Oxen

King Gylfi was ruler in what is now called Sweden. Of him it is
said that he gave a certain vagrant woman, as a reward for his
entertainment, one plough-land in his kingdom, as much as four
oxen could plough up in a day and a night. Now this woman was
one of the race of the Æsir. Her name was Gefiun. She took four
oxen from the north, from Giantland, the sons of her and a certain
giant, and put them before the plough. But the plough cut so hard
and deep that it uprooted the land, and the oxen drew the land out
into the sea to the west and halted in a certain sound. There
Gefiun put the land and gave it a name and called it Zealand.
Where the land had been lifted from there remained a lake; this is
now called Lake Malar in Sweden. And the inlets in the lake
correspond to the headlands in Zealand. Thus says the poet Bragi
the Old:

Gefiun drew from Gylfi, glad, a deep-ring of land [the island
of Zealand] so that from the swift-pullers [oxen] steam
rose: Denmark’s extension. The oxen wore eight brow-stars
[eyes] as they went hauling their plunder, the wide island of
meadows, and four heads.

King Gylfi was clever and skilled in magic. He was quite
amazed that the Æsir-people had the ability to make everything
go in accordance with their will.


- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning