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An investigation o f Gullveig in Old Norse mythology

& her anti-cosmic nexus

GULLVEIG EMBRACED IN

J

EMBELLISHED WITH

TOGETHER WI TH

a« illumination on the Old Norse belief in the adverse powers o f the underworld. And an

elaborate study and view upon the underworld as a primordial source of the anti-cosmic

current.

* * *

5



GULLVEIGARBOK By Vexior

Text and image Copyright © 2010 Vexior

First Edition © 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or

by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the pub

lisher.

All Old Norse references translated into English by Vexior ; mostly from Bugge's edition

of Sam undar Edda, and Heimskringla. The author would like to give credit to Heim-

skringla which has advanced and nourished his profound research in rare ON

literature.

Illustrations by Helgorth and Vexior.

uLoki finds Gullveig's Heart " illustrated by John Bauer in 1911 fo r "Our Fathers' God-saga" by Viktor Rydberg.

Calligraphy fon t made by Vexior for the Gullveigarbok.

www.vexior.se

www.fallofman.eu

http://www.vexior.se/

http://www.fallofman.eu/

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http://www.vexior.se/



Explanatory...................................................................................................................... 11

Introduction..................................................................................................................... 14

I: I Sogum ..................................................................................................................... 28

Gullveig In Aldna.......................................................................................................... 32

Gullveig s Misinterpretation as Freyja..........................................................................41

Gullveig, the Wolves and Werewolves' Ancestress & Fosterer ..................................... 47

Gulveig s Brother HrossJ jofr....................................................................................... 49

Hei3r...............................................................................................................................50

Aurboda..........................................................................................................................56

Angrboda........................................................................................................................61

Hyrrokin.........................................................................................................................67

A Saemundar Edda-Study on Gullveig........................................................................... 71

A Snorra Edda-Study on Gullveig..................................................................................85

Undirheimar...................................................................................................................88

Hel - In Svarta................................................................................................................97

The Offspring............................................................................................................... 109

Fenrir.......................................................................................................................... 110

Jormungandr...............................................................................................................114

Hati, Skoll, and Garmr................................................................................................ 116

Gullveig and Lilith........................................................................................................117Jamvidr......................................................................................................................... 124

Kennings and Meanings............................................................................................... 133

Gullveig and Lola.........................................................................................................148

The Death of Baldr........................................................................................................170

II : Fje lk yngi................................................................................................. 184

Bl6t...............................................................................................................................189

Seta...............................................................................................................................193

Vitt....................................... 196

Gullveigar Runar...........................................................................................................197

II I: L j6 d.......................................................................................................................210

Hennar......................................................................................................................... 213Ybldtninaz....................................................................................................................215

The Old Will Climb......................................................................................................217

Granautr.......................................................................................................................219

Ama..............................................................................................................................221

Skassleikr......................................................................................................................223

A ppendix .....................................................................................................................227

In d ex ............................................................................................................................ 234

7



«Tift D f e tljusb^Wlf ' - = = S 1 1 — —

Plate I: Gullveig, Heidr, and Aurboda ascend from Niflheimr.

Plate II: Gullveig as the rime-thurs crone Heidr.......................

Plate III: Loki finds Gullveig's Heart .......................................

Plate IV: Angrboda..................................................................

Pla te V: Hyrrokin.....................................................................

Plate VI: Loki comes loose.......................................................

Plate VII: Heldrasill................................................................

Plate VIII: Chaos’ acosmic current .........................................

...30

...35

...39

...63

...70

168

229

232

9



Ex pl a n a t o r y

PRONUNCIATION KEYS

p (P ) - as in thin

d ( D ) - as in this

ce (JE) & a (A) - as in cat. An accent denotin g a longer syllable (ге).

0 ( 0 ) & (О ) - close to her. An accent denoting a longer syllable (6).

In early Scandinavia the letter о was frequently used for a slightly different o-sound,

but i t was replaced w ith the character о du ring the early medieval age. Normally I

am very picky with keeping to the original spellings and such, bu t due to the ir sim

ilarities and mix-ups I have chosen to replace the character о with the 0 in this book.

ABREVLATIONS

A D anno domini

BC before Christ Etc. and others; and so forth

E.g. for example, such as

he. tha t is

OE Old English

01 Old Icelandic

O N Old Norse; i.e. Old Scandinavian; Scandinavia which for me includes

Iceland.

I would also like to explain some of the chosen words that I use in this book. Some

of them may be seen as unusual and old, bu t the reason why I chose these words istha t they often etymologize with the O ld Norse words and so make for a bette r fit.

Take for example the English word “rime”; it derives from the Old Norse word hrim.

Equally, the O ld Norse words for giant purs and jotunn I have anglicized into “thurs”

(pi- thurses, adj. thursian) and “jotun” (pi. jotuns). In this manner, I can use the

more pure form “rime-thurs” instead of “frost giant” - although they mean the same

11



Gu l l veig a r bOk

thing. Furthermore, 1 use the Old Norse nam es in their original approach only, since

those are the true names and I think that renaming them just to make it easier for

foreigners to pronoun ce and rem em ber them is to patronize people and mock the

giants.

In my bo ok I will use the name He l only for the giantess wh o rules over the dead

and Niflheimr, Gullveig’s daughter with Loki. And I will only use the name H elheimr

for the world of the dead in the u nderw orld (which is otherw ise comm only called

only Hel). I do this to avoid unnecessary confusion in an already confusing and

complex subject.

I would also like to explain my understanding of the difference between a thurs-

giant and a jotun-giant. In my profound studies of the O N mythology the thurses

from M uspellzheimr and Niflheimr are the only ones who are malignant and adver

saries; as Muspellzheimr and Niflheimr are located beyond the underworld in Chaos.

All other giants, e.g. jotuns ( jetnar) and mountain-giants ( bergrisar ), belong to the

underw orld and are most o ften mythological allies with the vanir and «sir-gods. An

example of this can be seen in the O N term hrim- which only belongs to the cold

ness and darkness of Niflheimr, Hvergelmir, and its powers; as the rime-thurses are

always of three im portant elem ents: l ) Ice, 2) Darkness, an d 3) Aversion. And as

hrim- is exclusively associated with nifl-, the two have adopted each othe r s traits.

In Gylfaginning it is told that Audhum la licked on the salty ice until Buri was ex

cavated. This was before the world and the «sir were yet created, there were only

primordial entities; according to GyIfaginning there only existed Ymir the rime-giant

and A udhumla the cow. Gylfaginning is the only source tha t testifies to Audhum las

involvement in the creation. However, taken from Gylfaginning's words, the «sir-

gods came from the line of Audhum las race (Buri was her first son, and he is OSinn’s

grandfather), and the adverse and primordial giants came from Ymir, hence the

thurses. And Gylfaginning speaks o f this adverse thurs-race in the line of Ymir: "We

do no t acknowledge him (Ymir) god; he was evil and all his kindred. We call them

rime-thurses." So the purs-race was malevolent and adverse towards the creation.

And the jotunn- а с е was seen as benevolent; as the jotunn - а с е was in time more

adapted to th e creation, and later became allies with the fa ir and vanir.

Cleasby and Vigfusson separate the race Pursar from Jetnar in An Icelandic-English

Dictionary: "the Titans of the Scandin. Mythology were so called, as opposed to and older

than the common Jotnar (Giants)."

12



Ex pl a n a t o r y

Skxmismaly stanza 34, says: «Heyri jotnar, heyri hrimpursar ; synir Suttungs, sjalfir

aslidar», which for me obviously categorizes and divides the races perfectly in:

1. jotnar = giants o f the u nderworld

2. hrimpursar = giants of Niflheimr

3. synir Suttungs = giants o f Miispellzheimr

4. sjalfir aslidar = the cesir

Gylfaginning (21,42, and 49) separates them as «hrimpursar ok bergrisar »; why

do this three times if there was no difference betw een them?

Bosa saga ok Herrauds says: «Troll ok dlfar ok tofrnornir, buar} bergrisar brennipinar

hallir ; ha tip ik hrimpursar; hestarstredipik, strain stangi pik , en stormar ceripik, ok vei

verdiper; п е т pu vilja minn gerir». N ot too far from how the Gylfaginning saga sep-

arates them.

13



G u l l v eig a r b o k

This is my Gullveig-studies and understanding thus far - many more

arcana will hencefor th be solved, new knowledge will be

absorbed, and numerous m ore riddles will be

unraveled. This work can never be comp

leted, so consider this book a glimpse

into my boundless devotion

to Gullveig.

♦

The investigation of a dead religion from the past in the present is a challenge tha t

craves a sober and realistic perspective in its analysis. The challenge is not just to

unde rstand the deep m etaphors in the O ld terminology and big gaps in the limited

literature and archeological evidences; it is to understand the Old Norse peoples ’

perspective of the physical world and the spiritual. Through all these years of my

researching, I have found that it is too easy to build a m odern understanding o f the

Old, instead of trying to think like a poo r farmer in Scandinavia during, for example,

300 AD. That said, it might even be be tter to look upon the Old N orse belief from

a modern perspective; it might allow us to reach a deeper understanding: because

our research conceives and manifests the past in the present. And as we do so -

evoking wha t is dead and pu tting it on paper - we analize the facts and try to p ut it

together in the be st way we see fit. Some researchers follow the pack - me, I spread

my wings and face the head wind like the black dragon.

14



In t r o d u c t i o n

J0TU NH EIM R AND ANTI-COSMIC GINNUNGAGAP-THEORY

I would like to start by giving an illumination on my way of beholding the giants

(purs and jotunn) and their dark powers in the O ld Norse mythology and magic. I

also want to start this book by explaining briefly the fou ndation o f my belief, so asto make it easier to understand my vision o f the Old N orse mythology and religion,

which I devotedly follow. Chaos-Gnosticism is the innards of my belief, so is anti-

cosmic Satanism. Chaos-G nosticism is inspired by the ancient religion called Gnos

ticism which was built on the belief that the cosmic demiurge - who in different

religions is called Yahweh, God, Zeus, OSinn, etc. - is the evil god in the material

creation of the cosmos. The light that the demiurge is distributing is a false and un

clean light - a metap hor for a lie and an illusion - and the demiurge is more o f a

tyrant than a savior. In Chaos-Gnosticism the Satanist adopts the fundamental roots

of Gnosticism and fuses it together with the belief in an acosmic Chaos - i.e. a “state”

called Chaos beyond the cosmos, a “state” which I believe is an acosmic pan-dimen-

tional multiverse. Thus, the cosmic demiurge is an evil god who enslaves souls and

imprisons them so that they become nothing more than a shell of clay; blind and

unenlightened , while the true light bringer, Lucifer-Loki-Prometheus1, is the savior

who will enlighten you with the authentic light, and guide

you o ut o f the shackles of the demiurge to finally transcend

unto the acosmic Chaos. The anti-cosmic Chaos-powers are

thus seen as the destroyers of causal structures and cosmic

bonds. This is how I transfer the anti-cosm ic purposes and

essence onto the thurses, as the thurs-powers are told in the

ON sagas to be destroyers; they come out of Ginnungagap

which dwells in Chaos, and evidently they are the wrathful

powers who relentlessly aim to destroy the worlds of the

vanir, Midgardr-earth, and «sir; Asgardr-heaven. With a

Chaosophic perspective it’s not hard to unders tand the nexus.

1 Prometheus and Loki's

mythos are very much in anal-

ogy: light-bringers and pun

ished in the same way by the

demiurge.

2Hypothetically an original un

derstanding of this epithet

could have been the void o f the

Chaos-powers.

THE CREATION AND THE INVASION

Ginnungagap2is the infinite abyss beyon d the cosmos, where the everlasting dark

ness dwells. This primordial abyss is the pan-dimensional Chaos, which has a lim

itless quantity o f time and space dimensions and it is where everything within and

throu ghout the cosmos originally comes from. Ginnungagap is a formless eternity

because o f its pan-dim ensions and multi-potential traits. And because o f its acausal

nature it is not b oun d by the limitations o f the causal law, and thereby it is a lawless

15



Gu l l v eig a r b Ok

totality that, without restrictions, is continually evolving: the eternally dynamic in

finitude. The O N prefix ginn- and the Greek word khaos both derive from the same

stem: the Sanskrit word ghett , which means emptiness and

1Normally translated into "a abyss. This is vital information for us in understanding how th e

yawning gap . O N pe0pje looked upo n the creation and where it came from.

Gap var ginnunga1

Ginnungagap, as Chaos, held all; which even included the oppo rtunity for cosmic

forces to take form. In Voluspd it is told:

In the very beginning when nothing was, nor sand nor sea, nor cold waves;

earth was not, nor upper-heaven, a yawning gap, grass was not.

It started with a threefold o f structural forces:

1) The cold in the form of the world of ice, mists, and darkness called Niflheimr,

and its rime-well Hvergelmir, they were located in the north; in a place where ex

ploding ice-masses ruled the lands; an d roaring crackling gigantic ice-bergs filled

its black waters. And from the bottom less rime-well springs the black poisonous

waters called Elivagar which divides in to eleven rivers called Svol, GunnJ)ra, Fjorm,

Fimbulj^u], Slidr and Hrid, Sylgr and Ylgr, Vi3, Leiptr and GjoD. An d so, immense

dense fog was created from these waters; hence the world in the no rth was called

Nifl or Niflheimr. And the ruler of this cold world is the giantess Hel.

2) In the south, heat was created and its flaming surroundings were called

Muspell or Muspellzheimr - the world of fire and light. It is also the hom e o f the

world-destroyers called the Mtispells synir , sons of Muspell, and Suttungs synir , sons

of Suttungr. And the ruler o f this flaming world is the almighty thurs called the black

one and the one with a burning sword , Surtr. In Voluspd 52 it is told:

Surtr fares from the south with incinerating flames,

the warrior's sword shines like the sun;

rocks rumble and clash; fiends reel;dead men tread Helvegr and heaven is cloven.

*

3) After the world of ice and the world o f fire grew so big that they me t together,

the heat melted the ice and created yeasty poisonous waters, which have been called

kvikudropar, life-drops - supposedly the seed of the spirit. And existence in the form

16




of the Chaos-thurs Ymir (also called Aurgelmir by the rime-thurses) was created;

he was deformed1with four mouths and he was gigantic compared to normal

thurses. In Vajprudnismal it is told:

Out of tlivagar venom-drops spattered, growing until a giant was;thence are our kindred come all together, so it is they are malignant forever.

In Vajprudnismal it is also told:

Under the hand on the giant rime-thurs grew maid and man together:

one foot with the other bore, for the wise thurs, a six-headed son.

In Gylfaginning it is told:

By no means do we acknowledge him (Ymir) god; he was evil and all his kindred:we call them rimethurses. Now it is said that when he slept, a sweat came upon

him, and there grew under his left hand a man and a woman, and one of his feet

begat a son with the other; and thus the races are come; these are the

rimethurses. The old rimethurs, him we call Ymir.

Out of Ymir s left hand2 a male thurs and a female thurs were

created; and they were no t spoken o f more in the mythology

othe r than that they were the first ancestors of the thurs-races

- they are but a mystery3. But Ymir s third offspring, which he

gave birth to w ith his feet, was spoken of as brudgelm ir; hewas a deformed and wrathful six-headed thurs - w ho in his

turn gave birth on his own, like his father did, to a horrible

thurs called Bergelmir.

Something that should also be considered is that according

to the Gylfaginning-saga, Vajprudnismal, Gnmnismdl, and

V&luspd in skamma Ymir also gave birth to Mi'mir and his sister

Beizla. Since they are also bo th giants, it is self-explanatory in

this early stage o f the creation that all giants come from Ymir.

THE LINE OF THURSES

O n each side o f the gaping chasm called Ginnungagap two

worlds lay, in the sou th there was the w orld o f flames which

1As form as in the shape of a

human belonged to the «sir-

gods; litrgodaf not to the giants.

The giants were connected to

the ON saying slcipta litum, tochange ‘form'.

2Pd ox undir vinstri hond honum

madur og kona. Gylfaginning.

3First, I claim that they were

thurses jus t like Ymir was. He

was a pure rime-thurs, so his

offspring must be rime-thurses

as well, just like trudgelmir.

And secondly, my mo st credi

ble guess of whom these two

mysterious rime-thurses given

by Ymir by his left ha nd (!)

would be Gullveig and Loki;

due to the known thursian ge

nealogy. And the flames of

Surtr or Muspellzheimr af

fected Loki s entity.

17



Gu l l v e ig a r b o k

was called Mdspellzheimr, and in the no rth a world of mists, darkness and ice which

was called Niflheimr. And as immense Muspell-flames reached out to the outer rim

of Niflheimr, an oozing icy sludge started to break free in dense mists from ages of

crystallized stagnation. Black ice turn ed into sludgy water because o f the heat and

as it invaded th e cosmos, it was allegorized to be as poisonous as an alien and anti-

cosmic power, thus its definition ‘thursian pow er’ or in O N pursamegin. And from

the icy sludge o f the poisonous waters an abysmal water-well was created, and it

was called Hvergelmir - father o f all rivers. W hen the Muspell-flames collided with

the Nifl-ice another phen omen on to ok place: the first rime-thurs was born out o f

the b lack ice. He was called Ymir, an d the rime-thurses called him Aurgelmir. He

can easily be seen as the Chaos-current which is invading the cosmos. Ymir created

the giant race called purs by himself. The first mentioned race was rime-thurses after

their father Aurgelmir, and the y were all evil in essence, a ttributes and manifesta

tions, and most often deformed in appearance. The thursian race would becomeeternal enemies with the cesir and the vanir: adversaries to the new and definite

realm of the cosmos - hence their adjectival umbrella term “anti-cosmic”. Othe r

races were created in the beginning, although later, after the thurs-race had grew

strong; one of the later races was called jotun, which was in time m ore adapted to

the cosmic realm and adjusted very well, and later they became allies with the new

non-giant races called cesir and vanir. The jotun-race was seen as a benevolent one.

The aesir sprung from the same source as the jotun-race, and they all were created

much later in time than the thurses.

If the giants come from the rime-thurs Ymir and Niflheimr with their poisonous

essence, ho w come there are benign giants that are even friends and allies with the

cesir ? The most comm on answer to this tha t I’ve come across is that the O N mytho l

ogy and religion were not “dualistic” or “monotheis tic”, tha t “all was inspirited with

both the dark and the l ight”, the re w ere simply “no sides”; “no good and evil”. Hy

po theses which in m y opinion are incorrect, as Gylfaginning says in plain words: he

(Ymir) was evil and all his kindred ( the rime-thurses). And even Scemundar Edda s

old saga Voluspa allegorizes Gullveig as an evil and adverse giantess; and what about

Surtr, NiShoggr, bjazi and Hrimgerdr, for example? They are all antagonists and

adversaries to the gods and the world. Another problem that misleads and obscuresthings is that the ON word jotunn is used for all giants; e.g. in

hrimkalda jotun; an epithet for a rime-thurs and not a jotun.

Still, according to me, Ymir and his race a re o f an acosmic and

opposing heritage (from Chao s) in comparison to the cosmos;

«hann var illur ogallir hans cettmetw,pd kdllum ver hrimpursa»1.

1"He was evil and all his kin

dred: we call them rime-

thurses." Gylfaginning 5.

IS



kindred. We call them rime-thursesM. These lines actually say tha t his evil kindred

are called rime-thurses only, n o t « hrimpursar ok bergrisar », rime-thurses and mou n

tain-giants, as in other places in Gylfaginning.

Now Surtr and his offspring were the thursian rulers o f the south , and hriidgelmir

and his offspring were the rime-thursian rulers of the north. These sources gave the

opportun ity for the cosmos to be created, and in time the jotun-family of the jotun

Buri1became more adapted to the cosmic forms and laws, which in the long run

formed the new races called vanir and cesir . The ruler o f this fam

ily had the demiurgical place as a god and was born w ith the

purpose of being the cosmic head represen tation and creator

of form, laws, and the worlds. He was named Odinn - and

called by many o ther names: Allvisi, ValfaSir, and Herfadir -

and he had two brothers who would help him create a worldfitting to the cosmic nature, which of course could not be as

lawless and pan-dimensional as Chaos (this can be compared

to the mythological saga of Tiamat and Marduk, where Tiamat

is connected to water.) Structure, law and form were the foun

dations of his idea. So a demiurge he becam e2; Odinn the god

of heaven, the tyrant, and his two brothers, H onir and Lodurr,

the triad which has been explained by Snorri to represent spirit,

soul and flesh. However, from the prim ordial sources - Muspell

and Nif! - came the true light and the true knowledge, which

in other traditions are called gnosis. This knowledge was the pu re un de rs tand ing from the world beyo nd the cosmos.

Gylfaginning says, "first was the world in south, which was

named Muspell; it is light and hot; the region is glowing and

burn ing, and impene trable to ou tland ers and have not their

holdings there" Nifl has similar traits but it is cold and dark; it

emanates po isonou s icy waters instead of flaming light. It s a

place that is explained in the ON sagas as no t being available to

the cesir-gods; the gods could not see it, nor reach it. It was there

where hjazi and his thursian brothers would move the ir smithy

and home to - in the northe rn wintry lands where no god could approach them. Itis the opposing and wrathful place (i.e. adverse towards the cosmos) of thursian

powers only, and the light that shines from it is n ot the light of a cosmic sun, it is

the light of acosmic knowledge and languages of Chaos. It invades the cosmos with

something the Old Norse peop le called eitr; poison. And its current is metapho ri

cally described as “poisonous rivers” coming out of underwordly wells. The original


1It is a mystery what he actually

was, but in my book Buri is a giant

2 «O k fyrir pvt md hann heita

Alfodr, at hann erfadir allra godanna

ok. manna ok alls pess, er afhonum

ok bans krafti varfuilgert», 'And bythis he must be called All-father:

because he is father of all the gods

and ofmen, and ofall that was ful

filled by him and by his might"

Gylfaginning 9.

3Ymir, also called Aurgerlmir, is in

my opinion a representation ofthe

power-flow called "poisonous

rivers” moving from acosmic

realms into the cosmos. His name

Aurgelmir means aur - “(watery)

mud” or "humus”, and -gelmir is

translated into “stormy waves”.

This name actually hints as to

Ymir s nature. With earth being a

symbol of “bringing into cosmic

life”, you could here see the con

nection between the womb called

Ginungagap and Aurgelmir - one

being the womb, the other being

the extractions from it

20



well is called Hvergelmir, father o f wells, and its shore is called Elivagar3, and Eliva-

gar itself is divided into eleven rivers which are all the main sources o f the acosmic

light transformed into anti-cosmic light, and since acosmic light can only exist be

yond the cosmos, it has to change when it penetrates the cos

mos, which in turn are translated as the Hidden Knowledge of

Chaos1. All the thurses and other giants are the wielders o f this

hidden light. A human recipient of this hidden knowledge in

Old Scandinavia was called jjolkunnigr , one skilled in the black

arts (from fjolkyngi, black art); a word that I believe derives from

the same ro ot as the rune kyn (<) - fcunna; which in its turn de

rives from the Greek word gnosis (see further dow n for a thor

ough explanation). A jjo lkunnigr could also be called a

seidberandi - seidberendr (pi.), sorcerer(s) or carrier(s) o f seiftr.

And Voluspd in skamma says: «seidberendrfra Svarthofda», "all

seidhbe rend r come from Surtr".

Now, OSinn is put in the sagas as the all wise-one, he is up

held as the demiurgic god who is the creator and rule r of all (the

cosmos). This has been a bit misunderstood over time, and

twisted more and more into the form o f a monotheistic religious

axiom. From the early times it is proven that the O N mythology

and religion were polytheistic in nature and the different worlds

had different rulers, no t one ruler of all as it is often confusedly

stated. This twist is an influence of mono theistic religions asChristianity, and as Christianity came to Scandinavia during the

tones when the Eddas were collected and transcribed into new

i : cuments, they were naturally influenced by it2. OSinn has al-

•ivs been looked up on as the all-wise and a ruler of AsgarSr, Valholl, and even MiS-

gardr, bu t only the worlds of the gods and the hum ans, not the world of the giants

г the world of the dead. Here is where the confusion appears, people tend to pri-

' titze only two worlds in the O N cosmology and that 6 5 inn therefore is ruler of

_ but they put the whole underwor ld aside and they definitely do not care about

■~e realm called UtgarSr. For example, Surtr is the mighty sovereign of Muspel-

Izheimr, and Hel is queen-ruler o f Niflheimr and the dead in the unde rworld'.rough Helheimr - this proves that the ON belief-system is based on polytheism.

I inn has been called “god of the dead” though, bu t that is, by fact, because the

say tha t all hum an warriors who die in battle will be sen t to О <3inn s halls and

in his heavenly armies in Valholl. It has nothing to do with the underworldly realm

. J e d Helheimr, which is the leading world o f the dead.


' The ON people did not havethe word "chaos” as what we

know of, but ginn- in Ginnun-

gagap can actually be looked

upon as the ON word for

Chaos, as the ON word ginn

and the Hellenic word khaos

derives from the same Sanskrit

stem ghen, void; and the ON

peo ple did believe in the same

so-called “void” or “space of

emptiness” where Ginnunga-

gap once emerged from. The

theoretical sources of the po i

sonous waters beyond the un

derworldly wells, Utgardr and

Ginnungagap, justify this.

2Snorri forced Odinn into be

coming some sort of a

monotheistic god, which is not

historically correct. 6dinn was

a demiurge and ruler ofAsgardr

and Valholl, but he was not a

singular tyrant over all worldsin the original mythology. See

further down.

21



Gu l l v eig a r b o k

Mythological information and rem nants that lead us to the fact that O Sinn was

no t the w isest entity in the cosmos can be found, for example, in the saga called

Vafyrudnismdl, in the Edda w here OSinn himself recognizes the giant У аф гйдш г1

to be the all-wise one. OSinn uses these words exactly in the saga: «inn alsvinna

jo tun», "the all-wise giant", as he explains to his wife how excited he is to meet this

giant. O Sinn goes to this giant in search for more hidden knowledge, and he also in

tends to test the g iant s wisdom, and it ends up that the giant can richly answer all

OSinns questions, as OSinn repeatedly praises the giant as

being all-wise. If OSinn already knew everyth ing , as his epithet

Allvisi suggests, the visit of VafJ)ruSnir would be pointless, and

OSinn would no t have uttered his excitement over this inter

view to his wife. The sagas are in fact full of these small hints

that contradict OSinns, and othe r cesirs, absolute wisdom and

power over the thurses. The qu estion is w ho chooses to readthem.

1 У аф гйдш г is supposedly

translated to wise in riddles.

But my own research shows

that the translation the powerful

entangler would be a more fit

ting translation. The two tran s

lations are not too far from eachother, but to use the word “rid

dle” is limiting Vaf[>rudnirs

qualities to just riddles when

that is no t the actual case.

2Gylfagitining.

3Also called Samundar Edda

and the Elder Edda.

4 Also called Snorra Edda and

the Younger Edda.

s Through out this bo ok I have

added the adjective “black” tothe thursian magic, runes, and

powers, as their essence derives

from “the black ones”; namely

Surtr, Svarhofti, Hel, In Svarta,

and Gullveig.

Here you can tell by reading Gylfaginning that Snorri

“forced” OSinn to become All-Father, by using compelling in

tentions in sentences like "And this is my belief, that OSinn and

his brothers, must be rulers of heaven and earth. And he m ust

be so called. So is that man called whom we know to be might

iest and m ost worthy of honor, a nd let him be so called."2This

way of compelling the reader to choose a side reminds me of

Christian authorship and approach, and Snorri, who was oneof the O N authors behind the writing and collecting of the ON

mythology, was a Christian.

Before I dive into m y Gullveig-investigations I feel I have to mention something

about the view upo n the Old Norse sagas, especially the Poetic Edda3 and the Prose

Edda4. How th ey were tampered with by poets who lived off their poe try and per

formance , and dimin ished in to pleasan t tales for kings’ courts and farm-families’

amusement during long cold and dark winters. The original sagas and the dark as

pects of the Chaos-creatures such as troll, giants and their black magic5 is cut ou t

purposely, in the knowledge that nobody would hire a poet to tell such horrid sagas.

But the converting religious mass did no t wipe out all traces and left us with small

details that can today verify the belief and evocation o f underworld powers; Tolley

confirms this: “The term troll was used of giants and o the r beings that were involved

22




in malicious supernatural activities, and came to be applied not only to the object

of this magic, but also to the practitioner (so that it sometimes becomes synony

mous with witch). It is clear tha t troll could be sum moned in ritual magic, presum

ably to impart information, but perhaps also to carry out tasks, as this is explicitly

condem ned in Norwegian laws (« a t vekja troll up», "to wake up troll").”1Snorri

was Christian and deliberately took out the dark glorifications

and even added many Christian aspects to the old sagas. Even 1Clive Tolley, 2009, Shamanism

the episode abo ut the new born lovely world of the gods after in Norse Myth and Magic.

Ragna Rok in the Edda has very strong similarities with the

Bibles tale of the apocalypse and the rebirth o f the new world with Jesus (Baldr) in

it, which I personally suspect to have been just a Christian influence. Rem ember

that the Scemundar Edda (the Elder Edda is looked upon as the most accurate and

credible version of our Old m ythology and religion) was a collection of hand-writ

ten sagas most likely found in Norway and on Ice land sometimes during the years

800-1000 AD, but hand-transcribed to the book Codex Regius sometime during

1200-1300 AD; and it is from this majestic book the today's Edda (Scemundar Edda)

comes from. How accurate the transcription is I do not dare to guess, knowing that

Scandinavia was Christianized around 1000-1100 AD, which makes me wonder if

Christians were the ones making this transcription. Certainly, they were the ones

that were versed in the scriptures. And all this after clearly putting in the complex

saga about Ragna Rok that Surtr took his burning sword and burned all of the

worlds and all within them . But the fact is, Ragna Rok does mean the end of the gods,

which seems to have been ignored and forgotten.

THE GERMANIC

ANALOGUE PURPOSE

This is a short map of the analo

gies between the primordial

thurs-powers and their ana

logue purpose. This is my own

hypothesis made from an in

tense study of the Old Norsemythology, and it is one o f the

foundations o f my work.

Niflheimr |

i

NiShoggr

Gullveig I

Jormungandr I ___

C H A O S

i

Ginnungagap ______ Г _

Muspellzheimr 5, <

i

Surtr $

ILoki <

i

Fenrir |

Hel 111

23




THE ICE LINE - fSS:

The |-rune stands for the rime and ice elements connected to these powers, and the

► -rune connected to Niflheimr stands for the spreading o f the thursian powers, the

eitr , through Hvergelmir. But eitr is an outcome of both Nifl and Miispell, as the |-

rune represents the Nifl, the <-rune represents the Miispell, and the ► -rune repre

sents (the outcome) o f them both as in the eitr . And if you b ind Iand < together as

a bind-rune you will get the ► -rune.

N iflheim r is the world o f mists, ice and darkness, and the source of the thursian

essence: this is because the well Hvergelmir is located in Niflheimr, and Hvergelmir

is the main source o f the poisonous waters from Elivagar. Elivagar means the icy waves

and its name is an allegory of its icy source; el means ice/rim e in Old Norse. And

Elivagar in turn is split up in to eleven rivers, which are spreading throughout the underworld and feeding all kinds o f powers.

They are even feeding its poison to the roots of the world tree

so that it rots and dies from within, and thus everything and

everyone that the tree nourishes.1

1That's why I believe Yggdrasill

to be a Yew-tree, because Yew

carries poison, eitr, while Ash

does not.

N idhoggr is the primitive Chaos-spawn who dwells in the dep ths of Hvergelmir

recreating himself into legions. He is the transcenden t thursian power and the mir

ror-image of the acosmic Chaos power. He is a black wrathful dragon who feeds on

human corpses, humans who have died through all the underworlds dow n to the

abysmal bottom where Nidhoggr s darkness lays. This could be seen as those enlightened (i.e. followers of Thursatru and Satanists) who have by their own will trav

elled all the way down to Nidhoggr s darkness and been embraced by it. As a

twin-essence to Surtr, I see Nidhoggr as the lava running out of Muspellzheimr

through Niflheimr, and materializing in the depths of Hvergelmir into the poisonous

rivers that flow out of the well. The rivers look like serpents; the b rood of Nidhoggr.

Gullveig is the Teutonic and Germanic highest feminine principle of darkness

- the maid, the mother, and the crone. She is the sinister arch-mother of the giants

and the black arts. She is the divine feminine manifestation o f the analogue thursian

purpose.

THE FIRE LINE - ELDR:

The $-rune stands for the destructive aspect o f fire, and the <-rune stands for the

enlightenment o f the divine fire, as in gnosis.

24




M iispe llzhe im r is the world of fire, the foundation o f the destructive and en

lightening flames1- its fires are variously referred to in O N as muspell, \xyrrf eimrj

and eldr. Miispellzheimr s ruler is Surtr and his sons are called suttungar and eldan-

dar. Its flames activated the black poison of Niflheimr s ice and sen t it on its way as

allegorized poisonous waters; here a connection with the Nifl-mists might be found.The thursian elements o f Miispellzheimr and N iflheimr were thereby u nleashed

from a dorm ant status. O ut o f these horrible powers some

thing equally horrible was unleashed as well: first came the

massive and overpowering giant called the black one; Surtr

as the entity of the ever-incinerating force; th en came the

giant Loki, unlocked from the blazing flames with wrath and

boun dless intelligence. These very co nn ec ted giants repre

sent th e very purpose of this fiery world.

1Incinerates your ego and en

lightens your spirit.

2The Black Flame is correspo n

ding to Chaos Gnosis; the

Black Dragon; the Chaos

Flame; L ucifers Flame;

Prometheus’

Blood, etc.

Flame; Kingus

S urt r is the highest principle of the giant-race; he is some

what o f a parallel to Satan, they serve closely allied purposes.

Surtr is the pure manifestation o f the destructive fire, his son has been called The

red rooste r' or The fire fiend', and Surtr himself has a burning Miispell-sword (Gam-

banteinn ) - created by the cunning Loki and perfected b y the evil I>jazi - which h e

will use to burn down everything within the cosmos. He dwells in the deep abyss

beyo nd the underworld, in the world called Miispellzheimr, in a valley o f darkness

which is called Sokkdalir (the deep valleys). He is the pre-em inent anti-cosmic cur

rent em erging from the raging Chaos. He is the Chaos-Fires in Miispellzheimr per

sonified in the ancien t Scandinavian mythology. Surtr spews black light and flames

which are the pure essences o f each Satanic individual's lit Black Flame2.

Loki is the giant of enlightenment and can be compared with Lucifer and

Prom etheus in the aspect of being the distributor of the Black Light or the Chaos

Gnosis. They share this quality in the Old Norse m ythology and Loki has also the

same braveness as Lucifer when he infiltrates Asgardr, and there he wields the black

poisons o f Hvergelmir amongst fair, vanir and people. Prometheus shares the same

braveness in the act of bringing forbidden enlightenment and also receives th e same

pun ishm ent as Loki b y the demiurge for this act. Some call Loki a trickster ; I call

him th e H ero an d the Locker, the Scatterer and the Dissolver. In the mythos, Loki

was the son of the hurricane-and-thunder-g iant Farbauti (the bale striker), and his

mothe r was the giantess Laufey (leaf-isle), it is supposedly an allegory of the light

ning that set Laufey aflame, and from this fire Loki emerged. He displays the fiery

character that eventually brings about Surtr s destruction with fire of the worlds -

this fire is called muspilli. And w hen it comes to Loki's sly plans, he was always long

25



G u l l v e ig a r b Ck

ahead; and he always formed them so that the mo st maleficent plans seemed to be

the most beneficent and favourable; even the sword he called Gam banteinn - which

he created for Surtr to destroy the worlds - was gladly treasured and claimed by

the aesir for a while, unknow ing o f its anti-cosmic purpose . Wit, viciousness and

bottomless spitefulness is coalesced in the essence o f Loki.

*

1Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, An

Icelandic-English Dictionary.

2 Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, Aw


Palm, 2004, Vikingarnas Sprdk ,

Heggstad, Hodnebo, Simensen,

2008, Norron Ordbok.

3 Hellqu ist, 1939, Svensk Ety-

mologisk Ordbok.

4Leijstrom Magnusson, 1943,

Isldndsk-Svensk Ordbok.

Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, An


I would also like to b ring up the difference betw een Ragna

Rok and Ragna Rokkr, which I think is relevant. First, the ON

word ragna is formed from ON rogn (regin), and it was used by

the O ld Scandinavians as an umbrella term for “the god s as the

makers and rulers o f the universe.”1 Rok is the o lder usage and

it means fate or end 2, and the wo rd rokkr derives from the Old

Germanic wo rd rikwiz which means darkness.3 Rokkur (rokkr,

rokr ) is still in usage today in the Icelandic language and it means

darkness or dusk-4 The transfo rmation fro m rok to rokkr in the

meaning of Ragna Rok is probably an allegory and made during

the m iddle ages. And this is why I have chosen to use exclusively

the wording Ragna Rok in this bo ok *

*

26




VIKTOR RYDBERG

I would also want to m ention Viktor Rydberg and his Old Norse studies, since he

was one of the few that dared to look on the O ld Norse m ythology and see its dark

and wrathful nature as well as it’s good and calm. Rydberg allegorized the th reaten

ing thurses as much as mythologists through time have allegorized the cesir. H e was

discredited by many because he dared to challenge the mainstream o f mythologists

and scholars, and this is as typical as shocking. I would like to pay tribute to him

and his amazing work on Old Norse mythology and religion called Undersokningar

i Germanisk Mythologi 1886-1889; with this Rydberg - a mastermind - has inspire

me in manifold ways.

27



I: I S0gum



Х Ш 1 Х : тН : Ш т:

31




HA

GULLVEIG

First-born and first burnt; her death created Jormungandr.

The thursian race was black and wrathful in essence and will - abnorm ally formed

because o f their unnatural condition in the cosmos, like Ymir himself. Some of these

thurses had special purposes and extraordinary circumstances; two of them were

Gullveig and Loki. They were bo th shape-shifters because of their multi-aspectual

traits, and their powers wen t beyond those of regular thurses. Gullveig, the Old One,

was the originator of magic and transformation, which mad e her into a very pow

erful giantess. This is why she could dw ell amongst the «esir-gods witho ut be ing de

tected as an intruder in AsgarSr; she appeared as a goddess in form and essence,

fooling even the demiurgic ass OS inn in his own halls, though Gullveig’s true

essence (allegorized as a hea rt in the sagas) was made purely out o f the po isonous

black ice ofNiflheim r, and Lok is out of the furious flames o f Muspellzheimr. Their

purpose was to lead all of the thursian races in bringing the cosmic existence to its

32



downfall; to infect the soul o f the universe with the "poison” of Chaos and let it

burn and dissolve from within. This is represen ted in the 1-rune , which holds Gul

lveig s rune I and Loki s rune <; and it is also represented in the X-rune, which is one

of the sacred runes of Gullveig; it also holds the |-rune and the <-rune, bo th dupli

cated to streng then their meanings and magic.

Gullveig was from the beginning known to be huge and terrible; as AngrboSa

she is known as the black formidable m other and crone, dwelling as the sole ruler

in the atrocious dark woods from the underw orld in Jotu nheim r called JarnvicSr,

ironwood, m othering and spawning legions of deformed thursian wolves and were

wolves. This is symbolized in the >f-rune. And as Heidr she is known as the b lack

underw orldly crone; giantess o f the black anti-cosmic runes and magic, who comes

at midnight up from under ground and walks between houses to visit the practi

tioners o f the black arts (or jjolkuntiigr, as they were called), to teach them aboutthe black runes and anti-cosmic magic. This is represented in the mysteries of the

i-r une and the X-rune. She has been called "she, the old on e”, "she, the wise one”,

and "the three thurs-m aids”. This is how Voluspd introduce Gullveig early in its fore

telling:

...until the three thurs-maids came, very mighty maids, from the worlds

of the giants.

The Edda is one of the most im por tant pre-christian Scandinavian manuscripts,

holding a wonderful collection of mythological sagas. O ne of them is of course theVoluspd which is a foretelling of the fate o f the giants, worlds, gods, and men. This

rich allegorization starts with explaining the creation o f the cosmos, how a Chaos-

giant starts to procreate and is slaughtered1for the gods to

"bu ild” the cosmos from his slaughtered remains. It continues 1Compare to the Babylonian

with the glorification o f the gods and how they lived rich and mythos of Kingu.

happy, built mighty temples and nice forges, played happy

games in their m ighty yards. Everything was perfect untill three thurs-maids, very

powerful, came from the worlds of the giants. From here on the saga changes drastically

and the journey towards Ragna Rok begins.

These three thurs-maids are evidently Gullveig-Heirfr-AurboSa which is later

called in the same foretelling the thrice burned and the thrice born, someth ing I will

verify through out this book. No t many have dared to admit this and they have ac

tually kept the ir pen in their ink-well on this one, which surp rises me as it is a vital

clue in the O N mythology as a whole. I like to understand this as the introduc tion

Gu l l v e ig In Al d n a

33



34



THE OLD ONE

One of the primordial determ ined thurses that survived O Sinns tyranny was Gul-

lveig; because her purpose was too important, nothing could really stop he r - the

saga abou t her rim e-heart below will confirm why. The cosmic overlords tried, bu t

the black essence of Gullveig was too powerful; her black rime-cold glacier-made

heart was created from p rimordial black ice, spewed out from Chaos itself. She is

the feminine representation of the acosmic Chaos - the wrath beyond wraths, the

all-devourer beyond ail-devourers; she is the anti-cosmic womb and the cosm ic

tomb - which is represented in the O-rune.

She was called by many different names throughout the sagas depending on what

era, what aspect and w hat shape she took as a shape-shifter. Known names for Gul

lveig are Heidr, Aurboda, Angrboda and H yrrokin. Pr oo f of the analogies will be provided throughou t th is book. As AngrboSa she took the eastern parts ofJotun-

heimr, which was called Jarnvibr, ironwood, as he r province. The sagas depict it as

very dark and atrocious, and as an impenetrable forest. It was there where she

spawned monster and dem on hordes; the kin of Fenrir - as it is

said in Veluspd:

In the east she the old one sat

in Jarnvidr and there bore

Fenrir’s kin.

Inside Jarnvidr it is told that Gullveig lives with th e sword

keeper Eggjper, he is her shepherd (gygjar hirdir ). According to

my theory (which I will explain thoroughly later on), he hides

and guards Gambanteinn, the sword of vengeance, for Sur tr until

Ragna Rok. As it is told in the beginning o f Ragna Rok, Eggjrer

sits on a big pile1, assumedly happy from the knowledge o f what

is to come, playing on his harp (it is, in my opinion, probably

below this big heap where he keeps Surtr s sword). Voluspa 42

says:

He, the giantess’ herder, the happy Eggfier, sat upon the heap

and played on the harp; above him in galgvidr2called a light red

rooster , his name was Fjalarr.

It is not m uch know n o f Eggj er, bu t as his name tells us he probably has just

G l /l l v e ig a r b Ok

36

1An interesting detail here is

that Egg|)er sits on a pile as a

guardian and plays on his harp,

and his main purpose is to

guard and wait for Fjalarr;

Surtr $ son, who will come toEgg^er as a red rooster. The

gate-guard at Fjalarr s mighty

hall deep in Jotunhe imr sits on

a pile and playing on a harp, just

like EggJ>er. Outside the giant

ess Gerdr’s yard, she is Gul

lveig s daughter, sits a herder on

a haugr too. This analogy be

tween EggJ>er, Fjalarr and

Gerdr, and Gambanteinn is

most challenging.

2For more information about

galgvidr see the chapter on

Jarnvidr.



Gu l l v e i g In A l d n a

one im portant purpose: to guard the sword of Surtr named Gambanteinn, created

by Loki. Egg£>er, sword keeper or servant; his name derives from the O N egg, the

edge or blade o f a sword, and -per derives from the O N pegn, a thane, liegeman or

subject, meaning a servant, which makes me think of Voluspa, where he is called

gygjar hirdir, the giantess* herdsman; hirdir as in hird, a king's or earl’s body-guard,

the king's men. This could mean th at Egg^er was supposed to be the giantess* herds

man who was taking care of her mo nster-herd and at the same time, being her ser

vant, he was keeping or guarding a sword. The sword is also mentioned in the above

mentioned stanza from Vriuspd where it is said the Su rtr s son Suttung-Fjalarr will

come as a red roo ster and visit EggJ^er to collect the sword. And you can compare

the name EggJ?er to the name of Beow ulf s father EcgJ>eow, which most likely is an

Anglo-Saxon version of EggJ>er: OE ecg, O N egg, edge o r sword-blade, and O E peow,

ON pegn, thane, subjec t or servant.

*

Gullveig; the descendan t of the rime-powers - Loki*s female coun terpart and

ally - is as beautiful as her true husband Loki and he r daugh ter Gerdr. GerSr was

the daughter o f Gullveig-Aurboda and Gymir: « Gymir het madr, en kona hansAu-

rboda. Hon var bergrisa cottar. Dottirpeira er Gerdr, er allra kvinna varfegrst » , ’'A man

was called Gymir, and his spouse Aurboda: she was o f the giant-race; the ir daughter

was GerSr, who was fairest of all women."

Gullveig should be looked upon as a mother-giantess, because she had procreated

most o f the hordes o f baningar, monsters and wolf-thurses, which will all gather,

fight and triump h on the final day of wrath - Ragna Rok. Her m ost importan t rag-

narokian children with Loki are Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hel. And n ot on ly is she

a mother-giantess; un der the name Heidr, the shining one, she is the witch-giantess;

the wielder o f the blackest seeds; she was the b rightness crawling out o f the abyss

and taking form, up through endless darkness and slithering through the crusty

boun ds of midd le earth. Bright as a shadowless light she came; erect like a burning

spine of a wand she stood, and started a journey to the yards of ungovernable and

receptive folk to teach them about the unknow n an d dark arts o f the un derworlds

and beyond. She was known as the wicked crone; giantess of the runes and black

magic, and the one who came at midnight up from unde r earth and walked between

houses to visit seidr-women to teach them o f her ways. She is the inventor o f black

magic and runes - the craft and cunning to seduce giants, humans and gods to gain

her end. And from h er bewitched seat, the seidstoll or rokstoll, she taught this magic,

37



G u l l v eig a r b 6 k

which struck as a weapon with confusion, disease and death. She enjoys teaching

the hum ans o f the anti-cosmic runes, and these runes are of rime-thursian black

magic. This is her crowe-aspect, which is generously emphasized in the Old Norse

lore. Gullveig-HeiSr got some people - some black souls which had managed to

stay receptive to the black and anti-cosmic light - to truly understand he r magic

and purpose. This understanding has been called Free Aurbodu, Aurboda s Seed -

the carrier of the poison, which is represented with the O-rune - one of the runes

particularly sacred to Gullveig:

1A free translation by the au

thor, originally written by

Rydberg.

The destructive seeds, which Gullveig in the dawn of time

sowed in the minds of humanity, granting harvests throughout

centuries, and with each century

henceforth richer.’

*

Gullveig is as intelligent as beautiful - cunning and quick-witted - and she has a

very strong potential in foreseeing spiteful moves in her sinister way of thinking.

This weighs heavy for me as I think Gullveig is thought of to be the seeress who

foretells the Veluspa. As a female cou nterp art o f Loki, she made sly plans from the

beginning o f the creation of the cosmos and follows them to the end. She b rought

darkness from th e very depths of the dungeons of Niflheimr, to the brightest garden

of Asgardr. This skilled cunning is only wielded b y her and Loki o f all the powers in

existence. So it was not an accidental occurrence that Gullveig first got accep ted

and was very popular with th e cesir - just like her masculine counterpart, and it tooka very long time and a large am ount o f effort before the cesir became aware of her

hate and destructive intentions. In fact, they uncovered he r intentions when it was

too late, when she had already wielded h er pestilent magic for centuries and sown

more anti-cosmic seeds than th ere are stars in the sky. She had spawned legions o f

horrible monsters, strengthened her pow ers in black anti-cosmic seidr, killed many

gods and men, and evoked relentless dark powers from within her own darkness

and abysmal essence. She has turned so many men, sung endlessly black galdrs, and

hailed the current o f Chaos for so long that the cosmic doom is inevitable.

It was already too late wh en the cesir understood that Gullveig, unde r the name

of Aurboda, had worked as Frigg s maidservant and got Freyjas confidence by trick

ery, and with malicious craftiness got Freyja to use black seidr. Furthermore, since

Freyja is the goddess o f fertility and was worshipped richly over Scandinavia, one

easily understands the devastating consequences Gullveig had in mind. As the cesir

understood th e terrible outcome this black witchcraft would have if it spread and

38




1Poison.

circulated, they panicked. They seized her, tortu red her by thrusting their spears

into her body, and held her with the ir spears over a bonfire and burned her to death

in the shimmering halls of Asgardr; instantaneously and without trial. This relentless

action by the cesir would have a major impact on the god’s and vanir's alliance later

in the sagas as Gullveig had influenced the vanir to follow her and no t the gods.

As self-sacrifice is Gullveig s biggest virtue, I am sure this was according to her

plans. Fur thermore, as Gullveig is of Ymir’s prim ordial rime-thurs family

(Bergelmir’s grandchildrens blood, the younger thursian dynasty), it was impossible

for the aesir to bu rn her rime-heart with cosmic flames - where h er grim soul laid

hidden. As they burned her in a bonfire, her rime-heart would not bum , it was only

half singed by the cosmic flames. For her hea rt is as cold as the primordial ice that

made Ymir: the source o f Hvergelmir's Venomous Waters - the eitr1. The cosmic

flames are impure and could only bum Gullveig s/orm and not her essence. Therefore her spirit or essence survived and was reborn into the worlds; in the sagas

this is allegorized as her hea rt was only half-burnt - the heart of primeval cold. This

is how she got the epithet Hyrrokin, “the flame sm oked”, meaning tha t the divine

flames were impure by smoke; too im pure to incinerate Gullveig’s essence. The

smoke has been compared w ith fog and thereby link Gullveig with this myth to her

“place of birth” in Niflheimr. She is also known as ursvol and ursvol gymis volva,

Gymir’s primevally cold witch. Three times she got burned w ith impure flames,

three times she was reborn.

After Gullveig, the origin o f the evil runes and witchcraft, got executed and burnt by £>6rr and th e cesir, Loki looked in the ashes for her half bu rn t hear t - as he knew

of her plans - found it and devoured it. After a time, he gave bir th to her infamous

children. Many of their siblings are called Baningar. The plague-bringers, o r The de

structors. In the beginning of Ragna Rok hordes of Baningar, such as thurs-wolves

and werewolves - Gullveig's and Egg|>er's monster-herds - storm out from Jarnvidr

in the east in order to destroy the world. Loki in thurs-wrath led the vast army of

the monster-herds from Jarnvidr - evil beings of sundry kinds - as Loki has the con

stant and trium phant place as their faithful spearhead.

40



GULLVEIG'S MISINTERPRETATION AS FREYA

The misinterpretation o f Gullveig as Freyja is a very comm on ph enom enon in mod

ern ON literature; and it is as false as it is irritating and disgraceful. M ost o f the peo

ple who make this false assumption are the magi of the white-magic: odinists and

wiccans. But what surprises me the m ost is the fact that respected and successful au

thors also follow this careless hypothesis, people wh o should have been well-read

in this mythological literature and well-experienced in the Old ways of Norse magic.

For instance, the American Stephen Edred Flowers (he has received a doctorate in

Germanic Languages and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas, and he is

author of the best-seller books Futhark: A handbook o f rune magic and Runelore -

though I personally think that his best book is Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Mag

ical Papyrus of Abaris, which is not even a book on O ld Norse belief) claims that

HeiSr is Freyja in his best-seller book Runelore - he says (I quote):

This “thrice-born” volva (seeress) is certainly Freyja, and it is in this form that she

became 6dhinn’s teacher in the ways of seidhr.

Gu l l v e i g In Al d n a

Earlier in the same boo k in chap ter 6 he says:

Too many modern rune-magic schools have been forced, either by their ignorance

of the timeless traditions or by their inability to gain access to the traditional mysteries,

to ignore or to forget the true runic sources handed down to us in lapidary splendor

by our ancestors.

Well, that is exactly what he has done himself with th e understanding o f Gullveig.

He might be well-read, but I ask myself whe ther he has the un derstanding in the

O N mythology that he should. It is obvious that this is what he wants her to be, and

just claims this to be cer tain . Additionally, ear lier in the same paragraph he says:

The / Esir tried to kill her by piercing her with spears and

burning her. But each time she was reborn. The third time she

transformed herself from Gullveig into Heidh (the Shining One).

First, why would the cesir want to kill the supposed Freyja?

And secondly, if Gullveig became Freyja after the burning, I won der why this would

happen. Freyja already existed when Gullveig was burned. This can be seen as Gul

lveig, in a disguised appearance and under the name AurboSa - Gymir s wife and

Gerdr’s mother -, infiltrated he r way into Folkvangr as Freyja s maid and got Freyja

into black magic1, before Gullveig was caught and burned. It is told in Fjolsvinnsmal

1Is Flowers saying here that

Freyja taught herself black

magic?

41



that one of the maids o f MengloS-Freyja is AurboSa. So, did h e mean that Gullveig s

essence just gave up a nd e ntered th e already existing goddess Freyja?

Strom traces a similarity betwee n Freyja and Gullveig in the myths o f the Vanir-

wars as "one skillful in sejd” and the origin o f the first war of people in the world. He

speaks very vaguely of this an d I m not even sure he tries to compare them as one.

John Lindow makes a weak attem pt to compare Gullveig with Freyja in his boo k

Norse Mythology:

Since Ynglinga saga says that Freyja first brought seid to the/ Esir, it is not impos

sible that Gullveig is Freyja, and that she brought seid to the^Esir in the first instance

either as a strategy in the war, or that her bringing of seid started the war. Beyond

this, many fanciful attempts have been made to interpret Gullveig, some based on a

literal understanding of her name as “gold-drink”.

This is a prim e exam ple of ho w poo rly people stud y Gullveig and instead just

guess. It is obvious here w here the gold-idea comes from; it is Freyjas gold-thirst

that has bee n transm itted to Gullveig throug h misinterpretations. And because pe o

ple jus t have b een taken for granted th at G ullveig s name has som ething to do w ith

gold (as in gull-), they just restricted themselves to this hypothesis.

Margaret Clunies Ross and many other researchers follow the same line of the

ories as Strom. You kind o f get the feeling tha t there is a fixed the ory that n o researcher dares to cross to keep their academic dignity.

Kaldera claims to have consulted with bo th AurboSa a nd An-

grboda and unraveled the whole misunderstanding. Suppos

edly, they told him that the y are no t the same gigantess, and

that AurboSa was just Freyjas messenger, but in Vanaheimr n ot

in AsgarSr (no co mm ent!).

This is what the Old sagas tell us about Gullveig-HeiSr-AurboSa-AngrboSa-

Hyrrok in, as it is said in Voluspd In Skamma 2:

Freyr atti Gerdi , hon var Gymis dottir, jotna aettar, ok Aurbodu.1

Freyr ma rried the giantess GerSr, daug hter of Gymir and AurboSa, in exchange

for his sword ( Gambanteinn) amo ngst oth er things. (G ym ir and AurboSa are sup-

G u l l v e ig a r bo k

1Freyr owned Gerdr, she was

the daughter of Gymir and Au-

rboSa, and of giant-race.

42




posedly parents to the cruel dog-headed giant Beli). The sword was han ded over to

Gymir and Aurboda in the sagas, and all of a sudden it was kept unde r Angrbodas

command in Jamvidr. This shows strong arguments that Aurboda has the same iden

tity as Angrboda. Aurboda was known to wield black magic and was called ursvol

gymis volva, Gymir s ever-cold witchwoman, in th e Prose Edda, and this links her to

the myth abou t Gullveig-Angrboda-Heidr too - the ever cold one or the one of

primeval cold, referring to Gullveig-Angrboda-Heidr s rime-thurs hea rt that will not

burn because o f its blood and essence o f primeval ice: eitr - Hrimpurs origin. Some-

tliing equally important from the same paragraph as ursvol gymis volva are the words:

«forir bjorn, pa r er bara brestr, undinna festa, opt i cegis kjopta ursvol gymis volva»,

which say tha t Gymir s primevally cold witch often conveys ships in wild waves, this

wind- or storming-zspect links her strongly with Gullveig-Angrboda-Heidr s other

identity Hyrrokin, who “pushed” out Baldr s ship out to sea as a favor to the gods.

She is represented as a storm-giantess in some myths, in Ynglinga saga for example

- giantess of the eastern storms. Why Aurboda got represen ted as something from

the east can only be linked to the Jarnvidr and Angrboda in the underworld, which

are repeatedly explained to be located in the east - as it is said in Voluspd :

Austr sat in aldna \ Jarnvidi ok faeddi par Fenris kindir.1

And like (her true husband) Loki, she made her way into

the walls of Asgardr, where giants are strictly forbidden, and

got Freyja into malicious activities. It is told in Volsunga saga

tha t Hrim nir s daughter com es to Asgardr as a gift, and

Hrim nir s daughter is Gullveig-Angrboda-Heidr, as stated in

Voluspd In Skamma.

1In the east sat the Old One in

the Ironwood and gave birth to

Fenrir s children.

Maybe the whole misunderstanding of Gullveig being Freyja derives from Loki s

spiteful attack on Freyja in Lokasenna:

Be quiet, Freyja!

You are a witch and full of destruction.

As Aurboda taugh t her black magic, Freyja was a goddess of witchcraft and loved

gold, I guess a lazy mind would just draw parallels from this.

Simek suggests tha t Aurboda has similarities with the chthonic beings. Rydberg

has proven th at Aurboda is Gullveig-Heidr-Angrboda-Hyrrokin, and I think I just

did too.

43




GULLVEIG, THE WOLVES AN D WEREWOLVES'

ANCESTRESS & FOSTERER

Gullveig is known through out the mythology to be The Wolf's mother. Voluspd says

that she bred Fenr irs progeny in Jarnvidr, and it is believed that she is the mothe r

of Garmr, Hati and Skoll1, too (even if Ga rmr is spoken o f as a dog guarding the

gates to the underworld just like Cerberus). In Snorri s Edda and in his Gyljaginning

he says that at Baldr s funeral the aesir called for Hyrrokin to help them release

Baldr s funeral ship, and she came riding on a wolf2.

Just as Lilith, Gullveig has clearly received the role as the demon-mother that

eternally begets demon-children. The dark mother-aspect is an important side of

her role in the mythology and we can tell a lot from it, we can understand h er func

tion and position by comparing her to oth er dark mother

goddesses:

Oh great Lilith, open your blood filled womb and grant me

entrance to your kingdom of unholy desires and unlawful

dreams! Mother of all demons, proud mistress of Satan, Oh

evil goddess Taninsama, open wide the gates of Gehinnom

and let the dark flame of my demonic Self f lourish in the

purifying darkness of Gamaliel!3

1Petersen, 1869, Nordisk My-

tologi. Rydberg, 11886, I I 1889,

Undersokningar i Germanisk

Mythologi.

2Pd var sent ( Jotunheima eftir

gygi peirri erHyrrokkin hit, en er

hun kom og reid vargi.

Anoth er dark goddess that is in analogy with Gullveig is

the d og or the w olf goddess, the chthonic and three-foldgoddess, ruler of the und erworld hou nd Cerberus: Hecate.

Many o f her mythological qualities correspo nd with Gul

lveig: the underworldly connection, the dark demon

m othe r aspect (they are connected to bo th wolfish and

serp ent forces) and the crone aspect:

I invoke the constant blood-thirsty wolfpack of Hecate,

whose baying in the elder days drove mankind to insanity! I

invoke Vrykolakas, who with his bloody jaws raised to the

black moon sings hymns in homage to Hecate! I invoke the

undead and the death-bringing!4

3&4Temple of the Black Light,

2002, Liber Azerate. Freely

translated by the author.

5*Pat er nu. sagt, at Frigg heyrir

been peira ok segir 6dni, hvers

pau biSja. Hann verbr eigi

orprifrada ok tekr oskmey sina,

ddtturHnmnis jotuns». "And so

it is said that C dinn hears their

prayer, and Freyja no less hear

kens with they prayed to her: so

she, never lacking for all good

counsel, calls to her her maid,

the daughter of Hrimnir the

giant." Volsunga saga 2.

We can trace evidence that survived the Christian missionaries throug h the O N

literature, that Gullveig was looked upon as an ancestress and fosterer o f werewolves,

and that these werewolves were probab ly bred in JarnviSr, which is allegorized with

the wordings dark and deep woods. In Volsunga saga it is told tha t a giantess who was

47



Gu l l v k ig a r b o k

a maid at Frigg’s in Asgardr and had b een in MiSgarSr, and w ho is known as Hrim-

nir s daughter5, is getting married to a king in MidgarSr and through him be ing a

mother and grandm other to werewolves, who are running wild in the da rk woods

and killing many men. This is evidently Gullveig, and we can notice that she was

seen by the ON people as a mother-giantess of the wolves and werewolves. Were

wolves have always been a big issue in the Scandinavian folklore and sagas, and had

a huge impact on the people. Even in their magical praxis werewolfism had a role.

Traces of the belief in a spiritual werewolf-metamorphosis can be found in the tales

of the berserks - the w arriors that mentally and spiritually invoked the beast within

them and went through a process of werewolf-metamorphosis. In their case, by the

remaining sources, the berserks became bears and were receiving the bears' powers

and strengths. To help this process to take form they wore “shirts” of bear-hide;

hence ber-serkr. If I let my fantasy flow, or rather pu t myself into their situation, I

would believe that they most likely wore bear-heads as helmet ad ornm ents and

bear-paws and claws on thei r hands; even to carry a dried bear-heart from a bear

they ritually killed in a leather pouch during the transformation; to eat smoked o r

dried bear-meat to get poisoned by the bear s wrathful strength; to wear bear-teeth

arou nd their neck to gain the bears powerful jaws, and claws aroun d their wrists to

gain the bears powerful strike - anything to link their spirits to the bear-essence.

Howl like Garmr my fa ir beast, and devour my flesh!

Le t your fangs blacken my blood, and your essence touch my spirit!

Fenrir ek kalla pik, helulfrinn, kjoptum blodugrskal Ijos Ufa eta!

48



GULLVEIG'S BROTHER HROSSl>j6FR

Gullveig only has one known sibling, and the confirmation for that is saved only in

Voluspd in skamma, where it is said:

Heidr and Hross^jofr

the children of Hrimnir.

So by Voluspa in skamma Gullveig-Heidr and HrossJ^jofr are children of Hrimnir.

Hr imn ir1whom I believe is analogous to the primordial rime-thurs Bergelmir. If

Im right HrossJ)jofr must then be a Nifl-dwelling rime-thurs. In fact, a short glimpse

into their rime-thursian blood-line will let us easily see that Heidr and HrossJ?jofr

are children of the earliest rime-thurses in the O N mythology. Hrimgrimnir (for

me analogous to t>rudgelmir) was viewed as one of the most horrible rime-thurses

in the Old Norse, this is what Skirnismal testifies to in the lines where Skirnir threatens Gerdr2with baneful words:

Hrimgrimnir is the tours’ name,

whom you shall belong to

far down below the corpse-gate.

Hrimgrimnir-Prudgelmir is Ymir s first identified son, and

Hrimgrimnir-Pnidgelmir himself is father to Hrimnir-

Bergelmir who is in his turn father to Heidr and HrossJ)jofr; so

their great grandfa ther is Ymir himself - a key rime-thursian

blood-line. That said, HrossJ)jofr is most likely abiding in Nifl-

heimr in those mighty rime-thursian halls that Skirnismal 30

reveals, hrimpursa hollar, by his grandfathers’sides.

Saxo had access to a different version of Baldrs Draumar, and he says that it was

HrossJ>jofr (called by him Rostiophus Phinnicus) who let Odinn know that his son

and Rind would avenge Baldr s death. In the version we know of today it is from

HroSvSj>jofr s sister Gullveig who Odinn gets this information.

HrossJ)jofr s name means horse thief, which is definitely an epithet from some

old im por tant mythological saga; sadly this saga is lost and there are no surviving

explanations to his name. Both Saxos witness and HrossJ>jofr s name prove that

there were m any sagas that have been lost forever containing very imp ortan t infor

mation. However, this is all we know of the rime-thurs HrossJ>jofr.

Gu l l v e i g In Al d n a

1Hrimnir of Niflheimr has his

counterpart in Muspellzheimr;

Eimnir - the burner, who is

probably Surtr s left hand and

one of the world-destroyers.

2 Gullveig-Heidr s daughter -

Hrimgrimnir-t>rudgelmir is her

great grandfather whom Skirnir

might not realize (or the authorof the sagas missed.)

49



Gu l l v eig a r bo k

Second-born and second burned ; her death created Fenrir.

HeiSr - she the shining one, she is the w itch-giantess; the w ielder of the blackest

seeds; she was the brightness crawling ou t of the abyss and taking form, up thro ugh

endless darkness and slithering through the crusty bo un dry of the m iddle earth.

Bright as a shadowless light she came; erect like a burning spine o f a wand she stood,

and started a journey to the yards of ungovernable and receptive folk to teach them

about the unknown and black arts of the underworld.

Heidr is mentioned by name twice in the Sazmundar Edda; once in Voluspd and

once in Voluspd in skamma, and bo th occasions give key information about h er role

in the sagas. Voluspd introduces her (from Codex Regius):

Heidr her name was,to houses she came,

the seeress with adequate prophecies.

She wielded witchcraft,

she conjured disease,

she invoked Leikin,

always was she loved

by wicked women.

50



This stanza gives her the role as the crone in the O N mythology and the fact that

the saga says "always was she loved by wicked women", « е var hon angan illrar

brudar» (the ON word illr means evil and wicked), shows us that He idr turns to

“wicked wom en” to teach her craft. By this detail we can assure that H ei5r is neither

a seeress from the cesir - nor the vanir-races, as they promote the hum ankind to flourish, and the thursian race aims to dissolve them. Evil seeks evil and in this case that

is exactly wha t the authors o f Voluspd are saying. So according to Voluspd, H eidr was

the so rceress teaching the humans the evil craft, she was the giantess-sorceress who

strode a round in Midgardr, the middle world, to spread her seeds of underw orldly

powers, plant ing the capsules o f dissolution in the dep th of the hu man spirits . I t is

said that she came as three in the dawn of time, powerful ou t

ofJotu nhe imr as a giantess. These three - powerful giantesses

- were; Gullveig who was the underw orldly mother, Heidr

who pervade d M idgardr, and A urboda who infiltrated As-

gardr - «unz prjdr kvdmu jpursa meyjar dmdtkar mjdk or jo-

tunheimumJ>>, "until three thursian giantesses came, very

mighty, from the w orlds o f the giants."

Voluspd in skamma is a very impo rtan t text because it gives

us good access to the thursian genealogy. And ab out H eidr it

says:

Heidr and Hrossf)jofr

are Hrfmnir’s children.

According to Skirnismal, H rimn ir is a three-headed rime-

thurs who dwells in Niflheimr beyond the un derw orld by

Hrim grim nir s side; Hrim grim nir is the six-headed rime-

thurs b om in Chaos as a son o f Ymir-Aurgelmir. Rydberg pro

po ses a th eory th at Hrimgrimnir is th e same th urs as

I>nidgelmir and Hr imnir Bergelmir2. This would mean that

1 Aurgelmir-Ymir is the first thurs that came ou t of Ginnungagap, 2) bnidge lmir-

Hrim grim nir was the first identified son o f Ymir, and 3) Bergelmir-Hrimnir was the

son of brudgelmir-Hrimg rimnir3. He compares Hrimg rimnir s rank with O dinns,as Odinn also has the epithet Grimnir which names him as the cesir s clan-leader.

He suggests that it is the same with Hrimgrimnir, and the prefix hrim is added to

his nam e to state what race he rules over. Rydberg also states that Ymir can't be the

sole ruler of the thurs-race, as he created oth er races too. That's why I>ru3gelmir-

Hrim grimn ir would be be tter fitting having that status. A nother connection be-

H e id r

1Jotunh eimar, note plural.

2Rydberg, I I 886, II 1889, Un-

dersokningar I Germanisk

Mythologi.

3Ymir s two first children were

actually a man and a woman,

but the re is no mo re inform a

tion on this subject other than

that they were just a man and a

woman - madr ok kona. My

own hypothesis is that it was

Loki and Gullveig; the first

born. As Heidr is Gullveig s sec

ond appearance after the first

bu rn ing and Bergelmir her father, it seems logic tha t Gullveig

as her first appearance would

have been bo m earlier, and that

Ymir would be the only one to

be her father, as I>rudgelmir did

not have a daughter.

51




tween E>ruSgelmir and Hrimgrimnir can be the deformity of several heads that al

legorizes their characters; f>niSgelmir, son of Aurgelmir, is explained as having six

heads in Vajprudnismal 29,33:

After lots of winters,before earth was created,

at that time Bergelmir was born;

b>rudgelmir was his father,

and Aurgelmir his father.

with his (Ymir-Aurgelmir’s) feet

the wise giant bore

a six-headed son.

Hrimgrimnir is allegorized in Skirnismal 31 to have three heads, which makes

me think o f f>ruSgelmir. It is very rare to find a thurs with several heads in the sagasand as these sagas are written in different times there is a possibility that the narra

tors mix the nu mber up, as there were no detailed accounts o f the mytho logy and

religion back in the time, only oral traditions, and the Scemundar Edda was the first

written account what we know of. After my studies in the O N mytho logy I dare to

say that Rydberg s theory is most certainly a correct one.

This proves that HeiSr is a rime-giantess; a hrimpurs, and tha t she is created by

powers connec ted to the pr imordial thurs-power Aurgelmir: she is certainly the

daughter of Bergelmir. Her genealogy gives her a very strong connection to the

mightiest powers o f all and by this being a direct source to the primordial powersand knowledge. Furthermore, as she is a crone and a wielder of runes and magic, it

makes her the most powerful thursian giantess who has revealed herself out o fJo-

tunheimr s black gaping chasm.

*

HeiSr appears in the Volsunga saga under the name HljoS, Hrimnir s daughter;

there we find fragments o f Old No rse mythos of giants finding a way into AsgarSr

without being detected - as a matter of fact it was OSinn who had invited HeiSr

into AsgarSr as an oskmey (wishing-maid), obviously unknowing what she was. Volsunga saga is about a king and a queen that had no luck in having children, so they

called for the gods to help them. Frigg answered their call by sending Hrimnir s

daugh ter in a crow’s appearance carrying an apple for them . O f course, after the

queen had eaten the apple she had a child. HeiSr has here been working for Frigg

as a maid in a fertility errand. Hrimnir s daughter is the same as Gullveig-AurboSa,

52



H e id r

as Voluspa in skamma 4 tells us; «Heidr ok Hrosspjofr Hrinmis kindar », "Heidr and

Hrosspjofr are Hrimn ir s children", as we already know Heidr and Gullveig are iden

tified as the same giantess.1W hy did just H eidr o f all maids get the job to fly as a

crow with this magical apple - this metaphorical seed of achievement? Well, it is

pretty logical for the authors to choose the giantess with the might of transformation

and witchcraft to bring out this work; she, Heidr, being here the instru ment for a

very powerful magical act, as she is working cunningly for Frigg to convert he r into

the blackest o f seidr.

The Volsunga saga also says tha t Hrimn ir s daugh ter gets

married to a king called Volsungr, and they had ten sons and

one daughter (eleven children). This detail connects Hrim-

nirs daughter in Volsunga saga w ith Hrim nir s daughter

Heidr-Aurboda, as Aurboda is known to have just one

the king Volsungr on earth for a while it connects her with

Heidr in the ON mythology as the crone who walks around

m the middle world. There is another detail in Velsungs Saga

that got my attention; it is about the werewolf-aspect. For

me it starts in ch apter five, wh ere all ten sons o f Hrim nir s

daughter Hljod5 get captured and bo und in a battle and the ir

father Volsungr gets killed. For nine nights, at midnigh t, a

she-wolf comes and kills and eats all nine b rothe rs and leaves

Sigmundr to live. Now, the line in Icelandic, «m u ncetr isamt к о sja in samaylgr um midncetti» 4, gives us much important

magical information concerning black magic and were-

wolfism: nine is a well documented (black) magical ON

number5, the ninth run e in the Upark rune-row is the l-run e which represents Ne

cessity and Will; the essence of magical function. O N poets did no t just grab details

ke this ou t of nowhere; num bers especially always had a deep meaning. The night

./as given to the troll and giants in O N folklore and mythology, and m idnight, as in

the r traditions around the globe, was a very extraordinary time for dark powers to

^c en d from the underworld to en ter Midgardr. Werewolves were seen in Old Scan

dinavia to be troll-like shape-shifters derived from Gullveig s kin; they all were of

giant-breed. A hum an could possess this ability to shape-shift into a wolf, an d this

j s m etamorphic black magic which belongs to Gullveig and her allies. So in the

r.e «m u ncetr lsam t kom sja in samaylgr um midncetti» we learn that the O N people

relieved that werewolf-magic was analogous to the num ber nine, nocturnal praxis,

.ir. d particularly to midnight. Well, the story tells that H ljods last and eldes t son Sig-

daughter nam ed G erdr2. Furthermore, as Heidr dwelt with

1Volsunga saga 2, and see Utt-

dersokningar I Germanisk

Mythologi by Rydberg as a good

reference.

