Men of Yore: Thomas Brassey

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

 

Thomas Brassey

Thomas Brassey (7 November 1805 – 8 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one in every twenty miles of railway in the world. This included three-quarters of the lines in France, major lines in many other European countries and in Canada, Australia, South America and India. He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts, stations, tunnels and drainage works.

As well as railway engineering, Brassey was active in the development of steamships, mines, locomotive factories, marine telegraphy, and water supply and sewage systems. He built part of the London sewerage system, still in operation today, and was a major shareholder in Brunel's The Great Eastern, the only ship large enough at the time to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable across the North Atlantic, in 1864.

In most of Brassey's contracts he worked in partnership with other contractors, in particular with Peto and Betts. The planning of the details of the projects was done by the engineers. Sometimes there would be a consulting engineer and below him another engineer who was in charge of the day-to-day activities. During his career Brassey worked with many engineers, the most illustrious being Robert Stephenson, Joseph Locke and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.[42] The day-to-day work was overseen by agents, who managed and controlled the activities of the subcontractors.[43]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brassey



Career
While working as a land surveyor he met George Stephenson. The two became friends and in 1834 Stephenson helped Brassey to obtain a contract to build a railway viaduct at Bromborough. Soon afterwards Joseph Locke suggested that Brassey should tender for one of the contracts to build the Grand Junction Railway. Brassey got the contract and this was the start of a long working relationship with Locke.

In 1841 Brassey obtained the contract to build the Paris & Le Havre Railway in France. Over the next ten years Brassey's company was involved in several railway projects in mainland Europe.

Brassey returned to England in 1843 to build the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway. Further contracts included the Caledonian Railway, the Great Northern Railway, Tilbury & Southend Railway and Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway.

Brassey was also responsible for the Victoria Docks in London and the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada. Brassey built over 6,500 miles of railway, including one-sixth of the British network and over 50% pf the railways in france. Brassey was a major employer of navviesand sometimes had over 10,000 men working for him.

Source:  http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAbrassey.htm



Working Methods
The actual work was done by labourers, in those days known as navvies, supervised by gangers (or foremen). In the early days the navvies were mainly English and many of them had formerly worked on building the canals. They were later joined by men from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The number of Irish workers particularly increased following the potato famine. Brassey paid his navvies and gangers a wage and provided food, clothing, shelter and, in some projects, a lending library. On overseas contracts local labour would be used if it were available, but the work was often done or supplemented by British workers. The agent on the site had overall responsibility for a project. He had to be a man of great capability, working for a fee plus a percentage of the profits, with penalties for late finishing and inducements to complete the work early.[44]

Brassey had considerable skill in choosing good men to work in this way and in delegating the work. Having taken on a contract at an agreed price he would make a suitable sum of money available to the agent to meet the costs. If the agent were able to fulfil the work at a lower cost he could keep the remainder of the money. If unforeseen problems arose and these were reasonable, Brassey would cover these additional costs. He used hundreds of such agents.[45] At the peak of his career, for well over 20 years, Brassey was employing on average some 80,000 people in many countries in four continents.[46]

Despite this he had neither an office nor office staff, dealing with all the correspondence himself. Much of the detail of his works were held in his memory. He travelled with a personal valet and later had a cashier. But all his letters were written by him; it is recorded that on one occasion after the rest of his party had gone to bed, 31 letters had been written by Brassey overnight.[47] Although he won a large number of contracts, his bids were not always successful. It has been calculated that for every contract awarded, around six others had been unsuccessful.[42]

 

Thomas Brassey, the man

It is not easy to be objective about the nature of Thomas Brassey's character because the earliest biography by Helps was commissioned by the Brassey family and the latest, rather short, biography was written by his great-great-grandson, Tom Stacey. There is virtually no remaining material of value to a biographer available today. There is no private correspondence, there are no diaries and none of his personal reminiscences.[46]

