Note 33 — CANTO V. MAGIC SPELLS IN UTGARD.
William Edward Frye translation
This combat between Thor and the giantesses on the rocky isle is alluded to in the elder or poetic Edda, in the chapter called “Harbard’s song.” Harbard makes Thor the following reproach, when the latter tells him that he had beaten and put to flight the giantesses on the isle of Hlesey:
Shamefully didst thou act, O Thor! When thou didst beat women.
Thor answers:
They were not women; They were she-wolves; They attacked me with iron clubs.
The meaning of this, according to Finn Magnussen, is, that the noxious vapours and tempest on Hlesey were dispersed by a thunderstorm; and the iron clubs denote hailstones.