2 Or even compared to Gullveig

who had one daughter (Hel)

and many sons.

3Hlj6d in Old Norse can mean

howling, which is a very fitting

name for the m other of wolves

and werewolves, as she can be

looked upon as a pursylgr, a

thursian she-wolf.

4 "Nine nights in a row at mid

night she came as a female

werewolf."

5Agrell, 1927, Runomas Talmys-

tik och dess Antika Forebild. Lin-

derholm, 1918, Nordisk Magi.

53



Gu l l v e ig a r b Ok

mun dr killed the she-wolf by pulling out h er tongue with his teeth. Later on in chap

ter eight Sigmundr and his son Sinfjolti were out in the woods to harden Sinfjolti

with manly deeds, which in this saga meant tha t they went out to kill men and steal

their wealth. One day they found a house with two m en in it who each had a goldenring; these m en were shape-shifters and had the ir wolf-guises hanging on the wall

above their beds. In O N folklore people did no t just turn into wolves like in modern

movies, the y actually had the wolf-guise as an outfit and "put it on” as they trans

formed. Anyway, Sigmundr and his son Sinfjolti stole them and became werewolves.

They went o ut hunting m en together a nd slew them. One time Sinfjolti found

eleven men and slew them by himself. The number eleven turns up several times

wh en it comes to Volsungr s siblings; a metaphor which I see as a riddle to the eitr-

nexus: the rime-blood. However, my main interest in this saga is that Hljod s son

and grandson are werewolves, and she herself is a hrimpurs and her name in this

saga, Hljod, means howling, and even a mysterious she-wolf comes at midnight andslaughters and eats (! ) nine o f Hljods younger sons. There is no doub t in my mind

that the autho r o f this saga wanted to tell the reader tha t Hljod is Gullveig - rime-

giantess and m othe r of werewolves.

★

The small information that Voluspd, Voluspd in skamma, and Skirnismal give us is

in itself grand, as it proves tha t a) HeiSr is one of the three ho rrible and powerful

giantesses who comes out o fjotunheim r in the dawn of time, b) she is a seeress and

practices evil witchcraft, c) she turns to wicked folk, and d) HeiSr originates from

Niflheim r and she has a rim e-thurs as a father, which makes her a rime-thurs herself.

All this connects her strongly with Gullveig and he r essential aspects.

Concern ing H eidr s name, there is a word w ith a very interesting meaning that

derives from the O N word heidr with the meaning heath, and it is heidingi (heidinn),

a heathen, and gentile. However, it is also used as a me taph or for a wolf, meaning

someone who lives on heaths and in the w ilderness; very much like the ON word

vargr which means the same bu t more of an outlaw-characteristic. This is interesting

because first off Gullveig-Heidr is seen as a vargr and all of her children and spouses

the same. As her follower you should live like a heidr or vargr - meaning not sub

mitting to any law or authority, provoke your sp iritual Chaos-fire, and unleash the

wrathful werewolf within your spirit. C ompare this to H eidr s name HljoS in V 0U

sunga Saga.

54



55




Third-born and third burnt; her death created Hel

The purpo se o f Gullveig going und er the n ame Aurboda and being the d augh ter of

Hr imn ir had a very impo rtan t function, and 1 shall investigate he r every appearance

in the O N mythology u nde r her veil of Aurboda. She is the most mysterious guiseof Gullveig in the mythos, n ot much is said ab out he r and ve ry few people see a

connec tion between her and Gullveig in the old sagas - so I present and und erline

the nexus here.

Aurboda is only mentione d by name twice in Scemundar Edda, first in Voluspa in

skamma 2 w hich gives us the impo rtant evidence th at Aurboda is Gymir s spouse;

this detail will make it much easier to unde rstan d he r role in the sagas. The second

time she is men tioned is in Fj&lsvimsmal 38 where she is named as one of Menglod-

Freyjas maids. This is also a very importan t detail that connects he r with Heidr, for

instance. Im portantly though; just because she is so seldom me ntione d by namedoes n ot m ean that th at is the only evidence o f he r entity in the Scemundar Edda\

but than ks to those two times she is men tion ed by nam e we kn ow the following;

a) she is Gymir s spouse, which mo st likely means that he r abode is in Gymir s and

Gerdr s yard in Jotunheimr, this connects her to this place throug hou t the full body

of the Edda . For example, her presence can be found in the saga called Skirnismdl

56



Au r b o d a

witho ut being named in it because of what I just explained, b) she is mentioned by

name to be a maid at Freyjas, which gives us the knowledge that for a period of time

she dwells at Freyjas, and as the cunning giantess that she is her intentions with

Freyja can only be malignant. Furthermore, in Hyndluljod Freyja says: «Vaki mar

meyja, vaki min vina, Hyndla systir ; er xbelli byr»f 'Wake up maid o f maids, wake up

my friend, Hyndla my sister who lives in the cave." Hyndla is most certainly Gul-

lveig, and Freyja calls Hyndla her maid, her friend, and her sister; I believe this was

supposed to be understood as AurboSas service as Freyjas maid.

I thought I would start with the dramatic marriage that we find in Skirnismdl. It

is the mythos of Freyrs bridal payment o f GerSr and the highly significance of the

Gambanteinn, S urtr s Sword of Revenge. The beginning of the Gambanteinn-

mythos starts in the saga called Skirnismdl where Freyr sits in what can be un der

stood as a tower or throne called the HliSskjalf, from where he gazed intoJotunhe imr and saw, on Gymir s yard, a very beautiful maid-giantess, whose skin is

so pale and lovely that it shined like the sun; this was GerSr. He decided that he wanted

her as he was bewitched by her beauty, and ordered his servant and m essenger

Skirnir to ride to the lands o f the giants to ask for her hand in favor to Freyr, and

Skirnir did so. GerSr is the daughter o f Gymir and AurboSa and she lives on their

property. W he n he arrived at Gymir and AurboSas yard he was held back by angry

and snarling dogs in front of GerSr s house. O utside on a mou nd sat a herder as well

and he kept watch (I will say more about this detail furthe r down). Skirnir was in

vited to GerSr s house b y her and he tries with bribes o f treasures and gold and

threats to woo her, but she refuses, as with her mighty anddangerous father and all gold they possess she did not fear his

words. Skirnir then threatens with a magical sword and curs

ing magic1, and after this GerSr all of a sudden just agrees.

This surprising turn has always troubled me, because it makes

no sense; at first she is so confident, she b low s tha t neither

Skirnir or Freyr have anything to pu t against the mighty thur-

sian powers that protect Gymir and AurboSas land and

daughter ; these two giants alone are very powerful. Equally, by GerSr s answers to

Skirnir s previous speech you can tell that she has ne ither respect n or fear towards

Skirnir and Freyr. And then it struck me; after a deeper analysis of the consequencesof this myth I understood that there was a much deeper end to this odd route; GerSr

had her mother s cunning and intelligence, and she was most definitly in league with

her m othe r s genius plans - Gullveig s eminent plans, in conspiracy with Loki, of

destroying the worlds of the cesir. Freyr gives his well-known magical sword as a

bridal payment for GerSr - the sword that brandishes itself (Skirnismdl 8), the sword

11have investigated and written

about these classic stanzas of

Old Norse curses and rune-

magic thoroughly in other texts

dealing with Old Norse witch

craft, magic and religion.

57



he later calls by name, G am ban teinn 1, Sur tr’s Sword o f Revenge

which will finally come back to Surtr - the sw ord that once be

long to the cesir2 - and w ith which Surtr kills Freyr himse lf with

during Ragna Rok. Lokasenna 42 explains the bridal paymen t in

full:

Loki said:

With gold you bought Gymir’s daughter

and sold also your sword.

But when the sons of Muspell

will come riding over Myrkvidr3

what weapon will protect you then, scum?

In plain words, Ge rdr got forced to ma rry Freyr, but referring

to the w ay Gerdr speaks in this epic I have a stron g feeling that

she knows ab out some thing that do esn’t come out in this saga, it would seem tha t

she just agreed to the m arriage because she knew it had a malicious purpose accord

ing to h er m oth er’s plans. Alternatively, maybe wh en she saw Gamban teinn she

quickly understoo d that she had to get this sword to he r m othe r (Aurboda-Gul-

lveig) and that is why she changed her m ind so abruptedly. H er replies to Skirn ir’s

first attempts to bribe he r with gold and magical apples were cocky and confident,

and the n he threatens to decapitate her with Freyr s sword bu t yet she responds

cockily to this as well. She has n o reason to feel seriously threatene d. She is the

daug hter o f Aurboda and Gymir, and sister to Beli who is explained to be of a dog

headed thurs-race (this I find particularly interesting as I conn ect this weird defor

mity w ith Aurboda’s skill in tran sformation and werewolfism).

Moreover, the bridal payment o f the sword has devastating consequences for the

izsir , an d it actually leads to a predestined victory of the thurses in the w ar against

the cesir and their worlds. But how the sword went from Gym ir and Aurboda to An-

grboda and he r herder Egg J^r in Jarnvid r is a mystery I will here divulge. It is obvi

ous to me th at Aurboda took th e sword to Jarnvidr and to An grboda; this is in my

opinio n a strong ground for und erstand ing that they are the sam e giantess. The fact

the Aurboda bewitched Freyr to sacrifice his sword is a typical action of Gullveigand L oki s character. The thing is that the re is a big gap here in the sagas, no thin g is

told o r even close to b eing revealed abo ut how the sword wen t from A urboda’s yard

to Angrbod a s abode in Jarnvidr. This tells me tha t it must have been a co mm on fact

how th is went down, and all the similarities between these giantesses are strikingly

alike, both be ing of thurs-bloo d an d m arried to very powerful and cruel thurses,

and bo th having children that will have an essential purpo se for the developm ent


1Skt'rrtismdl 32: « Til holts ek

gekk... gambantein atgeta,gam-

bantein ek gat», T w ent to the

woods... to procure Gamban

teinn, and Gambanteinn I pro

cured."

2Veluspd 52: «Surtrferr sunrxan

med sviga Uevi, skinn a f sverdi sdl

valtiva», "Surtr fares from the

south with the switch bane, and

the warrior s sword shines like

the sun."

3Myrkvidr is for me equivalent

to Jarnvidr.

58



Au r b o d a

of the Ragna Rok mythos. They are also the only ones with a name end ing with -

boda in the ON mythology, they both have a herder sitting on a small mo und keep

ing watch, they both are guarded by dogs/wolves, and last but not least Aurboda

and HeiSr were the only giantesses ever that manage to nestle themselves into As-

gardr, which connects them strongly and favors my belief that they all are the same

as Gullveig.

In Skirnismal we find more interesting details; on Gym ir and Aurboda’s yard

which dwelt in the thursian abode in the underworld, a herd er sat on a small mound

and kep t a watch in all directions. This herder rem inds me very much of the herder

sitting on wa tch on a small mound in Jarnvidr called gygjar hirdir (the giantess’

herder) in Voluspd 42:

He, the giantess’ herder, the happy Едд| эёг, sat upon the heap and played on the

harp; above him in galgvidr crowed a light red rooster, his name was Fjalarr.1

Gygjar hirdir being AngrboSa s herder in her abode, his

name is Egg^er. The latter being AngrboSa s sword-watcher

who keeps the Sword of Revenge for Surtr till Ragna Rok,

and for some mystical reason the same kind o f character sits

on a small mou nd at AurboSas abode in Jotunheim r accord

ing to Skinismdl 11:

Skfmir rode through Jotunheimr to Gymir’s yard. There were

angry and leashed dogs in front of the path to the yard,

where GerSr dwelt. He rode up to where the herder sat and

spoke to him:

Tell me, herder, who sits on the mound and watches

over all:

How can I meet the young maid without the snarling dogs?

1See an investigation of gal-

gviSr/gaglviSr further down.

2Graslund sees this connection

in the h istory of religions; she

says “in many respects dogs

seem to be representatives of

wolves.” Graslund, Wolves, se-

pents, and birds: Their symbolic

meaning in Old Norse belief. In

Andren, Jennbert, Raudvere

(eds), 2006, Old Norse Religion

in Long-Ter m Perspective.

This in my op inion cannot be a coincidence; i t’s very strong evidence th at Aur

boda and AngrboSa are the same. Even AurboSa’s snarling dogs sup port this theory;

AngrboSas abode in JarnviSr is full of furious wolves and werewolves, and AurboSas

yard is guarded my furious dogs. Dogs and wolves in the O ld No rse mythology

could m ean the sam e2. For example, it is said that all dogs come from Garm r in

Grimnismal, en hunda Garmr. This proves not that he is a dog; he could easily have

been a dog or a wolf, as all dogs come from the wolf originally. In Voluspd we can

also read abou t Garmr:

59



Gu l l v eig a r b 6 k

Garmr barks greatly

from Gmpahellir;

the shackles shall shatter,

and the wolf shall be free.

This just tells us that Garm r barks greatly and th at the w olf shall be freed. I agree

that mo st likely it aims at Fenrir who is chained down with his father Loki in a cave

until Ragna Rok and that this episode of Voluspd is referring to the beginning o f the

gods' doom. But still it does no t say tha t it is actually Fenrir, it could be Garm r him

self that will come free, because he is chained down too to th e rocks of Gmpahellir

at the gates of Helheimr. M y point is, there is a widely spread hypothesis that G armr

and Fenrir are actually the same, bu t it is even more likely that Ga rmr and Hati are

the same, and therefore the difference between a mythological dog and a wolf is

no t o f great importance.

In the Prose Edda, AurboSa was called ursvolgymis volva, th e primevally cold one,

referring to Aurboda-Gullveig s heart that will no t b urn because of its essence o f

primeval ice. It also po ints to her aspect as a storm-giantess, as she is depicted as

the eastern storms from Jarnvidr (isarnvidr), see Ynglinga saga, this connects her

with AngrboSa the Old One:

Austr sat in aldna i Jarnvidi ok faeddi par Fenris kindir.1

1"In the east sat the Old One in


Fenrir s children."

And as I stated above, more important information is

dwelling in the same paragraph as ursvolgymis volva: it is « forir bjorti,par er barn brestr, undinnajesta, opt i cegis kjopta ursvolgymis

volva», Gymir s primevally cold witch often conveys ships in

wild waves. This wind- or storming-aspect links AurboSa with

the mythos of Hyrrokin ; who pushed or blew Baldr s funeral ship out to sea as a favor

to the gods for example. In my opinion, all tha t has been discussed in the previous

pages proves why the s torm-giantess A urboda was in fact the spouse of the sto rm-

giant Gymir.

60



An g r b o d a

Austr sat in aldna

i Jarnvibi

ok foeddi {заг

Fenris kindir

- Voluspa

AngrboSa is probably her most known nam e as the velva, crone -and m other- gi

antess in the dark woods called JarnviSr; she is well-known as the shadow-draped

giantess, gygr, tha t comes with anger and hate towards the cosmos, the gods, and

mankind. Angrboda is her infamous and antagonistic nam e as by now every living

soul in the cosmos knows about her being the terrible witch-giantess who has only

malignant intentions towards the worlds; She the Old One - In Aldna - Angrboda.

This is after her terrible manifestations as Gullveig-Heidr-Aurboda have been roving

around in the worlds and wielding death and de struction to its very extent, and

bee n caught and killed by the ass-powers. However, this threefold execution did

not stop he r from coming back as a witch-giantess; as we all know by now you don’treally die in the Old Norse mythology, you kind o f die ou t of the world in which

you were presently living, and get sent to the w orld below. You can even die ou t o f

Helheimr, which m eans that you are sent dow n to the horrible world Niflheimr,

wh ich lies beyond the underworld.

61



Gu l l v e ig a r b 6 k

So she came back a final time; in a final manifestation, as the noto rious thursian

giantess Angrboda. As she was done with her workings amongst the cesir in the heav

ens, she stayed in the und erworld from then on as Angrboda - together with her

mighty daughter Hel - and made preparations for the final infamous battle known

as Ragna Rok. However, she still reached happily for receptive and wicked hum ans

to teach them he r proud craft and make alliances. Because her work is far from over:

she wields the ferocious blackest magic from he r black witch-seat within the abysmal

jaws ofjarnvidr . Dark-red blood pours from her bod y und er her black robe of dark

ness from freshly killed gods and men - blood that spatters on her surroundings

wh en she moves her imm ense bo dy and h er long black icicled hair sways vehe

mently a round the worlds - like a giant oak in a storm. She is the hating crone -

wielding her anti-cosmic staff and singing wrathful runes; untying primordial knots

on the giant roots o f Heldrasill to unleash Chaos' relentless curses. She is the Old

one, older than age and creation - angrboda in aldna. She is the wise one, wiser than

the wells and the worlds - angrboda in vitra. W hen Angrboda s essence intruded the

cosmic boundaries and go t mixed with its structural flow she immediately adapted

and took “form”, her essence struggled between lawlessness and manifestation, be

tween freedom and framework. As she is a metam orphic thurs-essence, static form

is absolutely unnatural for he r and she cannot adjust to uniformity. So cosmic de

formities is in her character and everything she touches and procreates becomes

deformed and metamorphic; this is where she becomes the m othe r of werewolves

and horrible monster-hordes in her blackest forest deep within Jotunheimr, in the

east.

Angrboda is her name during h er habitation in Jarnvidr - as

the Jarngygr, the giantess-ruler of this Ironwood also known

as Myrkvidr1.

As the mighty thurs-ruler ofjarnvidr and the mother of all troll-like deformed

metamorphic monsters; she is proven to be the same as Gullveig. The sagas tell us

abou t this in for example the Voluspd in skamma, which says:

Loki gave birth to the Wolf

with Angrboda

and Sleipnir

with Svadilfari.

Amongst them all one crone

seemed worst,

she from Byleistr’s

brother came.

1 Loki calls it Myrkvidr in

Lokasenna, Scemundar Edda.

62




Loki ate a heart;

on the burnt linden

he found half-burnt

a heart of a woman.

Loptr became pregnant

by the evil woman;from this have all

troll come.

This excerpt is pretty much self-explanatory and shows that Angrboda is Gullveig.

She was also looked upon as an evil wom an (illr kona), and the mo ther o f all troll

( flagd ) - troll which is the Old Norse term for malignant and bestial demons, viewed

upon as a giant-kin, which are often dwellers of the forests, mountains and the u n

derground. Troll being mythological offspring from Gullveig can be traced in the

myths where the troll repeatedly shift shapes from deform ed giants to human-look

ing individuals; they mimic the human appearance so they can get close to them toabdu ct them for different reasons. A comm on myth is that the troll shift shape in to

a beautiful young woman, half naked, to entice lumberjacks to follow them into the

shadows. In Scandinavia this is common knowledge in its folklore. So the meta-

morphic nature o f troll links them to their mythological source.

