Note 56 — Chapter III · THE BIRTH AND BRINGING UP OF CHILDREN.
Reading edition
The giving of garlic at the ceremony of name-fastening, seems to have had some symbolic meaning. From St. Olaf’s Saga we see that it was used for curing wounds: in Gudrunar Kvida the leek is used as opposed to grass, perhaps implying that the child to whom it was given would stand as high among men as it did amongst grass.