Judging by his achievements alone, he must have been a remarkable man. He had enormous drive, an ability to remain calm despite enormous pressures, and extreme skill in organisation. He was a man of honour who always kept his word and his promise. He had no interest in public honours and refused invitations to stand for Parliament. Although he accepted honours from France and Austria, he mislaid the medals and had to request duplicates to please his wife.[58] His great-great-grandson considers that he was successful because he inspired people rather than drove them.[59]

Walker, in his 1969 biography, tried to make an accurate assessment of Brassey using Helps and other sources. He found it difficult to discover anyone who had a bad word to say about him, either during his life or since.[60] Brassey expected a high standard of work from his employees; Cooke states that his "standards of quality were fastidious in the extreme".[61] There can be no doubt about some of his qualities. He was exceptionally hardworking, and had an excellent memory and ability to perform mental arithmetic. He was a good judge of men, which enabled him to select the best people to be his agents. He was scrupulously fair with his subcontractors and kind to his navvies, supporting them financially at their times of need.[62] He would at times undertake contracts of little benefit to himself to provide work for his navvies.[63] The only faults which his eldest son could identify were a tendency to praise traits and actions of other people he would condemn in his own family, and an inability to refuse a request.[64] No criticism of him could be found from the engineers with whom he worked, his business associates, his agents or his navvies. He paid his men fairly and generously.[65]

 
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states "His greatest achievement was to raise the status of the civil engineering contractor to the eminence already attained in the mid-nineteenth century by the engineer".[57] Walker regards him as "one of the giants of the nineteenth century".[23]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brassey 

This week is another engineering giant.  He is also a giant of the transport world, a world which goes unmentioned in the mainstream media, despite the simple fact that we wouldn't be able to move anywhere without a transport system!  Can you imagine what the world would be like without high quality transport?  It wouldn't work at all.  It would be like trying to have a human body without a transport network in it (the human circulatory system, which carries around minerals, chemicals, energy etc to different body parts).  It just wouldn't function at all.  Goods and services need transportation systems in order to move around, whether that's on a small scale (like an intra-city road network), or a large scale (like an inter-continental rail network), without them there's no growth and no development.  So we all owe it to men like Brassey and the Navvies who built the transport systems that make our modern lives possible.  Especially at this time of year, Christmas, when the movement of people and goods from A to B is more important than any other time of year.


[End.]

Havamal Snippets 111: Learning at Urthr's Well

A couple of terms from the verse might need explaining:

• 'Urthr's Well' is the memory well where all of our memories are storied.  Urthr (also Wyrd, Urðr and other spellings) is one of the three norns, which are the Norse equivalent of the Greek 'Fates'; you know, the three female beings who each represent/embody a particular period of time: the past, the present, the future.  Urthr is an embodiment of the past.  Hence Urthr's Well is that in which memories are stored.  If it was Verðandi's Well then it would be the place in which the present is stored.  If it was Skulds Well ('Skalla' is the norn of future, related to the English 'shall') then it would be a place in which the future (or possible futures) are stored.
• 'Har' means 'High' and is one of Odins names.  Odin has different names depending on his state of mind, much like we might use metaphors to describe attributes of people we know, or give them nicknames.

Odin sits next to Urthr's Well in order to learn, to receive knowledge that already exists (instead of knowledge of the future, or knowledge of the present, which he'd gain by sitting at different wells).  This is different to his active approach to acquiring knowledge which he employed to gain the Mead of Poetry during the past several verses.  This time around he sits quietly, and passively and listens to what Urthrs Well can tell him about all the things that man have already learnt.


111
Mál er at þylja
þular stóli á
Urðar brunni at
sá ek ok þagðak
sá ek ok hugðak
hlýdda ek á manna mál
of rúnar heyrða ek dœma
né um ráðum þögþu
Háva höllu at
Háva höllu í
heyrða ek segja svá           
 
It is time to recite
from the sage's throne
at Urthr's well;
I saw and stayed silent,
I saw and reflected,
I listened to the speech of men,
I heard and learned about runes,
nor were they silent in counsels
at Har's hall,
in Har's hall,
thus I heard it said --

[End.]

Havamal Snippets 110: Who shall trust in Odins truth?

