Like his sons, Ivalde originally stood in a friendly relation to the higher reigning gods; he was their sworn man, and from his citadel near the Elivagar, _Geirvadills setr_, he protected the creation of the gods from the powers of frost. But, like his sons, and before them, he fell into enmity with the gods and became "a perjured _hapt_." The features of the Ivalde-myth, which have been preserved in the heroic poems and shed light on the relation between the moon-god and him, are told partly in the account of Gevarus, Nanna's father, in Saxo, and partly in the poems about Walther (Valtarius, Walthari) and Fin Folcvalding. From these accounts it appears that Ivalde abducted a daughter of the moon-god; that enmity arose between them; that, after the defeat of Ivalde, Sunna's and Nanna's father offered him peace, and that the peace was confirmed by oath; that Ivalde broke the oath, attacked Gevar-Nokver and burnt him; that, during the hostilities between them, Slagfin-Gjuke, though a son of Ivalde, did not take the side of his natural father, but that of his foster-father; and that Ivalde had to pay for his own deeds with ruin and death.
Concerning the point that Ivalde abducted a daughter of Gevar-Nokver and married her, the Latin poems Valtarius Manufortis, Nibelunge Noth, Biterolf, Vilkinasaga, and Boguphalus (Chronicon Poloniæ) relate that Walther fled with a princess named Hildigund. On the flight he was attacked by Gjukungs, according to Valtarius Manufortis. The chief one of these (in the poem Gunthari, Gjuke's son) received in the battle a wound "clean to the hip-bone." The statement anent the wound, which Walther gave to the chief one among the Gjukungs, has its roots in the mythology where the chief Gjukung, that is, Gjuke himself, appears with surnames (Hengest, Geldr, _öndr-Jálkr_) alluding to the wound inflicted. In the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem Fin Folcvalding is married to Hildeburh, a daughter of Hnæf-Hoce, and in Hyndluljod (cp. str. 17 with str. 15) _Hildigunnr_ is the mother of Halfdan's wife Almveig, and consequently the wife of _Sumbl Finnakonungr_, that is, Ivalde. _Hildigunnr's_ father is called Sækonungr in Hyndluljod, a synonym of _Nökkver_ ("the ship-captain," the moon-god), and Hildigun's mother is called _Sváfa_, the same name as that by which Nanna is introduced in the poem concerning Helge Hjorvardson. Hildeburh, Hnæf-Hoce's daughter, is identical with Hildigun, daughter of _Sækonungr_. Compare furthermore str. 20 in Hyndluljod, which speaks of Nanna as Nokver's daughter, and thus refers back to str. 17, where Hildigun is mentioned as the daughter of _Sækonungr_. The phrase _Nanna vat næst thor Nauckva dottir_ shows that _Nökkver_ and another elder daughter of his were named in one of the immediately preceding strophes. But in these no man's name or epithet occurs except _Sækonungr_, "the sea-king," which can refer to _Nökkver_, "the ship-owner," or "ship-captain," and the "daughter" last mentioned in the poem is _Hildigunnr_.