In Voluspd it is explained how “she the old one” sits in Jarnvidr and bears Fenrirs

kin (Fenris kindir ):

In the east she the old one sat

in Jarnvidrand there bore

Fenrir’s kin.

The relatively odd episode th at Angrboda is judged to b e killed by the cesir and

unsuccessfully bu rn t in the halls o f Asgardr is a strong analogy between Angrboda

and Gullveig, and it is unavoidable evidence that the myths are the same, and that

Angrboda and Gullveig are the same giantesses. In Helgakvida Hundingsbana I we

also find evidence of Angrboda s analogy to Gullveig. In an argum ent betw een Sm

ooth and Gudm undr, Sinfjotli says:

You were a volva

on Varinsey,

a cunning woman,

you lied.

64



An g r b o b a

* * *

you were, a hateful

witch, a valkyria,

spiteful, awful

at 66inn’s.

The Einherjar fought

everybody

for you,

disgraceful woman,

(they did it) for your sake.

Nine we

at Sagu’s point

wolves bore,

I was their father.

And Gu dm und r s answer to this starts with: “Father to Fenrir-wolves you were

n o t” This little extract from this saga tells us a lot. The cunning, hateful, an d spiteful

velva an d m othe r to wolves mus t be Gullveig, as the autho r gives example of a witch

that had been acting awful at Odin ns hall. And tha t Einherjar, the vanir, have been

fighting for her; for her cause - this cannot be anything else then the battle between

the cesir and the vanir, called th e first folk-war, after the killing

of Gullveig in Asgardr, because this is the on ly battle tha t had

taken place between them. That battle was about the vanir s

non-tolerance towards the cesir s act of punishmen t and the

killing o f Gullveig witho ut trial: so the vanir fought for G ul

lveig. In another saga it is said that Hrimnir s daughter had

stayed at Varinsey for a time and pro -created werewolves - as

we know, Hrim nir s daughter is He idr (G ullveig-Angrboda). And if this was not

enough, Gu dm undr s answer proves undoub tedly that it is Angrboda they are talk

ing abou t - as we know that Angrboda is Fenrir s mother, an d that she mothers his

kin in the depths of Jarnvidr - « austr sat in aldna i Jdrnvidi okfceddi par Fenris

kindir»l (Veluspa 4 0). Ang rboda is the m othe r of the Fenrir-wolf family, which ac

cording to my studies and conclusions includes Garmr, Hrodvitnir, H ati and Skoll.

1Tn the east sat the O ld On e in


Fenrir s children."

2Snorra Edda, Nafnapulur 42.3Sktmisnidl.

KEEPER OF THE ANTI-COSMIC SWORD OF VENGEANCE

AND EG Gt^R

In the O N mythology, Angrboda in Jarnvidr is also the keeper of the anti-cosmic

sword o f vengeance, made by Loki and perfected by E>jazi for Surtr. Fjalarr, the son

65




of Surtr, will come as a red rooster and pick up the sword of vengeance called by

many names: gambanteinn, havateinn, homateinn, mistilteinn2, tamsteinn, and

tamsvendfi. H e will come o n his fathers orders right before the final battle - the day

of wra th - Ragna Rok. Fjalarr is a Muspell-son, a blazing fire-thurs who will also

come as devastating w ild-fire; thus his kenning “the red ro oster”

66



H y r r o k in

jffaiokm

H yrrok in, "the flame smoked” - the name is created from the O ld Norse words

kyrr, fire, and rjuka, smoke, which is the accurate one in my book; an epithe t taken

from the Gullveig-mythos where she is being held over the cesir-gods' unclean and

smoky fires. There is also an alternative spelling, Hyrrokkin*

However, the use of a double “k” is erroneous if you base the

name on the word rjuka1.

There is only one saga about Hyrrokin that has survived

and it is about her appearance during Baldr s funeral; the

original saga is from an anthology called Husdrdpa by Ulfr

Uggason. The interesting part is that the Husdrdpa-sagzs were

written down as interpretations o f sculptures or illustrations

carved into wood in a mighty hall; th e Laxdcela saga tells ustha t a new grand hall was built and all of its interior embel

lished with illustrations of ON mythological sagas and leg

ends. Ulff Uggason was the p oet w ho go t the job of putting these illustrations into

•fords as poem s. This actually explains Husdrapas ocassionally confusing sections,

and it definitely explains Snorri s puzzling depiction in his account o f the Baldr s

1See under rjiika in An Ice-

landic-English Dictionary by

Cleasby and Vigfusson 1874,

and Heggstad, Hodnebo,

Simensen, 2008, Norron Ord-

bok. Also Bugge, 1881-89,

Studier over de Nordiske Gude-

og Hcltcsagns Oprindclse I, p.

221, footnote 4. And Rydberg,

1889, Undersokningar i Ger-

manisk Mythologi .

67




Funeral mythos - because it is obvious that Snorri has taken his mythos abou t

Baldr’s Funeral from the Husdrdpa-saga. You can actually tell from his account of

the Baldr-funeral that Snorri tries to depict something he doesn’t really understand;

thus its confusion. Ironically, the most de tailed account o f this saga is the one inSnorris Gylfaginning.

Loki and Gullveig were the brains behind the m urder of Baldr - which I will dis

close in detail later in this boo k - and both Loki and Gullveig had to a ttend his fu

neral as a sign of power, and to make sure that Baldr descend ed into Helheimr,

according to the ir plot. Gullveig arrives as Hyrrokin and Loki is spying in the shape

of a salmon, O N litr, swimming in the waters a round Baldr’s funeral ship. However,

t>6rr recognizes him and kicks Loki into the funeral pyre - which I see from Snorri’s

description as a metaphor of I>6rr spotting Loki by recognizing his pseudo-shape

as a salmon, (this would be the second time in the m yths that I>6rr catches Loki asa salmon), and strips off the pseudo-shape of Loki and turns h im back into his reg

ular fiery shape (or it might even have been a self-explanatory allegorization that

he kicks him back into Muspellzheimr, from whence Loki came.)

Snorri tells us that when the gods had th e funeral for Baldr they placed his body

in his ship Hringhorni, which was a mighty vessel, and when they were about to

put it to sea with a funeral pyre they could not move the ship, it was simply too

heavy. So the gods called for Hyrrokin from Jotunheim r to help them p ut the ship

into th e water. She came riding on a giant wolf with snakes as reins, and the wolf

was so big and strong that Od inn sen t for four berserker-warriors to hold dow n the

wild wolf, bu t it just threw them to the ground. In due course they got the beast tofall on his side. This could not be a regular wolf; Snorri called it a horse, ON hestr,

and the tksir had struggled with getting an extremely strong wolf to be bound before;

and tha t is Fenrir, Gullveig’s son. In my opin ion it is unmistakable that this is a frag

ment from tha t myth and that this giant-wolf is supposed to be Fenrir, which means

that this is the second time the <esir struggles with Fenrir with the intention of bind

ing him. W hen Hyrrokin went up to the ship she launched it out to sea with her

very first push or blow, and it went ou t to sea with such speed fires flamed from

un de r the ship and the rollers - and all land quaked. E>6rr, the grumpy one, at once

grabbed his ham mer to strike her dead, obviously in envy, but the gods begged him

to restrain himself and he did. With the m etaph or that Hyrrokin dragged Hring-

horni into the sea we understand that the author of this myth w anted to make sure

tha t it was understo od th at Gullveig wanted Baldr dead, and she succeeded. A few

lines later Snorri explains that in front of horr a “dwarf” named Litr came swimming,

and F6rr by an obscure reason kicked the “dwarf” into the funeral pyre, and the

dwarf burned. This is such an odd detail that there had to be a deeper meaning to

68



H y r r o k in

this little factor. The confusion of Litr being a dwarf has its explanation in Voluspd’s

list of dwarves which ho lds the dwarf-name Litr. However, with Rydberg s help I

am convinced this is a misunderstanding and that Snorri jumped to conclusions a

bi t too easily. Litr is actually a bi-name for Loki meaning salmon, and th is Loki-ep-

ithet is also used by Snorri h imself in Snorris Skdldskapartnal 5 L So to know indi

rectly tha t it was Gullveig and Loki who killed Baldr and then see Loki and Gullveig

around Baldr s funeral-ship makes it easy to see the au tho r’s point: Loki and Gul

lveig brought Baldr to Helheimr.

Giants were often allegorized as sublime nature-phenomena such as storms,

earth-quakes, floods, volcanoes, and winter. In the Hyrrokin-saga she is the

me taphor for the eastern storm; eastern because he r essence is continuously de

scribed to come from austr, the east, she also came from Jotunheimr which is located

in the east. The mighty push by Hyrrokin on the ship Hringhorni is obviously

thought of as a strong wind, so strong n ot even I>orr could match his s trength. Call

ing for an antagonist to help them bu ry their dead is of course very humiliating for

the eesir . And even worse, this antagonist helped to m urder their beloved Baldr. Note

that it s no t unusual for giants and gods to help each other, bu t Gullveig and Loki

never had a benevolen t inten tion with the ir 'assistance”.

There is also one interesting detail in the saga Helgakvida Hjvrvardssonar where

Hedinn, son o f the N orwegian king Hjorvard, was on his way hom e a nd went

through the w oods o n Yule day, and there he met a "troll-woman” who rode a wolf

and had snakes as reins. She asked to keep him company, but he declined, whichmade her obviously upset and she told him that he would pay for that at the vows

later tha t night. "Troll-women” are the same as giantesses, bu t they are called by all

kinds of surnames; flagd, skass,fdla etc. And this "troll-woman” is either Hyrrokin-

Gullveig or a JarnviSja, a female dw eller ofJarnvidr, as this way

of depicturing a giantess is so rare it could no t be anything else.

Bugge though says; «d eter herns broderHognesfylgje1», "it is his

bro ther H ogn es fylgja", which Lm n ot sure I could agree with.

Hyrrokin is also mentioned in Skaldskaparmdl 11 in a list of giants and giantesses

that t>orr had killed; this which Snorri had borrowed from the fragments found byPorbjorn Disarskalds sagas. This is a big mystery as it is not told abou t this anywhere

else in any saga. So we must accept that there probably was a saga, which now is lost

forever, about Porr killing Hyrrokin-Gullveig.

1Bugge, 1881-89, Studier over

deNord iske Gude- ogHeltesagns

Oprindelse I.

69



A SCEMUNDAR EDDA-STUDY ON GULLVEIG

A big part o f the ON mythology derives from the Eddas, and there are two Eddas.

The elder one is called the Scemundar Edda, which is found in the small book called

Codex Regius. This Edda is also called the Poetic Edda and Codex Regius is from ap

proximately the late 1200 AD - it is a collection of peculiar poe tic sagas, an d the

ON mythological poems in this book are appreciated to have been composed be

tween the years 800-1000 AD. Scemundar Edda is the most reliable source as it isolder and mo st likely written with fewer Ch ristian influences, but th e conten t of

Codex Regius is a transcription from earlier originals, which can easily lead to sus

picion of errors an d modifications.

The second Edda is called Snorra Edda (Sn orri’s Edda) or the Prose Edda; the

Younger Edda. This manusc ript was written by Snorri Sturluson around the year

1220 AD. This version is, in my opinion, less reliable because Snorri was a Christian

and he certainly brou ght his Christian influences with him into the writing of this

book, (he was a missionary, and he did n ot write this boo k prim arily to hold on to

the Old h eathen belief, he wrote it to show off his skill in e.g. O N poetic meter.)W ha t makes this Edda different from the elder one is Snorri’s own version o f the

Edda, which he calls Gylfaginning. He also added the books Skaldskaparmdl and

Hattatal to this manuscript. It is here where my doubts mostly lay; his Christian in

fluences are obvious in his Gylfaginning, which is in itself a very exciting mytho log

ical saga, but it embellishes the original mytho logy too much.

This chapter is fundamentally made from the Scemundar Edda. It is impo rtan t to

know that I have focused on the Poetic Edda, but also studied the Prose Edda, b e

cause 1 strongly suspect Snorri s Edda to be inaccurate because o f the Christian in

fluences, and tha t makes the sagas in Snorri s version falsified: no thing would make

me tru st a Christian.

So in my investigations I have used, am ongst others, Heimskringla s on-line col

lection of Old Norse literature and material, Bugges Edda-work from 1867, Ryd

berg s in dep th Edda-s tudies from 1886-89, and sundry translations into modern

71




Swedish o f both Eddas from authors like Brate, "Ihall, Collinder and Ohlmarks. I

would like to add that I will no t go throug h all of the Scemundar Edda-sagas from

Codex Regius in this book, because some of them have nothing or so little to do with

Gullveig as to be irrelevant as I see it.

V0LUSPA

Voluspa means the prophecy of the volva, and volva means a wand-bearer believed

to be a prophetess, seeress, and a wise wom an - a woman having magical powers

(the w and or staff was a symbol o f this.) The volva had another known and comm on

name too and that was heidr, often translated as seeress, prophetess and witch.

Something that needs to be kept in mind when it comes to the volva-heidr is that

she was a respected figure in the O N society; she was not the kind of witch reading

tarot-cards we have today, nor as depicted in the w itch-hunts during the late middle

ages. No, she was a worshipper o f the gian ts/gods and was in an extremely close

contact with these powers, its entity entangled her everyday life - that was her full

purpose o f existence. She was the represen tative in human form of the giants/gods,

and back in those days nothing was more respected than the giants and gods.

1In An Icelandic-English Diction

ary by Cleasby and Vigfusson

troll is explained to mean giant,fiend, demon; "the heathen creed

knew of no 'devil' but the troll";

and troll is even explained to be

a werewolf, one possessed by troll

or demons, and a destroyer.

The prophecy starts with the volva rem embering h er lineage:

I remember giants in the primordial times that fostered me. She is

saying that she is a descendent from the primordial giants, and

among the primordial giants are no gods, as they were not yet

spawned. This brings me to the conclusion tha t she is a giantess;

and in this investigation it is important to observe that the Edda

states that she is fostered by “giants” (jotna) in plural as in par

ents. So this far she is called a giantess-vnlva born in the earliest

days of creation, and that definitively crosses out the possibility

and a comm on hypothesis that this prophecy was made by the norns as a triad of

women of fate (Urdr, Verdandi, Skuld - believed as being past, present and future),

because l ) norns are not volvas, and 2) norns are not archetypal giants, they are

more <es/r-like in nature without genetic deformities or malevolent traits. So whocould this giantess-va/vu be? Snorri mig ht help us in his added list of “troll-wom en”

(trollkvenna) as he calls the m 1, meaning volvas o r heidrs, and giantesses. Further

more, as some of these names are known giantesses and the names themselves are

links to adversaries and giants, we can assume that most o f these names be long to

giantesses and giantess-vf/vus:

72




ship and give the crew to Ran, th e sea-giantess. However, Hr imgerdr calls Atli a fool

and says that it was her mo ther, not herself. So who is her mothe r then that comes

up from the abyss?1The my th does no t say, but by a mysterious reason, a few stanzas

away, a giantess is riding in the woods on a wolf with snakes as reins on Yule day.

This is with out d oubt an inspiration o f Gullveig und er the name Hyrrokin. Equally,

if you take a look at all the connec tions to Gullveig in this sho rt passage in the Hel-

gakvida Hjorvardssonar, the author m ust have had Gullveig, the m oon-wolf and her

daughter G erdr as influences for these characters.

Imgerdr2, which means Gerdr o f ember - referring to

GerSr glowing like the sun, by the witchcraft of her m other

Gullveig; also Amgerdr which m eans M other-Gerdr or m ore

likely mother of Gerdr which refers to Gullveig herself, be

cause G erdr does n ot have any children in the sagas and noris she know n for being co nnected to a mother-aspect. Lastly,

we have the name Margerdr which most certainly means

Gerdr the maid or Gerdr of the ocean. This ON mar- could

also derive from the O N verb merja, to crush, and then Marg

erdr would mean G erdr the crusher - which goes well with

a) the warlike translation “arm or” of her name, and b) he r

connection to wa ter/ice (see Hrimgerdr and the chapter on

Gullveig’s names and epith ets.) Mar- could also derive from

O N marr, a steed.

Then we have Leikn which is a name for Hel’s more chthonic and pestilent aspect,

which is explained to be a later development of her characteristics - 1 am no t sure

though about that, because Hel as a ruler of the d ead and N iflheimr was most likely

very early considered to be the influence o f pestilen t epidemics. This does not mean

that H elheim r had to be He l’s equivalence. There have been m any discussions abou t

Leikn being Hel, but in my bo ok they share essence, attributes and manifestations.

The same goes for the nam e Ama3, it means “m othe r” and is a very old name for

He l4. Then we have Gullveig s dem on-ch ildren fro m Jarnvidr who are said to be

spawned by Gullveig and Fenrir, but most likely these ch ildren were just spawned

by Gullveig alone, and they are called jarnvidja and myrkrida; they are she-troll/gi-

antesses.

Many o f the nam es and epithets in the list are from, as of today, unknown mytho

logical characters, withered sources lost by time; or rather bu rnt and destroyed by

the C hristian church while invading the no rth. However, the nam es indicate giant-

1For a more detailed account

on Gullveig and the water con

nection see the chapter on Gul-

lveig’s names an d epithets.

2Imgerdr is not mentioned anywhere in the Eddas, so she most

definitely belongs to a lost saga.

3It is probably related to the

Old Icelandic word amma

which means “grandm other”.

4Liljenroth, Den Gomda Gudin-

nan I Nordisk Mytologi, and

Hellquist, 1939, Svensk Etymol-

ogisk Ordbok.

74



A S^m u n d a r Ed d a -St u d y o n Gu l l v e ig

related words. Most often the ir names derive from an epic in the mythological sagas,

for instance the name H yrrokin which derives from the epic when Gullveig was

burn t by smoky (im pure) flames, hence Hyrrokin - the flame smoked.

Well, could any giantess-volva in this list be the one prophesying in Voluspd ? The

only known one in the list that would fit is Hyrrokkin- Hyrrokin. I will also take a

look at other known giantesses (volvas or no t) that might be relevant:

I) Sinmara - the black one (surtrar)1and the pale giantess (after her mysteri

ous epithet hinfolva gygr), she is only named two times throughout the whole See-

mundar Edda in the saga called Fjolsvinnsmdl. She is said there to be the keeper o f

the sword called Lcevateinn, i.e. Gambanteinn; the sword of revenge that Surtr will

bu rn down the world with, it is also called here “the shining scythe.” She keeps it in

an iron-chest with nine locks. Sin means tendon, and mara means “the m utilating

one”, mara derives from the verb merja, so Sinmara means roughly “the one who

mutilates by ripping out tendons”.2She is no t spoken of as volva, and there are no

analogies whatsoever between he r and the narrator of Voluspd.