This is the final verse in a mini-series that started with verse 104, and writes of the adventures that Odin got into while trying to capture the Mead of Poetry (i.e. inspiration).  It highlights that if someone engages in trickery, even a spirit being or God, then can you really trust them?  I noted in the previous verse that I'm not keen on trickery and this verse also makes the point.  That's why one should be cautious about paying homage to any God or spirit being because they may be tricking you.  Trust in yourself first and foremost and then perhaps other people, ideas and Gods.

110

Baugeið Óðinn
hygg ek at unnit hafi
hvat skal hans tryggðum trúa?
Suttung svikinn
hann lét sumbli frá
ok grœtta Gunnlöðu           

 

Othinn, [2] I think, has sworn
[1] an oath on the sacred ring --
who shall trust in his troth?
[5] he had [4] Suttungr cheated
of his mead,
and made Gunnloth grieve.

[End.]

Men of Yore: Jean-Francois Champollion

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Jean-Francois Champollion

Jean-François Champollion (23 December 1790 – 4 March 1832) was a French scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Champollion published the first translation of the Rosetta Stone hieroglyphs in 1822, showing that the Egyptian writing system was a combination of phonetic and ideographic signs.

Biography
Champollion was born in Figeac, France, the last of seven children (two of whom died before he was born). He was raised in humble circumstances; because his parents could not afford to send him to school, he was taught to read by his brother Jacques. Jacques, although studious and largely self-educated, did not have Jean-François' genius for language; however, he was talented at earning a living, and supported Jean-François for most of his life.^[1]
Jean-François lived with his brother in Grenoble for several years, and even as a child showed an extraordinary linguistic talent. By the age of 16 he had mastered a dozen languages and had read a paper before the Grenoble Academy concerning the Coptic language. By 20, he could also speak Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Amharic, Sanskrit, Avestan, Pahlavi, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, Persian and Ge'ez in addition to his native French.^[2] In 1809, he became assistant-professor of History at Grenoble University. His interest in oriental languages, especially Coptic, led to his being entrusted with the task of deciphering the writing on the then recently discovered Rosetta Stone, and he spent the years 1822–1824 on this task. His 1824 work Précis du système hiéroglyphique gave birth to the entire field of modern Egyptology. He also identified the importance of the Turin King List, and dated the Dendera zodiac to the Roman period. His interest in Egyptology was originally inspired by Napoleon's Egyptian Campaigns 1798–1801. Champollion was subsequently made Professor of Egyptology at the Collège de France.^[3]
Champollion married Rose Blanc (1794 - 1871) in 1818. They had one daughter, Zoraide Champollion (1824-1889).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champollion

Here is proof that a man can be born in the most impoverished conditions, and be the proverbial runt of the litter (he was the seventh child), and yet make a massive impact and contribution to the world; even to the academic world which is so often seen as the domain of the upper classes.

It's also important to note that he was self-educated not educated in an ivory tower. He also worked at that what brought him joy which is probably why he managed to achieve so much.  This is like many computer programmers in the modern era who are self-taught and do what they love, rather than well trained and high IQ technicians who work the 9-5 and don't achieve as much.

[End.]

Havamal Snippets 109: Odin returns home with the Mead of Poetry

This is the next verse in a mini-series about Odin's escapades while getting the inspirational Mead of Poetry.

A couple of the terms in the verse might need explaining:

'Bolverk' (literally 'Bad Worker') is one of Odin's many names/forms/character traits.  If you're thinking that the title 'Bad Worker' means that Odin is a 'Bad Guy' then you should recall that pagans everywhere, including Europeans, didn't view the world as divided into a dualistic world of Good versus Evil.  (The dualistic view is one that we picked up when we became Christians).  On the contrary, they viewed things in a more balanced way, that the world is a complex thing that is highly dependent upon perspective.  And I'm sure you'll all agree that perspective is very important when living in this world.  For instance if a man wants to keep living, then he must kill a cow so that he can eat it and gain nourishment from it.  This is obviously very bad for the cow who wants to keep living, but that's the way it is; even the cow must kills plants (or at least mutilate them) in order to survive.  It's a simple thing that life for the human means death for the cow.  Creation and destruction in one simple act.  That's how intertwined the universe is.  That's why we can't view it in dualistic Judeo-Christian terms of Good versus Evil.  Rather, we must see that the world is complex and dependent upon perspective.  Then we can understand this and make good of it in our own way.

