The Prose Edda Read online

  Gangleri’s dialogue with Odin’s three manifestations resembles contests of wisdom found in eddic poems such as The Lay of Vafthrudnir (Vafprúðnismál), where Odin pits his mastery of mythic knowledge against the giant Vafthrudnir. Norse wisdom contests were adversarial, and Gangleri is told at the start that he will not escape unharmed unless he grows wiser. Gangleri’s method is to probe the Æsir with questions such as ‘Who is the highest or the oldest of all the gods?’ ‘How were the earth and the sky made?’ The richly detailed answers often touch on troubling topics, many anticipating the destruction of the world.

  The third section is called Skaldskaparmal (Skáldskaparmál), and, unlike Gylfaginning, it varies considerably from manuscript to manuscript. The name Skaldskaparmal is telling. Skáld, as mentioned earlier, is the Old Norse word for ‘poet’. Skapr means ‘creation’ or ‘craft’, while mál is ‘language’ or ‘diction’, hence Skáldskaparmál means the ‘language of poetry’ or ‘poetic diction’. The stories in Skaldskaparmal give background for references and allusions found in Old Norse verse, and these explanations are a priceless repository of Scandinavian lore. (See Appendix 2 for a discussion of the poetic devices, kennings and heiti.)

  There is little doubt that Gylfaginning and Skaldskaparmal were written at different times and in somewhat different styles. Whereas Gylfaginning is entirely in dialogue, Skaldskaparmal is written in a combination of dialogue and third-person storytelling. It would seem that these two sections of the Edda were gathered into one book only after they were written separately. Still, the two fit remarkably well together, containing almost no repetition. Both Skaldskaparmal and Gylfaginning tell myths, but Skaldskaparmal also recounts tales of legendary heroes. Some of these heroic legends can be dated to a time before the Viking Age known as the Migration Period, from the fifth to the seventh centuries, when warrior bands and tribes invaded the collapsing Roman Empire. Stories that originated during this era became the basis for epic cycles that were popular during the Viking Age, and continued to be told in the thirteenth century when the Edda was written. Among the stories gathered into Skaldskaparmal are those of kings and warriors whose fame springs from a mixture of history and myth. One of these is the legendary King Jormunrek, also known as Ermanaric in late Roman and Old English sources. This tragic figure ruled over a vast East Gothic kingdom of horsemen on the Ukrainian steppes until suddenly attacked by the Huns in the year 376. Skaldskaparmal also tells the story of the ancient Danish warrior King Hrolf Kraki, who, much like King Arthur in the Celtic lore or Charlemagne in the Frankish legends, surrounded himself with twelve champions. Hrolf’s warriors and berserkers are treated more fully in The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, an episodic collection of Old Scandinavian tales that has similarities to the Old English epic Beowulf.

  Sigurd the dragon slayer, whose lineage is traced to Odin, is the best-known hero in Skaldskaparmal. He and his Volsung family serve as the basis of a series of epic stories, including those about Attila the Hun and the Burgundian tribesmen who covet Sigurd’s treasure, the Rhine Gold. Sigurd becomes entangled in a tragic love triangle with a Burgundian princess, who later marries Attila, and a Valkyrie, who disobeys Odin. Extensive versions of the Sigurd story also survive in The Saga of the Volsungs, the Poetic Edda, Thidrek’s Saga and the South German epic poem The Nibelungenlied, where Sigurd is known as Siegfried. Richard Wagner made Siegfried the hero of his Ring cycle, but most closely followed the storyline of what happened to Sigurd and his Volsung ancestors found in the Eddas and The Saga of the Volsungs.

  The fourth and final section of the Edda is the poem List of Metres, called Hattatal (Háttatal) in Old Icelandic. There is no doubt about Hattatal’s authorship: it was composed by Snorri Sturluson, probably early in his career, as an attempt to curry favour with the Norwegian King Hakon Hakonarson and his father-in-law Skuli, a jarl (earl), who was given the title of duke. Hattatal is an ambitious, somewhat pedantic work, whose 102 stanzas demonstrate often small differences in poetic metres and obscure usages of poetic devices. Prose commentary offering technical explanations is interspersed among the verses of this long poem. The poem is a treasure for those with a knowledge of Old Icelandic and interested in the intricacies of Norse poetry. Because of the technical and obscure nature of Hattatal, it is not included in this nor in most translations. (Appendix 2 contains a sample stanza from Hattatal, followed by an example of the prose commentary.)

