Óðinn, God of Gods, was not content with being able to see everything that happened in the nine worlds. He was not content even with being able to understand all that he saw. His blood raced and he longed to test life's winds and tides for himself. While Þórr was away fighting trolls and troll women and their wolf children in Iron Wood, Óðinn bristled at his own lack of action. He became so restless that he donned his golden helmet adorned with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, called to his great steed, and leaped onto the back of Sleipnir, hungry for some happening. Sleipnir vaulted the torrent Thund beside Valhöll and then to the old river that snaked through canyons; he spring-heeled over the broad gleaming river and the river teeming with spears, and his eight hooves stomped gloriously as he galloped over scree. For hour after hour, Óðinn rode towards Jotunheimr across the utterly dreary country, at first flat and tussocky and pocked with small, deserted lakes, then a flat and stony sea of slabs where nothing lived, and nothing grew.
At last, where the land began to swell and in some places to smoke, leavened by fires far below the Earth's crust, Óðinn came to the hall of Hrungnir, the strongest of all the jötuns.