II) There is also the nine-fold of giantesses that bore

Heimdall. They are just mentioned in Ed das saga Voluspd in

skamma: Gjalp, Greip, Eistla, Eyrgjafa, Ulfrun, Angeyia, Im<3r,

Atla, and Jarnsaxa. Imd is also mentioned in Helgakvida Hund-

ingsbana I as having a daughter, but I am not even sure this is

the same as the one o f the nine-fold. O ther than this they are

no t spoken o f and there is no reason to believe that they would

be the giantess-volva tha t I am looking for.

III) Hyndla is a giantess-maid, a wise-woman, that the

song Hyndluljdd is about. Hyndla is in my opinion analogous

to AurboSa-Gullveig, and she is only mentioned by the name

Hyndla in Hyndluljdd .

IV) Ndl or Laufey is a very mysterious character and very

little-known. She is only mentioned and referred to as “Loki s mo ther” twice in theScemundar Edda: in Lokasenna and in Prymskvida. She is mentioned just once in

Skdldskaparmdl and Gylfaginning, and also here just referred as “Loki s mother”:

Sv^, at kalla hann son Farbauta ok Laufeyjar, Nalar3.Modir hans heitir Laufey eda Nal4.

1Ohlmarks, Brate, and Thall

translate this as Surtr. This is

probably where people got the

idea that Sinmara is Surt r s

wife; my personal theory about

this matter is split, as no other

mythological evidence sup

ports that they belong together.2Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, An

Icelandic-English Dictionary. I

consider the connection be

tween the names Sinmara and

Margerdr interesting, but I will

no t go further about that here.

3Skdldskaparmdl 23.

4Gylfaginning 33.

75



A S ^ m u n d a r Ed d a -St u d y o n Gu l l v e i g

As we know, Heidr is one of Gullveig s biown names and she got that name from

her crone (volva/heidr) aspect. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that the Vb/wspd-stanza

21 and 22 belong to each other. Stanza 21 introduces Gullveig and explains how

she was blle d and became the reason for starting the first war (folkvig) in the world.

Stanza 22 explains how she returned as HeiSr and as a crone (volva/heidr ). If I put

them together it is even more obvious; I start where the stanza 21 ends:

Thrice they burned

the thrice reborn,

often, not seldom,

yet she lives.

Heifir her name was,

to houses she came,

the seeress with accurate prophecies.

After this investigation I think I can conclude tha t it is fairto designate Gullveig as the narrating giantess-vtfh'a or

prophetess o f the Voluspd , as Gullveig is called gygr, giantess,

and velva, seeress.

As for her essence within this saga, I will thoroughly in

vestigate it and expose my conclusions in this book.

SKfRNISMAL

This is the saga where Freyr sits up in the tower Hlidskjdlf in

AsgarSr and spies into Jotunheimr, seeing there the m ost

beautiful maid of the m all; the giantess Gerdr, daughter of

Gymir and Aurboda. As she was walking in her father s yard,

Freyr was bewitched and told his servant Skirnir to go to her

and to woo her on Freyr s behalf. And he does so, at first with

promising gifts and in the end with threats. At first GercJr re

fuses, but eventually she agrees.

This saga is very important because it holds clues to the Gambanteinn-mythos1;

the Gambanteinn is the epithet for the sword that Surtr, during Ragna Rok, will

burn all of the worlds with, and this sword is quick-wittedly snatched out o f Freyr s

hands without him knowing what this bargain will result in.2This deed is carried

out by the thurses, namely Gullveig and her allies. As Aurboda-Gullveig receives

the sword Gambanteinn and takes it to the Ironwood, Jdrnvidr, and lets her ally and

1This “sword of revenge” or

“sword of victory ” has different

epithets in the sagas: Gamban

teinn (the sumptuous sprout; -

teinn was an ON poetic

metaphor for a sword or a

wand, gambanteinn is used in

Sldrnismdl, and compare it to

the later used wor dgambanreipi

in the same saga), Н ж -

vateinn/Homateinn (it might

mean the splendid sprout, usedin Fjelsvintismdl), Mistilteinn

(the mistletoe sprout, used in

Snorra Edda, Nafnapulur 42 as

a sword epithet), and

Tamsvondr (the taming wand,

used in Sh'rnismal).

2See Lokasenna.

77



beast-herder Egg|>er keep it un til Surtr s son will come as a red roos ter and get it

for him in the dawn of Ragna Rok. The Gambanteinn-mythos will be further ex

plored in other parts of this book.

Skirnismal tells us how GerSr is the bargain and thursian sacrifice to win this im portant sword Gam banteinn ; she is in fact bought w ith gold and trade d for the

sword. A more detail account of this saga is to be found in the chapter on

Aurboda below.


h Ar b a r d s l j 6 d

1Compare this to the ylgr, the

she-wolf that comes at mid

night to kill and eat warriors in

Volsunga Saga in this book.

There is actually only one small detail I want to bring up in this saga and it is when

J>6rr explains that he fought vargytijor, wolf-women, on the Danish island called

Hleysey, and no t regular berserk-women1. As it is told th at Gullveig is the m other

and fosterer of all wolves and werewolves, these wolf-women

spoken of must be o f her descent, ho rr is known to be ou t

killing and fighting giantesses and these wolf-women are most

likely of a giant-race. The reason why I bring this small detail

up is that I want to underline tha t the belief in werewolves and

their strength was intense and it derived from a belief in thu r

sian troll-like monsters. If Porr had to fight them and not just slaughtered them it

means that they could stand their ground and only prime giants were powerful

enough to fight £>orr. These are female versions o f Fenrir, Hati and Skoll; unresting,uncontrolled and wrathful beasts that have tremendous strength. They are amor

phous and rab id powers, m etaphors for destruction and force (th is is why death-

runes are used within their evocations.) Their am orpho us na ture is a shadow of

their true essence; they are so connected to the acosmic Chaos in spirit that they

shift from wrath to pseudo-control unrestrainedly. Form canno t dominate them -

bu t they can dominate form. This wild and uncon trol led side o f their spirits comes

from Gullveig, as she is the manifestation of an un-natural existence. We can com

pare that to the untamed spiritual essence of Lilith.

LOKASENNA

Lokasenna is a very enter taining saga, as it tells us much about the bad side o f many

(zsir. In Gymir s hall most o f the cesir have come to enjoy Gymir’s excellent mead;

the cesir praise his two servants very much for the ir service. But Loki loathed and

78



A S./EMUNDAR EDDA-STUDY ON GULLVEIG

killed one of them because of it, which reminds me v ery mu ch of the saga of Baldr’s

death. This made the cesir upse t and ha rd words were exchanged. Lola was of course

superior in this game and humiliated and silenced each and every one of them.

To follow up the context of this book, I would like to pu t emphasis on Loki s accusations towards Freyja. He accuses her o f bein g a witch involved in much witch

craft, «>» ertfordceda ok meini blanditi m jd k»1, "you are a witch and m uch involved

in it." Fordceda is seen as a witch in the worst sense, and for her being accused of

prac ticing th is kind of witchcraft, fordceduskapr, is of course intend ed to remind

them all that Aurboda-Gullveig once served Freyja as her maid and lured her into

the arts of fordceduskapr. This was a big tragedy for Asgardr and they burn ed Aur-

boda-Gullveig for this when the cesir realized what was going on be tween Freyja

and the treacherous and evil Aurboda-Gullveig.

As in so many o ther places in the sagas this has been totally

overlooked and misinterpreted; these words by Loki have

been in terp re ted as Freyja being in fact Gullveig, but this is

of course false and dim-witted. Freyja is the opposite of

Gullveig.

1 Lokasenna 32.

2 Here Garm r is connec ted to

Hel as her ally and champion.

3See appendix for my map of

the underworld.

BALDRS DRAUMAR (VEGTAMSKVTOA)

In Baldrs Draumar it is said that Odinn rides down into the underw orld, towards

Niflhel, «nidrpadan niflheljar til», and to H els house, Heljar rann. Garmr came run

ning at him, bloody an d baying, from H els abode, «mcetti hann hvelpi, peim er or

helju к о ».2 A t H els gate he turned off to the east where he knew that the volva he

was seeking laid (b uried ): «p a reid Odinn fy ri r austan dyrr, par er hann vissi volu

leid». O dinn rode towards Niflhel, which here could be an ep ithet for Hel, Nifl-Hel,

as she is chief ruler of Niflheimr; he came to He ls house where he tu rned to the

east to visit the volva. Geographically this does not make much sense to me, but I

assume tha t he went to the east as that is whe re the infamous Ironw ood is explained

to be located, and to make an analogy it is safe to say ‘to the east' for everybody to

unde rstand tha t it is Jotunh eimr andjarnvidr we are dealing with. At the same timeit is not too misguiding, because if we say tha t O dinn arrived at H els abode in Hel-

heimr - which is much m ore likely than if he w ould have ended up in Niflheimr in

Chaos (!) - it could be imagined according to m ap3and un derstanding that to the

north-east the snowy realm of Jamvidr would b e located in the sagas. I am pre tty

swayed that it is there where Od inn is supposed to find the volva.

79




Nonetheless, he arrived at th e velva’s grave in the east and sang a death -gald r (an

incantation ) to her, and thereby she was forced against her will to rise from the dead

and speak with him. This is actually one o f the few known ev idence o f the fact that

the peop le o f the Old N orse believed in this sort of necromancy and the black art

of making the dead rise. Through this stanza we can learn tha t if you have the pro perrunic galdr, runic m agic formula, you could actually raise the dead from their grave.

The stanza says «п т hann vittugri valgaldr kveda, unz naudig reis». Odinn orders

the velva to speak from the dead, segdu mer or helju, and he tries to get as much in

formation out of her about Baldr s death as he can, as he keeps telling her to speak

up and n ot to be silent; « pegj-at-tu, volva, pik vil ek jregna, u nz alkunna, vil ek enn

vita». Like Voluspa and Voluspa in skamma she seers about th e future, but this time

abo ut the m urder o f Baldr, and determinedly she tries to be released of the death-

galdr so she can return, «naudug sagdak, п й т и п ekpegja». As the last bu t one stanza

divulges, the volva is Gullveig, « ert-at-tu volva ne vis fcona, heldr ertu priggja pursa

modir», "you are the m othe r of the three thurses", and then w ith the knowledge

tha t Gullveig and Loki were the ones beh ind the p lot in murdering Baldr (see my

chapter on Baldr s death below) this interview with O dinn seems to force Gullveig

to reveal he r and Loki s plans, «naudug sagdak, п й т и п ek pegja», "forced am I

to speak, now shall 1 rem ain silent". But still, amazingly, O din n does n ot get it,

and during the day of Baldr s death, he watches Loki make H od r kill Baldr.

The volva says to O dinn tha t she has been laying there dead for a long time: « Var

ek snivin sncevi ok slegin regni ok drifin doggu, daud var ek lengi». Then there comes

something very interesting; the volva says that "here the brewed mead for Baldr iskept, the ethereal brew with a shield upo n it, the sons of the gods are eagerly awaited

(en dsmegir i ofvceni)''. Rem ember now that they are in the eastern parts o f the un

derworld, which could only mean that they are somewhere in Jotunheimr, and m ost

likely in Jarnvidr. Gullveig is a rime-thurs, whose grave has been snowed on, and

she is supposedly dead in this episode, o r has metaphorically descended into the

realm o f the dead and giants, which is not the same as being dead for a giant; re

mem ber th at Gullveig, as Loki, is known to walk between the worlds at will. This

can o f course be confusing for someone unknowledgeable in the subject and with

mediocre eyes look upo n as “the dead lie in graves.”

Equally, what she m ean t with “the sons o f the gods are eagerly awaited” must be

referring to Baldr and Ho dr who will bo th be killed and sent to the underw orld;

Baldr by H odr, and H od r by Vali, which Gullveig foresees in stanzas 9 an d 11. She

is obviously a w ell-respected volva with a mu ch grand er ability to forsee the future

than Odinn himself, because he rides on the road deep down in the underworld

80



where most of the terrible, wrathful and mighty rime-thurses dwell, just to wake

her from he r Hel-slumber and ask for her knowledge to foresee Baldr s destiny.

Grimm w rote on the same thing as me in his work Teutonic Mythology. He says:

“var ek snifin sniofi (by snow), ok slegin regni, ok drifin doggo (by dew), daud (dead) var

ek leingi; it is among the sublimest things the Edda has to shew. This vala must stand

in close relationship to Hel herself.” In my opinion, this whole m yth about this mys

terious volva is entangled in e lements tha t rem ind me of Gullveig. Since I totally

agree with Grimm that this volva must be in a close relationship with Hel, I will here

lay my theories:

1. She is laying in a grave in the east. Gullveig s abode or realm JarnviSr lays

in the east and she is also called the giantess of the eastern storms.

2. She is a mighty volva, a seeress, mightier in knowledge and to seer than

OSinn himself. The myths give details tha t there are only a few mythological char

acters tha t are wiser than О Sinn, one o f them is Gullveig.

3. She is allegorized as dead and buried, and OSinn seems to know exactly

where to find her; this could be a self-explanatory testimony o f when the sesir killed

Gullveig three times, sent her to the realms of death in the underw orld and thereby

believed to have been “buried”.

4. The volva has the answer to all of his questions and she knows everythingabo ut Baldr s murder, HoSr s deed and their journey to the underworld. She knows

because she is the one planning the whole strategic deed to m urder Baldr, use HoSr,

and to provoke Ragna Rok.

5. And as the last and strongest proof of my theory I will quote what is said in

the end of their conversation in Baldrs Draumar, OSinn says: « heldr ertu priggja

pursa modir», ’you are rather the m other o f the three thurses"; hence the m other

ofJormungandr, Fenrir and Hel, which is Gullveig. There is no othe r thurs-m othe r

with three known thurs-children.

A S jEm u n d a r Ed d a -St u d y o n Gu l l v e i g

HYNDLULJ6D a n d V0LUSPA i n s k a m m a

Hyndluljod and Voluspd in skamma, "the smaller Voluspa, are supposedly two sepa

rate poems, which have been thought o f as one. Hyndluljod is suspected o f having a

81




manifold o f additions to its saga and therefore viewed as dis tor ted 1. Even so, with

this knowledge at hand, Hyndla is described as a very wise woman who lives in a

cave amongst rocks, «( belli byr», Hyndla has there in her ab ode a stable with

wolves, « taktu ulfpinn einn afstalli». In stanza 4 it is indirectly said that Hy ndla is

a giantess:

1See commentary on Hynd-

luljdd in Brate, 1913, Samunds

Edda.

Porr mun hon biota,

f)ess mun hon bidja,

at hann ae vid [oik

einart lati;

[do er hanumoti'tt

vidjotunsbrudir.

"To Porr I shall sacrifice and pray that to you always be honest; though he does

not favor giantesses."

The p oem is about w hen Freyja goes to H yndla s cave to ask for a favor, Freyja

prom ises her wealth, b ut H yn dla sees throu gh he r lie imm ediately. In the very be

ginning of the song Freyja calls Hyndla "you maid of maids", «nicer meyja», and

"my friend and sister", «m in vina, Hyndla systir». This implies an intimate and close

relationship, which makes me think of Freyja s shocking relationship with Aurboda-

Gullveig. Furthermo re, if Hyndla is supposed to be Aurboda this means tha t Freyja

knew tha t AurboSa was a giantess and still Freyja tried to ge t Hyndla to go with her

to Valholl - into AsgarSr. She even promises H yndla tha t she would make Porr think

good o f her - even when the fact tha t Hyndla was a giantess - with the m eans ofblot, worship, and bidja, prayer, which could have been thoug ht o f as means of witch

craft; something no t surprising since we already know tha t Au rboda taught Freyja

as Freyja s maid in Asgardr.

Hy ndla means dog and she has wolves that she rides in her stable; this is a typical

trait for witches, flogd, troll-woman, in the O N folklore and mythology. G armr is

explained as being a dog and at the same time he shared qualities with the thursian

wolves Fenrir, Hati and Skoll; the latter two are explained in Gylfaginning 12 to be

sons of Fenrir and Gullveig. Ha ti is there called Hati Hrodvitnisson - «Hati, hann

erHrodvitnis sonr» in Gnmnismdl 39 -, son of Hrodvitnir (H rodvitnir is another of

Fenrir s nam es). My point is that in Gylfaginning 12 Hati is called by the epithe t Ma-

nagarmr, "the m oon s Garmr” which influences me into believing that G armr is a

thurs ian wolf-son to Fenrir and Gullveig as well, and that dog is just a noth er word

for the wolf-guardian of the underw orld, as dogs are used by human s to guard their

grounds - which as a hypothesis could mean that the O ld Norse people though t

82



wolves and dogs were very much connected. I believe Hyndla is supposed to be an

epithet for her wolfish nature: “the she-wolf”

All of these details depicted in Hyndluljod remind me very much of Gullveig, e.g.

the relationship between Freyja and Gullveig as in the saga of Aurboda as Freyjas

maid; the fact that Hyndla means dog or she-wolf, and that she has wolves in her

stable instead of horses connects her very much to th e saga about Hyrrok in, who

rode a wolf as well.