  The Mythology of the Edda

  In the period before the conversion to Christianity, Viking Age Scandinavians had no single, organized religion; instead they shared a common view of the universe and a belief in the same pantheon of Norse gods and other supernatural creatures. Two groups of gods, the Æsir and the Vanir, war with each other, eventually making a lasting truce. Thereafter they live together in harmony, fusing so effectively into a single group that all gods become known as Æsir, even though the Vanir retain their identity as a small, separate family. The home of the gods is at Asgard, a compound name whose first part As -refers to the Æsir and whose second part gard (related to the English word ‘yard’) means an ‘enclosure’. Hence Asgard is the ‘enclosed region where the Æsir live’.

  The gods have special attributes, but many pay for their powers with a related loss. Odin, the god who sees all, loses an eye; Tyr, a god of war and council, breaks his pledge and loses his right hand (crucial for making oaths and wielding weapons); Freyja, the goddess of household prosperity, leaves her hearth to search for a husband who has wandered off. Unlike the gods of Greek and Roman mythology, the Æsir rarely quarrel among themselves over control of human or semi-divine heroes, nor do they enjoy the complacency of immortality. Their universe is constantly in danger, and their actions frequently have unanticipated consequences, as in the creation story, when Odin and his brothers slay the giant Ymir and use his body to fill Ginnungagap, the primeval void. While this act gives rise to the world of the Edda, the slaying also unleashes the power of the giants, the gods’ enemies.

  Throughout the mythology of the Edda, three figures serve as catalysts for much of the action. Two are gods, Odin and Thor, while the third, Loki, is a trickster-like figure. Odin is an old god who figures in the mythologies of other northern peoples, where he was known as Woden, Wodan, Wotan and Wuotan, but we know him best in the context of Scandinavian mythology, where he serves as patron of aristocrats, warriors and poets. The Edda is an especially important source about Odin and refers to him by many names, including All-Father, the High One and Val-Father, which means ‘Father of the Slain’. Odin has both priestly and martial roles: as the god of death, who decides the fates of warriors, Odin travels between the worlds of the living and the dead on his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir; and as the god of sovereignty, he leads the Æsir with his skills in magic, prophecy and governance. Odin knows that all will be lost at Ragnarok and constantly seeks the knowledge to forestall the coming doom. Two ravens, whose names Hugin and Munin refer to the mind’s divided ability for thought and memory, sit on his shoulders. Every morning they fly over the world, gathering information that they pass on to Odin, who remembers everything. In a sense, Odin is the repository of the world’s knowledge. He is also a dangerous and fickle god, who is known to withdraw his favour from formerly victorious warriors.

  Norse mythology hints at Odinic cults, with Odin being worshipped through a combination of ecstatic and seemingly shamanistic rituals. From the eddic poem The Sayings of the High One (Hávamál), he is said to have hanged himself in a sacrificial ritual on a tree. Barely surviving this ordeal, Odin gains arcane knowledge, including the use of runes, the ancient Scandinavian alphabet sometimes used for magical purposes. In the poem, Odin chants:

  I know that I hung

  on the wind-swept tree

  all nine nights

  with spear was I wounded

  and given to Odin,

  myself to me,

  on that tree which no one knows

  from which roots it grows.

  Bre
ad I was not given,

  no drink from the horn,

  downwards I glared;

  up I pulled the runes,

  screaming I took them,

  from there I fell back again.

  The second major god is Thor, Odin’s eldest son by Earth, whom the Edda says is Odin’s daughter and wife. Thor is a god of the sky, and in the Germanic regions south of Scandinavia he was called Donar, meaning ‘Thunder’. From the sky, this good-natured god controls the storms and brings life-giving rain, the source of the earth’s abundance. Thor was widely worshipped by farmers and seamen, and his name was a prominent element in names for men, women and places, such as Thorsteinn, Thorgerd and Thorsness, names that continued to be popular even after the introduction of Christianity.

