Note 79 — CANTO XXI. CONVERSATION BETWEEN SKIRNIR AND FREY.

The story of the stone, which Odin casts among the giants to incite them to discord, resembles much a circumstance mentioned in the poem of Apollonius of Rhodes, called “The Argonauts” in the 3d Canto. “But the giants, springing from the furrows which he had traced, covered with their arms the field he had ploughed. Jason, returning, rushes toward them, and throws amongst them an enormous stone; many are crushed by it; others, disputing for its possession, slay one another.” In fact, the amour of Odin with Gunliod has some sort of resemblance in the beginning to that of Jason and Medea.