'Har' (literally 'High') is another of Odin's names/forms/character traits.

'Frost Giants' are, in my personal opinion, something like natural phenomenon that don't change over time.  This is because Giants ('Jotuns') are associated with natural features of the world, and there are two types of Giants: Frost Giants and Fire Giants; and because Fire is associated with dynamism and change, it makes logical sense that Frost Giants must be the opposite of dynamism and change i.e. predictable and unchanging.

109
Ins hindra dags
gengu hrímþursar
Háva ráðs at fregna
Háva höllu í
at Bölverki þeir spurðu
ef hann væri með böndum kominn
eða hefði honum Suttungr of sóit   

On the next day

the frost giants went
to ask for Har's advice
in Har's hall:
they asked about Bolverkr,
whether he had come back among the gods,
or whether Suttungr had sacrificed him.

 

[End.]

Havamal Snippets 108: Odin needed to use violence to escape the clutches of the Giants

This verse is the next in a series about Odins adventure to get the Mead of Poetry from a Giantess named Gunnloth. (Click on parts one, two, three, four if you want to.)  Gunnloths name means 'War Summon' or 'War Invitation' (according to various sources) which might mean that for teh God Odin to escape from the Giants court, he needs to have enjoyed the War Summoner.  When thinking about Gods and Giants, it's useful to remember that Gods deal with the realm of thought, and Giants deal with the realm of the physical.  In the context of this verse it seems to imply that for the protagonist Odin to escape from the clutches of physically oriented creatures he needs to be able to 'summon war', ie to get violent.

Taking this notion a little further, and applying it to everyday real life, we could substitute physically oriented 'Giants' for physically oriented humans (eg Jocks, bullies, machos), and then substitute 'Odin' for a regular John Doe, and subsitute the 'Giants Court' for the Jocks domain.  Thus we have a rough guide of how an average John Doe needs to 'summon war' (get more physical, emotional, aggressive) in order to defeat the Jocks and escape their clutches.

108

Ifi er mér á
at ek væra enn kominn
jötna görðum ór
ef ek Gunnlaðar ne nytak
innar góðu konu
þeirar er lögðumk arm yfir

Doubtful it is to me

that I could have come again
out of the giant's court,
if I had not enjoyed Gunnloth,
the good woman,
over whom I laid my arm.


[End.]

Men of Yore: Alfred Russel Wallace

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Alfred Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858.^[1] This prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas in On the Origin of Species. Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia.

He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography".^[2] Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made many other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. These included the concept of warning colouration in animals, and the Wallace effect, a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation.

Wallace was strongly attracted to unconventional ideas (such as evolution). His advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with some members of the scientific establishment. In addition to his scientific work, he was a social activist who was critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system in 19th-century Britain. His interest in natural history resulted in his being one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity.

Wallace was a prolific author who wrote on both scientific and social issues; his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, The Malay Archipelago, is regarded as probably the best of all journals of scientific exploration published during the 19th century.

Wallace had financial difficulties throughout much of his life. His Amazon and far-eastern trips were supported by the sale of specimens he collected and, after he lost most of the considerable money he made from those sales in unsuccessful investments, he had to support himself mostly from the publications he produced. Unlike some of his contemporaries in the British scientific community, such as Darwin and Charles Lyell, he had no family wealth to fall back on and he was unsuccessful in finding a long-term salaried position, receiving no regular income until he was awarded a small government pension, through Darwin's efforts, in 1881.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace

While everyone has heard of Darwin, not so many have heard of Alfred Wallace, despite the fact that they both discovered evolution at roughly the same time (much like Newton and Liebniz discovered calculus at the same time). 