  Thor is especially known for killing giants and driving a chariot pulled by two goats across the heavens. A great fighter, he undertakes most of the actual combat against the gods’ enemies, and his children are also powerful warriors. Thor’s most cherished possessions are his hammer, iron gloves and belt or girdle of power. The contrast between him and his father is great. Whereas Odin is cunning and thoughtful, Thor is generally forthright and quick to act, relying on brute strength, but at times he is depicted as foolish and gullible. In one story, a giant tricks Thor into thinking that he is in a house, when he is actually in the thumb of the giant’s glove. Even though Thor is sometimes naive, he is a shrewd fighter, and his enemies, such as the Midgard Serpent and the giant Utgarda-Loki, fear him when he raises his hammer.

  Optical illusions, such as the one that fooled Thor when he thought he was in a house, occur frequently in the Edda, and are called sjónhverfing (sight altering), a visual deception that usually is the result of spells or chants. The Edda uses different terminology when describing incidents in which the actual physical appearance of things or people changes. In such instances the text often employs the word hamr, meaning ‘shape’ in the supernatural sense, and variants of the phrase at skipta hömum, ‘to shift in shape’ (hömum from hamr). The concepts involved reveal the belief that certain people and objects have special powers to bring about a metamorphosis. Loki, the third major figure in the Edda, is one of these shape-changers, as when he puts on Freyja’s falcon shape (valshamr). Loki’s ability to don a hamr and change his appearance fits well with his other trickster-like characteristics. Tricksters, found in stories from cultures as disparate as ancient Mesopotamia and the Americas, are at times cultural heroes while at other times they are antisocial individuals. Often tricksters live at the margins of society and are neither completely good nor thoroughly bad. Always on the move, they delight audiences with their adventures, mishaps and humour. As shape-changers, tricksters sometimes switch genders according to the needs of the moment.

  Loki acts as an inexhaustible mischief-maker, and he often provides both the cause of the gods’ dilemmas as well as the solutions. The Edda’s description of him reveals his many sides.

  Loki is pleasing, even beautiful to look at, but his nature is evil and he is undependable. More than others, he has the kind of wisdom known as cunning, and is treacherous in all matters. He constantly places the gods in difficulties and often solves their problems with guile. (p. 39)

  The stories about Loki and his offspring are often conflicting. When first mentioned in the Edda, Loki is referred to as one of the Æsir, but other stories in the Edda make it clear that he is not a god. Rather, he is the son of the giant Farbauti and a woman named Laufey, characters about whom we know almost nothing. Also there is no convincing evidence of a Loki cult, and few if any place names can be connected with him, suggesting that if he was a god he was not publicly worshipped.

  Loki’s position is ambiguous. He is frequently an antagonist of the gods, but he is also one of the gods’ main helpers and strangely connected to Odin. The eddic poem Loki’s Flyting (Lokasenna) says that Loki is Odin’s blood brother. At times Loki appears almost as the All-Father’s darker side, and both Odin and Loki are complex and dangerous characters. Both engage in trickery, womanizing, shape-changing and betrayal, but Loki also changes his sex, as when he becomes a mare, giving birth to Odin’s horse Sleipnir. Repeatedly, Loki wins wagers by deceiving creatures such as the dark elves, who wield creative forces and forge treasures. In this way he obtains for the gods their greatest prizes, including the ship Skidbladnir, Thor’s hammer Mjollnir, Odin’s spear Gungnir and the All-Father’s magical ring Draupnir. This last treasure drips eight gold rings of equal weight every ninth night. Loki also changes his shape to evade the gods’ anger, as when he changes into a salmon.

  Like many tricksters, Loki’s appetites are prodigious. On one journey, he consumes vast quantities of food in an eating contest. In Loki’s Flyting, he boasts about bedding many of the goddesses, and his unions are especially varied, indicating the multifaceted aspects of his character. His wife Sigyn is counted among the Æsir, and he has two sons with her, but he also sires three monstrous children with the ogress Angrboda: Hel, the Midgard Serpent and the wolf Fenrir.

  Loki is also creative, and in some ways he fulfils the role of a cultural hero, bringing useful tools to the world. Along with acquiring the special weapons that the gods use to defend the world, Loki is responsible for the creation of the fishing net. Humour is central to his character. At times his actions are plainly funny, and he frequently displays a wit marked by a legalistic mastery of language. In one instance, after losing a life-and-death wager with a dwarf, Loki saves himself by arguing that his opponent has a right to his head but not to his neck.

