Aurvandil’s Toe

Thor returned home to Thrudvangar and the whetstone re-
mained in his head. Then there arrived a sorceress called Groa,
wife of Aurvandil the Bold. She chanted her spells over Thor until
the whetstone began to come loose. When Thor felt this and it
seemed likely that the whetstone was going to be got out, he
wanted to repay Groa for her treatment and give her pleasure. He
told her these tidings that he had waded south across Elivagar
carrying Aurvandil in a basket on his back south from Giantland,
and there was this proof, that one of his toes had been sticking out
of the basket and had got frozen, so Thor broke it off and threw it
up in the sky and made out of it the star called Aurvandil’s toe.
Thor said it would not be long before Aurvandil was home, and
Groa was so pleased that she could remember none of her spells,
and the whetstone got no looser and is still stuck in Thor’s head.
And this is something that is taboo, throwing whetstones across a
room, for then the whetstone in Thor’s head stirs. Thiodolf of
Hvinir has composed a passage based on this story in Haustlong.


- Prose Edda, Skaldskaparmal