[End.]

Havamal Snippets 107: Odin acquires the Mead of Poetry

This is continuation of verses 104, 105, and 106, in which Odin is trying to get hold of the Mead of Poetry/Inspiration.  The Mead of Poetry is not really alcoholic Mead but is rather the thing that can cause a man to become creatively inspired (or perhaps wise instead).  Seeing as men are different from one another it might be that Mead of Poetry might be different for each man, rather than just one particular thing; in the same kind of way that ‘One mans meat is another mans poison’, by which I mean that one man may find inspiration in a way that another man may not. 

The Mead of Poetry is stored in a container called Othrerir (or Odhrerir or other similar spellings) that can be drunk/consumed by a man if he knows how to get it.  The previous verses have illustrated how difficult it can be for a man to get the Mead of Poetry, and it shows that the man may have to use deception in order to get to it. I’m not a man of trickery, and am not keen on it, so I don’t know whether this is true, but it does show the lengths that some men (or in this case God Odin) will go to to acquire the precious Mead of Poetry.

In the last line of the verse, Othinn’s sanctuary, the sanctuary could be the human brain, because that is where the Gods communicate with man (in the Norse Creation Myth Odin & his two brothers used eyebrows from a slayed Giant called Ymir to separate the world of men from the world of Gods, and if you look at a face then you will see that below the eyebrows is where physical activities happen (like eating and breathing) and above the eyebrows is where mental activities happen (like thinking and remembering)), though I’m not at all certain of this.

107 Vel keypts litar hefi ek vel notit fás er fróðum vant því at Óðrerir er nú upp kominn á alda vés jarðar

[2] I have taken great advantage
[1] from the well-purchased appearance; [footnote 1]
little is lacking to the wise,
because Othrerir
has now come up
to Othinn's sanctuary. [footnote 2]

 

Footnotes on the translation from the original site http://www.beyondweird.com/high-one.html:

[footnote 1]: vel keypts litar

This line is probably corrupt as it stands.  See David Evans, p. 121, for commentary.  It is tempting to follow Corpus Poeticum Boreale and read litar as something to do with mead, because the rest of the verse does seem to refer to the benefits of the acquisition of the vélkeypts mjaðar, "fraud-bought mead".  On the other hand, this might be Othinn congratulating himself for the carefully deceitful behaviour (the "well-purchased appearance"?) which enabled him to steal the mead in the first place.

[footnote 2]: á alda vés iarþar

This is the manuscript reading, and clearly corrupt.  See David Evans, pp. 121-2, for discussion and pptions -- I am following Jonsson's emendation á vé alda jaðars, "to the sacred place of the lord of men (Othinn)", i.e. "to Othinn's sanctuary".


[End.]

Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 14 - Conqueror

[Pre-amble: This is one in a series of posts which includes an alternative set of lyrics to a well known song.  Each post will also contain a short introduction to the topic at hand, and a brief explanation of the song itself.  A video of the original song will be included so that the reader can listen to the original song while reciting the alternative lyrics at the same time.]

 

The Song: Conqueror (based on 'Bicycle Race' by Queen)

Push on and on and on until you've conquered all.  That includes yourself!  That includes all of those irrational mentalities that one possesses, either irrational desires or irrational fears.  Conquering and domination need not be 'dirty' words like some may consider them to be.  For instance a person who 'conquers' their own fear of heights can't really be considered to be doing something wrong.  Nor could someone who conquers their desire for alcohol be thought of as in the wrong.  This is the kind of domination that is good because it is for a good intention.  It's good in itself and it's good for the future of that person.  Ruling over things, conquering things, and dominating things need not be disrespectful towards those things, in the same way that a teacher rules over a student is not a disrespectful position to have, even though it contains an element of domination.

Play the song in the music video above and sing along with the alternative lyrics given below.


# Conqueror #
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
I want to be a -
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)

I want to be a conqueror.
I want to conquer all.
I want to conquer all of-myself.
I want to conquer all the world.

You say bad.

