In the section of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda called Skáldskarpamál is told the tale of the Mead of Inspiration:
"Kvasir... travelled far and wide over the world to teach men wisdom and came once to feast with some dwarfs, Fjalar and Galar. These called him aside for a word in private and killed him, letting his blood run into two crocks and one kettle. The kettle was called Óðrörir, but the crocks were known as Són and Boðn. They mixed his blood with honey, and it became the mead which makes whoever drinks of it a poet or scholar. The dwarfs told the Æsir that Kvasir had choked with learning, because there was no one sufficiently well informed to compete with him in knowledge."
Óðinn won the mead of inspiration by wooing a giant maiden for three nights. Each night she allowed him to drink from Óðrörir, Són and Boðn, represented here as drinking horns brim-full of mead. Then, changing into the form of an eagle, the god flew back to Asgard, where the Mead of Inspiration was preserved. It is said that Óðinn grants a taste of this mead to men to make them poets.



























