A poetic name for hydrogen would be "ginnungagufa". The old mythical prefix "ginnunga-" occurs in "ginnungap", which stands for "the great void, the emptiness before heaven and earth was created. Only two other words occur in Old Icelandic writs that have this prefix:
1) Ginnunga-himinn (the "void" of the "ginnungagap", himinn = heaven) anhe great vault of heaven, 2) Ginnunga-vé ("vé" in the meaning of "holy place", the universe)
This examples show that "ginnungagufa" (gufa = steam, but also "gaseous substance" in general) could serve as a poetic name for the element, much mor elegant than "frumloft" ("frum-" (original) + "loft" (air, gaseous substance)
In de case of helium, the shortest compound would be "hjáfrumloft" (hjá- (additional, co-) and "frumloft" original gas, a syllable less long than "frumeðalloft" (original noble gas). Hydrogen and helium are the primordial gases of the universe. Another possibility is "ifreðli", from "ifröðull", an eddaic name for the sun, in which "röðull" is i-shifted to "-reðli". A shorter possibility is just "reðli", from "röðull", which is also an poetic name for the sun in the Snorra Edda. "Röðull" is most probably related to the german "rad", because the sun was thought to be a disk.
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