[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage […]

[…] On they move Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill, Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides Their perfect ranks;

And the cold chill of an adder touch Sit with a leaden sway. And the ghosten spell-bound dogs, And the coasten hell-hound dogs, Glooms the coming of the day.

The world in which the æsir and jötnar play out their struggle has its own set of place-names but is essentially recognizable as Scandinavia. There are rivers, mountains, forests, oceans, storms, cold weather, fierce winters, eagles, ravens, salmon, and snakes.