Editing Mälaren (section)

==Mythology==
According to [[Norse mythology]] as contained in the thirteenth-century Icelandic work ''[[Prose Edda]]'', the lake was created by the goddess [[Gefjon]] when she tricked [[Gylfi]], the Swedish king of [[Gylfaginning]]. Gylfi promised Gefjon as much land as four oxen could plough in a day and a night, but she used oxen from the land of the giants, and moreover uprooted the land and dragged it into the sea, where it became the island of [[Zealand]]. ''Snorra Edda'' says that "the inlets in the lake correspond to the headlands in Zealand";<ref>Anthony Faulkes (ed. and trans), ''Snorri Sturluson: Edda'' (London: Everyman, 1987), p. 7.</ref> since modern maps show this to be more true of Lake [[Vänern]], the myth has been suggested to have been originally about Vänern, not Mälaren.<ref>Heimir Pálsson, 'Tertium vero datur: A study of the text of DG 11 4to', p. 44 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-126249 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190911224451/http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:322558&dswid=-1629 |date=2019-09-11 }}.</ref>