synjar arinbrautar. Fall liðs bekkbrautar kom at tívi tvíviðar, þás tollurr karms of beitti rekka jǫtuns harmi.
The ruler with the bloody hammer [= Þórr] totally destroyed the descendants of Glaumr <giant> [GIANTS]; [he] gained victory over the hall-visitor of the Syn <goddess> of the hearth-stone-path [MOUNTAINS > GIANTESS > GIANT]. The fall of the retinue of the bench-road [HOUSE] came at the god of the bow [WARRIOR = Geirrøðr], when the pole of the wagon-cab [CHARIOTEER = Þórr] inflicted violence on the warriors of the giant.
notes
[2] með dreyrgum hamri ‘with the bloody hammer’: Reichardt (1948, 385-6) notes that Þórr now suddenly has his hammer, which he had left behind in accordance with Loki’s arrangement with the giants. The justification for this sudden appearance is that the attribute ‘hammer’ identifies Þórr independently of any context (so Kiil 1956, 158-9). Kiil’s solution is preferable to Reichardt’s (ibid.), who combines gǫrva with hamri to get ‘with the fish of the armaments’, a kenning that, according to him, refers to the staff Gríðarvǫlr. According to Clunies Ross (1981, 388), in whose view this myth represents the initiation of the young god (see Introduction) the hammer is identical with the red-hot iron from the previous stanza. Iron and hammer, in her view, are one and the same weapon, i.e. Þórr’s hammer Mjǫllnir, which he first obtains in his struggle against Geirrøðr (similarly Davidson 1983, 657 who thinks that the giants themselves supplied Þórr with his weapon).