Vritra smitten 'where he lay... and, godless, kept the goddesses [the heavenly waters] encompassed'; Ahi slain 'showing his strength when couched around the waters' · the serpent's posture is a coil laid around the waters.
Awaiting digitization. The citations above are the way to the full text; passages enter the shelf only after checking against a public-domain edition.
Encirclement as the serpent's resting posture: neither text has the serpent attack · Jormungandr simply lies around all the earth in the surrounding sea, mouth closed on his own tail; Ahi lies 'couched around the waters,' holding the goddesses 'encompassed.' In both, the coil is a form of custody · the serpent holds a whole category of the world (the dry earth, the celestial waters) enclosed within its ring, keeping rather than devouring, and the enclosure persists until an outside force (Ragnarok, the bolt) breaks it.
Vritra smitten 'with flying weapon where he lay... and, godless, kept the goddesses [Griffith's note: the heavenly waters] encompassed'; Indra 'slewest Ahi showing his strength when couched around the waters' (vv. 6, 11).
set against Gylfaginning 34
The reading room shelves citations and short passages digitized from public-domain editions. Full texts enter through the digitization queue.