  The three gods of the Vanir family, Njord, Frey and Frey’s twin sister Freyja, also figure prominently in the Edda as fertility gods. Njord is an ancient god of abundance and well being. He appears to be related to an older deity named Nerthus, a fertility or earth goddess, who, according to the first-century Roman historian Tacitus, was worshipped on an island in the Baltic. By the Viking Age, Njord is a male god whose realm is the sea. In the Edda, Njord marries Skadi, the daughter of a giant. Rather than live with her husband, Skadi chooses to return to her father’s home in the mountains, and this story of marital incompatibility has overtones of an ancient tale illuminating the difference between life on land and in the sea.

  Njord’s son Frey is said to control the bounty of the earth and is devoted to pleasure. It is instructive that this god of fertility at times cannot control his desires. In one central story, he endangers the gods by trading his sword for the hand in marriage of the lovely giantess Gerd, and at Ragnarok the gods will greatly miss this weapon. From many sources we know Frey was worshipped throughout much of the northern world. In the Baltic region, he was called Yngvi Frey. Although we have no sure explanation for the meaning of Yngvi, it was a name that was widely known, and Yngvi Frey appears to be the mythical ancestor of the tribe of Ingvaeones mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, while in Old English writings Frey is called Ing (Yngvi). Yngvi Frey was especially important in Sweden at Old Uppsala, where he was revered as the divine ancestor of the royal dynasty called the Ynglings, after him. A branch of this Swedish royal family moved to Norway and was also called the Ynglings. In Norway, they founded a Viking Age dynasty in the Vik region near modern-day Oslo. Through the conquests of the long-lived King Harald Fairhair (c. 860 –930), the Ynglings became Norway’s medieval royal house, with Ynglings remaining on the throne until the fourteenth century.

  The Edda tells us that, compared to the gods, ‘The goddesses are no less sacred, nor are they less powerful’ (p. 30). They are called gydjur, a general term meaning female gods, and asynjur, meaning, more specifically, female Æsir. In Asgard, the goddesses own a beautiful sanctuary named Vingolf, and the most prominent among them have their own halls. Frigg, Odin’s wife and the chief goddess, owns the magnificent dwelling Fensalir. Little is known about Frigg’s parentage, but she is more clearly defined as the mother of Baldr, the most beautiful of the gods, whose tragic death she tries to prevent. Like her husband Odin, Frigg has considerable po
wers and can see into the future, but, unlike Odin, she rarely uses her talents.

  Although Frigg holds the highest rank, it is Freyja who plays a larger role in the Edda. Freyja has her own hall, named Folkvangar, where she alone decides the seating. Throughout Scandinavia, women worshipped Freyja as the female deity of love and fertility and as the goddess of pleasure and household prosperity. The Edda tells that Frejya delights in love and songs and that her great sorrow is the disappearance of her husband Od. Like many gods of fertility, Freyja and her Vanir family show a tendency towards incest, and the eddic poem Loki’s Flyting hints that Freyja and Frey were the children of Njord and his sister. In the same poem Loki accuses Freyja of having incestuous relations with her brother. Contention swirls around Freyja: giants lust after her, and at times the gods and Loki covet her possessions. One of her treasures is the famous Brisingamen, the ‘Necklace of the Brisings’, made by four dwarves, and, according to the Icelandic Short Saga of Sorli, Odin has Loki steal it. The Old English poem Beowulf speaks of a similar mysterious piece of jewellery called the Brosinga mene (the necklace of the Brosings).

  The Edda also mentions many lesser goddesses and other types of supernatural women. These include Idunn, who guards the apples of immortality, and Eir, who brings healing. Gefjun, whose name means ‘She Who Gives’, appears in one story as the founding mother of the main Danish island of Sjaelland. The virgin Fulla is a mysterious goddess. She serves as Frigg’s attendant and carries a box made of ash wood, but we know nothing about its contents. Supernatural women include Norns, who shape men’s lives at birth, and Valkyries, whom Odin sends into battle. On the battlefield, Valkyries choose warriors to be slain and taken to Odin’s Valhalla, where his swelling army of warriors enjoys a vibrant afterlife, feasting and fighting daily in preparation for Ragnarok. Another female figure wielding supernatural power is Hel. Gloomy and cruel, she does not appear to be a goddess but presides in the underworld over those who die of disease and old age. A fearsome creature, Hel is described as half black and half white, and even some gods, such as Baldr, the son of Odin and Frigg, cannot escape her grasp. At Ragnarok, Loki leads into battle all of the dead from the realm of his daughter Hel.