I say good.
You say wrong.
I say right.
You say evil.
I say hey man,
You're either the conqueror of evil or evil conquers you.

You say rest.

I say fight.
You say TV.
Where's the choice?
You say chill.
I say cripes.
Complacency is not my scene and I don't like apathy.

All I want to be is a -
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
I want to be a -
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)

I want to be a conqueror.

I want to conquer all.
I want to conquer all of myself.
I want to conquer -

(Conquering self is the thing to do.)

It will make you the master of your self.
(Conquering all else is another thing to do.)
It will make you the master of the world.
(So, on you marks,)
(Get set.)
(Go!)

(Conquer your self.)

(Conquer the world.)
(Conquer it all.)

(Conqueror.)

(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)

I want to be a -

(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror-it all.)

Hey!

You say joke.

I say pain.
You say smile.
I say frown.
Oh God!
I say cool it man,
I don't want want to fill my life with frivolous comedy.

You say fawn.

I rebel.
You say serve.
I say lead.
Know your place.
I say Puh-lease.
I will not be subordinate to tyranny of the Big State.

'Cause all i want to be is a -

(Conqueror.)
Yeah.
(Conqueror.)
Hey!
(Conqueror.)
I want to be a -
(Conqueror.)
(Conqueror.)
Come on!
(Conqueror.)
 

I want to be a conqueror.

I want to conquer all.
I want to conquer all the world.
I want to conquer all of myself.


[End of lyrics.]

Havamal Snippets 106: Odin risks his head for the Mead of Poetry

This verse is a continuation of verses 104 and 105, and makes no sense to me, so I'll have to offer you another mans interpretation of the verse (the original is available HERE).  The page is in French, so if you can't read the language it then use Bing Translator avaiable HERE.  The hyperlinks in the quoted text are added by me so that anyone who is unfamiliar with the various beings (Gods, Giants etc) of Norse religion can find out about them.

You should know that the previous episode with Suttungr, Odhinn is was rented as a farmhand to Suttungr brother, known as Bölverk. The contract stipulated that if the work was well done, this brother would request Suttungr to Odhinn a SIP of the Mead of poetry. But when asked this Suttungr, stubbornly refused. Odhinn then borrowed from brother (obviously a giant knowing magic) a magical auger named Rati whose 'mouth grignota stone' and Odhinn, turning into a snake, able to fit inside of Suttungr.

This stanza explains how Odhinn could enter without getting spot in the abode of Suttungr. The details of what it does immediately after is not known. Two hypotheses seem possible. Or well Odhinn after resuming human form, immediately enters the room where Gunnlodh was responsible for overseeing Mead, and it will negotiate directly with it. He will deceive her with fine words and false oaths. Or else he meets Suttungr and Gunnlodh. That Odhinn insists both here on the danger that he was running, it is clear that arguably Suttungr he was subjected to a kind of interrogation. According to what we know of Norse mythology, the behavior of the Giants with the gods was violently aggressive and Odhinn had to conceal from Suttungr was one of the Æsir. For this, it is possible that he had to swear on his ring he was not one of the Æsir. Of course, this oath was not sincere and this explains, according to Bellows (in stanza 108), the accusation of perjury in Odhinn in verse 110. It is even less likely that this episode is the only perjury he has committed. Indeed, it is not understood why, God or not, Suttungr has trusts this stranger who had entered his home break-ins. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Odhinn has explained his presence by a beautiful story of love desperate for Gunnlodh and that he has thus convinced Suttungr to life on condition that he married his daughter. He then did an oath on the ring to Gunnlodh also. This second interpretation has the advantage of being less likely that another but, it, it allows to understand the last verses of 110, as we shall see.
Source: http://www.nordic-life.org/nmh/NouvHavamlFr103-110.htm

106 Rata munn létumk rúms um fá ok um grjót gnaga yfir ok undir stóðumk jötna vegir svá hætta ek höfði til [2] I let [1] the mouth of the gimlet make space and gnaw through stone; over and under me stood the giants' paths (rocks): thus I risked my head. [End.]