In Voluspd the giantess-volva reveals the future o f the worlds in a prophecy, and

when the O N people chose to make Hyndla seer Voluspd in skamma they m ust have

had a good reason for it, even though the shor t text Voluspd in skamma was originally

a separate poem, and I believe that this Hyndla giantess was originally seen as a seer-

ess - 1believe she was actually Aurboda-Gullveig; as this prophecy is called Voluspd

' in skamma) too it must have been believed tha t the same seeress foretold it. More

over, instead of making it fully a prophecy Hyndla lists a manifold of giants an d cesir

families and relations with deep insight. This gives you the feeling that Hyndla is as

old and knowing as the giantess-tWva of Voluspd. Hyndla could therefore be the

same as the mention ed giantess-volva. The sagas say tha t all giants are old and wise;

older and wiser than the cesir , bu t only a handful are from the p rimordial family cre

ated by Ymir, brudgelmir, and Bergelmir, and only these old thurses are all-knowing

- all-seeing - and it is from this prim ordial family tha t the giantess-V0/va of Voluspd

presumably originates from. In Hyn dlas insightful listing of families and relations,

and seering of Ragna Rok, she manifests fundamentally the

relations of Aurboda, Gym ir and G erd r1; Pjazi and Skadi;

Hrimnir, Heidr and Hross^jofr; Loki, Angrboda and Fenrir;

also that Byleistr s bro ther (Loki) had the most gruesome gi-

how all the monsters came to the world; also that all sorcerers

seidberendr) come from Surtr (Svarthofli) and all giants from

Ymir. Hyndla ends h er speech with foreseeing tha t the ocean, storms and snow will

prepare for the world s downfall; she sees Odinn go in to battle with Fenrir, and fire

burning down the entire world:

A SiEMUNDAREd d a -St u d y o n Gu l l v e ig

antess daughter (Hel); she seers abo ut Loki seeking up Gul-

jveig s ha lf burnt heart in the ashes and devouring it, and thats

1The secret knowledge tha t Au-

rbocla was Gymir s wife was

only known by Gullveig and

Loki in the Eddas. This secret

knowledge also links Hyndla

strongly to Gullveig.

I see fire flaming

and the earth belch out smoke;

almost everybody will die.

83




This is undoub tedly in the vein o f the VWuspa-prophecy, and w hen yo u sta rt to

think o f how many giantesses are mentioned in the Eddas, you will quickly under

stand that they are very few. Indeed, if you consider th at the giantess has a greater

purpose, the re are far, far fewer. It is norm al that the same characters with the same

traits show up over and over in the sagas bu t under different names and epithets, so

it is evident to me that Hyndla is the same giantess-valva as the prophetess in

Veluspd. Indeed, if the VWuspd-prophetess is Gullveig, Hyndla actually fits pretty

well as Gullveig “in disguise” - crone o f many manifestations, traits an d names;

mother o f the thurs-wolves, and inventor o f sorcery.

HELGAKVIDA HUNDINGSBANA I

See my chapter on Angrboda.

84



A Sn o r r a Ed d a -St u d y o n G u l l v e i g

I would like to go throug h Snorri S turluson’s works and scrutinize his version of

Gullveig s essence in the ON mythology. Even though Snorri was a Christian he

still lived in a vital era of the Old Scandinavia and he had access to the original belief

and the as yet untarnished mythos. He was brought up w ith the original tales of the

Old giants and gods and had them all told to him by the oral tradition tha t was still

in existence at that time. This makes Snorri a very impor tant source for my O N

studies. His texts are an impo rtan t part o f the O N literature and mythology, and by

reading between the lines and comparing it to othe r O N mythological texts you

can, albeit with a fair am oun t o f difficulty, unders tand w hat is in line with th e true

O N tradition and w hat are Christian influences. C hristianity as a foreign way of

thinking stands ou t from the O N o ne and that is an advantage in this context.

I will, in this chapter, focus on Snorri s version of the Edda which is known as

Snorra Edda (Snorris Edda ) or the Prose Edda; Younger Edda. It was w ritten by

Snorri around th e year 1220 AD. As I said in the previous chapter, what makes this

Edda different from the e lder one is Snorri s own version o f the Edda which he callsGylfaginning, where he makes up his own story about a sort of an interview with

three wise-men or gods (obviously Odinn himself and his two brothers) who an

swer the interview er s questions. Snorri quotes the Scemundar Edda in addition to

his own made u p story. Anothe r mythologically impo rtant text that he add ed is the

Skaldskaparmal.

GYLFAGINNING

Gullveig is introduced in chapter 12 as being the mother o f the thursian wolf-race:

A giantess dwells to the east of Midgardr, in the forest called Jarnvidr: in that wood

dwell the troll-women, who are known as JarnviSjur (ironwood-women). The old gi

antess bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this

source are these wolves sprung (i.e. Fenrir, Hati (whom I believe is the same as

Garmr), and Skoll).

85



G u l l v e ig a r b Ok

Snorri quotes Voluspd 40-41, stanzas which depict Gullveig as the Old One who

lives in the infamous woods called the Ironwood, and tha t she is there mothering

the horrible offspring of Fenrir from where all monsters derive.

mum».

Not until chapter 34 is she brought up again and this t ime by name, Angrboda.

She is described as dwelling in Jotunhe imr and to have had three children with Loki:

Fenrisulff, Jorm ungandr (here also called MiSgardsormr), and Hel. However, when

the gods learned that they were brought up in Jotunheim r and that the prophecy

called Voluspd had told the gods that these kindred would bring great misfortune

upon them , and they realized wha t a horrible m onster-breed this was, considering

their evil mothe r and their cunning father (both being thurs-giants), Odinn ordered

the cesir to bring the kindred to him. W hen they did so he cast the serpent into the

sea at once, and the serpen t grew so big that it encompassed all of the land and b it

its own tail. Hel was cast into Niflheimr, and Od inn gave her the

rulership over the nine w orlds1. And Fenrir they bo und w ith

magical fetters made by dwarves from Svartalfaheimr, no t by the

cesir . Although it was no t un til the third fetter, which was called

Gleipnir (the two first fetters which broke were called Lsedingr

and Dromi), that the cesir were able to restrain him, although no t without a fight.

Fenrir refused to try on a nother fetter as he knew that the cesir were trying to bind

him, so he cunningly said tha t if he was going to try on the third fetter, one of the

gods needed to lay his arm between his jaws. No ne of the gods were brave enough

to do this until Тут stepped forward and laid his arm in Fenrir s mouth. As Gleipnir

was too strong for Fenrir, he bit Tyrs hand off. The gods then laughed and took thechain which was attached to the fetter, called Gelgja, and imprisoned Fenrir on the

island called Lyngvi in the midst of the abyss called Amsvartnir. Lastly, they put a

sword between his jaws so he could not snap a nd bite, and from there on Fenrir

bayed horrib ly and stayed the re till Ragna Rok.

1Note that it is said nine worlds,

not the ninth world: «niu hei-

In chapter 37 Gullveig is brought up again as the giantess Aurboda, Gymir s wife

and m other to Gerdr. Here Snorri narrates a short version of the Skirnismdl found

in Scemundar Edda.

Chapter 49 is about Baldr s death; here Snorri allegorizes Gullveig as Hyrrokin(spelt “Hyrrokkin” by Snorri), as she comes riding on a giant wolf with snakes for

bridle, «en er hon kom (Hyrrokin) ok reid vargi ok hafdi hoggorm at taumum, pd hljop

hon ajhestinum». The wolf is so big Snorri calls it a horse, hestr. This short Gullveig-

episode is about the time when Hyrrokin helps the cesir to pu t Baldr s funeral ship

into the w ater as the giantess o f the eastern storms.

86



A Sn o r r a Ed d a -St u d y o n G u l l v e i g

s k Al d s k a p a r m Al

The only time Gullveig is mentione d in Skaldskaparmal is amongst the Porsken-

ningar where she is named as Hyrrokkin, as one o f the giantesses that f>6rr had killed.

NAFNAPULUR

Under the label Trollkonur, for giantesses, Hyrrokkin is named. No othe r Gullveig

name or ep ithet know n by me is in this list.

87




A MYTHOLOGICAL SURVEY AN D A SUMMARY OF

THE UNDERWORLD

Before I get into the study o f Hel and h er m other, and their underwo rldly aspects

and connections, I would like to clear up what the underw orld in the ON mytho logy

looks like and what it holds, as a result o f my ow n heavy research on the subject.

This is a very complex task because the po or sources o f the ON my thology d on’t

leave us much information abou t the cosmology and the underworldly geography;

most of the knowledge has been lost. This has a negative effect, which results in

many bad interpretations. There are several underw orld-hypotheses and mere per

sonal opinions made out of neglect and indolence o ut the re which I believe to be

erroneou s. So I will here bring up the sources that we actually have and analyze

them from my po int o f view.

As we are today sitting in the shadows of our forefathers’ knowledge, I feel it s

im por tant to bear in mind that the Christian distortions in the process of putting

the Old Norse oral sagas and mythology into writing and all the attempts in trans

lating have affected the view of the underworld greatly. As we now know, scripts

were a Christian tradition and Christianity broug ht the importance ofw riting and

docum entation to Scandinavia in the m iddle ages. The O ld Norse people did n’t re

ally write down mythology an d sagas until the early middle ages, bu t before that

the peop le carved memories o f the the ir dead and beloved ones, and even fractions

of mythological events, bu t n ot long mythological descriptions like in the Eddas.

For example, the Scemundar Edda was collected as several individual hand-writings

and then later transcribed into the book Codex Regius approximately two hu ndred

years after Scandinavia had been christianized. This worries me a lot, so I have de

cided to tr y to see through the assumedly christianized versions of our O ld religion

and mythology, and get the true understanding and view of our ancestors. However,this is almost impossible withou t any other references, and there are none. So in

stead of trying to fantasize my own ’’thought-up ” version o f the underworld - which

is not my intention (I am only after the truth) - 1 keep the £dda-references and out

of them try to see what dwells behind th e lines.

88



U n d i r h e i m a r

Initially, there were two Jotunheim r, Jotunh eim ar in p lural1, and according to Ry

dberg the prim ary one in the sagas was the on e in the middle world, MidgarSr; and

this “upp er” Jotunh eim r was said to be located in the furthest nor th and east of

Scandinavia, beyond the icy Arctic Ocean wh ich delimits Scandinavia from the

N orth Pole. The current which runs there was p robably looked upon as waters from

Elivagar; one o f the eleven rivers, as it is told in Gnmnismdl 26:

The deer is named Eikbyrnir,

which in HerjafoOr’s halls stood and gnawed on Laerabr’s

branches;

from his horns Hvergelmir’s water poured,

it is from where all waters spring.

It migh t even have been the river Gjoll2. This means tha t

the no rthern regions ofJotunheim r were the N orth Pole andlands around it (which m ight have been including some

northern islands of Norway), and the eastern parts might

have been the mo st no rthern part of Russia. It is said by Ry

dberg tha t in Jotu nh eim r in MiSgardr there is a cave that

leads down to M unir's underw orldly land. The entrance

down to the underw orld was in all probability located in Jo

tunheimr in Midgardr. Hence the classic direction in

Gylfaginning: «en nidr og nordr liggr Helvegr», "downwards

and to th e n or th lays Helvegr", tha t is to say; nidr , east, and

nordr , north, lays the path to Hel (see my chart o f the ON

cosmology called Heldrasill in the appendix.)

Now, the und erw orld em bo dies a great deal of powers

and cosmic history, and it is hard for me to accept the reason

as to why it has been pretty mu ch pu t aside while the upper

1For example, the saga Prym-

skvida in Scemundar Edda

continuous ly mentions "Jotun-

heimar" as in manifold homes

of the g iants; h ere’s just a few

examples from its contents: (5 )

«Fl6 pa Loki, fjadrhamr dundi,

utizfyr utan kom dsagarda ok jy r

innan kom jotna heima», "andhe came within the

homes/worlds of the giants", (7)

«Hvt ertu einn kominn t Jotun-

heima?», "Have you come

alone to the homes/worlds of

the giants?", (12) «v it skulum

aka tvau \ Jotunheima», "the

two of us shall go to the

homes/worlds of the giants",

and (13) «... ef ek ek m edp ir i

Jotunheima», "...if I go with

you to the homes/w orlds of the

giants." Voluspa (8) also men

tions “Jotu nhe ima r” as in man

ifold giant hom es; «uns prjdr

kvamu pursa meyjar dmdttkar

mjok or Jotunheimum», "from

the homes/worlds of the

worlds and their inhabitan ts have been in focus. If one reads giants,

the sagas the main-focus lays on MiSgarSr the h om e of hu- 2Gylfaginning.

mans and gods, and AsgarSr the hom e of the cesir . Vana- 3Tolley, 2009, Shamanism in

heimr and the underworld have been put aside. This is a Norse Myth and Magic.

mystery to me as the und erworld holds the very foundation

of it all; it holds the sources o f the cesir s strength and knowledge - even the cesir s

treasures and weapons are said to have been made by dwarves (O N dvergr), and

dwarves were seen in th e earlier times as a giant-race living in the underw orld; e.g.

Svartdlfaheimr. Clive Tolley says “Dvergar were underw orld, deathly beings, most

nearly akin to giants (though they are distinguished from th em )”3Dwarves were

89



G u l l v eig a r b Ok

smaller than regular giants bu t tall as full-grown trees comp are to human s. This is

where it got misunderstood in later times and dwarves became some kind of midget.

The impo rtance o f the und erw orld is shown by the O N people allegorizing the

world tree; the roots where the tree gets its nou rishm ents are placed in the un de r

world, and the “foundation” where the tree is sprung from and rests upon is the black soil o f the un de rw orld . The roots stretch far apar t so th e tree can g row m uch

in height and width. Snorri tells us that one o f the roots is leading up to AsgarSr,

the world of the cesir which lies in the cro wn of the Yggdrasill. How Sno rri gets this

to w ork is a big mystery to me.

The above brings me to a very keypoint: according to the O N people everything

sprung from G innungagap in Chaos; Ginnungagap held the worlds Niflheimr and

Muspellzheimr, and when they grew so big that the y collided, both elements of

these tw o worlds created water which streamed into th e cosmos as an invading cur

rent from w hich everything in the cosmos was created - and it is those two principal

worlds, Niflheimr and Muspellzheimr, which the unde rwo rld is built upon ; which

is to say Niflheimr an d M uspellzheimr he in Chaos.

The und erwo rld is an entity consisting of two worlds called Jotun heim r and Hel-

heimr. The world o f the dead, H elheimr, stretches deep dow n into the un derwo rld,

all the way down to the lowest pits of the abyss whe re C haos once opened u p (Gap

Ginnunga). O ne could actually die in the un derw orld, it was called “to die out o f

H elheim r”. Snorri says that only the wo rst spirits reached the depth s o f Niflheimr.

This view up on N iflheimr mu st have been an outcom e o f a Ch ristian influence. Although, at the same time this testifies of how to transcend unto Chaos. Much like

the C haos-G nostic belief, this shows that rebels, outlaws and Satanists - the Old

Scandinavian um brella term for this is vargr - would be free to walk on the no rth

east path o f the dead, Helvegr, down through out the un derworld into the deepest

pit and th en to transcend unto Chaos into the w orld o f th e rim e-thurses, and finally

arrive at the wintry lands of Niflheimr. This way of dying was looked u pon as a pu n

ishment, by Snorri s account, bu t for a follower of Thursa tru and Gnostic Satanism

this is a goal.

So the worlds which everything sprung from are also the worlds everything

comes back to, “the wom b and the tomb.” This m ight be the reason why thurses

have bee n looked upo n as terrors and antagonists, because they are already “dead ”

and have really nothing to fear, they are already very old (old age was what th e cesir

dreaded the mo st); th e “old age” was an allegory for their fear of emerging into the

worlds o f the giants: to “die”, to descend an d transcend , and be amo ng the rime-

90



U n d i r h e i m a r

thurses. The fearlessness of the thurses though, was actually adopted by the Viking

warriors, and the main key to their success in battle was their lack of fear of death.

Death was an ho nor for them : to die in battle was a free ticket to the m ightiest of

hono rs in their opinion - to come to Valholl as a warrior for OSinn himself. Vikings

did no t raid for their coun try or king; they upheld the ir gods and the ir spiritual destiny over anything.

*

This is told in Gnmnismal 31:

Three roots in three ways

out from the ash Yggdrasill.Hel lives under one,

under the second one the rime-thurses,

and under the third the humans.

At first this stanza left me with much frowning and scratching in my beard. It says

that the three roots lead to l) Hel who fives by UrSarheim r/Urdarbrunnr, 2 ) Nifl-

heim r and the rime-thurses, and 3) mankind. After many weeks beh ind books, and

man y weeks in front o f my altars, I have come to an und erstand ing which differs

from all others I’ve come across. The unde rworld is not split into three, bu t in two;

Jotun heim r and H elheimr. They cann ot dwell in each oth er because they are men-

tioned several times to be each a world (heimr). Why Gnmnismal says that the th ird

root leads to h umankind is most likely a sentence referred to what Vafjjrudnismdl

4S divulges; that humans get stashed away in Mimir s abode. This stanza hints to

whe n the worlds will burn by Surtr s wrath and the hum ans in M un irs abode,

Mimisheimr, will survive and procreate. So what Gnmnismal really says is tha t the

third root leads to Mim isbrunnr in Jotunheimr. And why Gnmnismal says that Hel

lives under one roo t is just a way of saying that th e first root leads to Helheimr, and,

in my opinion, it was imagined that Urd arbrun nr dw elt in Helheimr. Finally, the

roo t which leads to th e rime-thurses is meant to be Hvergelmir in Niflheimr, and I

believe th at b oth Niflheimr an d Muspellzheimr lay in Chaos; beyo nd th e under

world. See my ch art Heldrasill in the appendix.*

*

91




Gylfaginning says:

Three roots of the tree uphold it and are reaching far apart. One is among the>£sir,

another among the rime-thurses, in that place where the beginning of time was

called Ginnungagap; the third stands over Niflheimr, and under that root isHvergelmir, and Nidhoggr gnaws the root from below. And under that root which

belongs to the rime-thurses is Mimis Brunnr, wherein wisdom and understanding

are stored. And he is called Mimir who keeps that well. He is full of wisdom ...

I interpre t Snorri s words as his will to make th e ON religion and m ythology into

the Christian one: Heaven - Earth - Hell. It is known that Snorri had this intention,

so his details about the underw orld are more o f a Christian hellish nature, which

does not co rrespond with the primitive ON m ythology.

1The wo rd “Hell” derives from

the Old Gothic word halja

which mean t underworld. And

it was borrowed by the Scandi

navian languages: the Old

Norse and Icelandic word hel -

in Swedish the word helvete

comes from the Old Norse

term Helviti, same goes for the

Danish word htlvcde (OSw.

hcelvite, Ы . helviti, "the kingdom

of the dead" or "Hels punishment or inferno".)

Niflheimr is the da rk and misty place which was later inspired by the C hristian s inferno called Hell1. For Snorri, this

underworldly dark place has all kind of horrors, and it has

something the Old Norse people called "pits of suffering”;

rivers with sharp blades in them. Blood-soaked G armr lives

there and feeds on human flesh, and in the deepest tracts of

Niflheimr, where Hvergelmir s eternal depths begin, NiShoggr

and his black dragon-spawn dwell.

Rydberg explains that in the beginning o f time it was here

where Niflheimr was located in Chaos. At the same time he

allegorizes Nidafjoll as the da rk horrible m ountains in the cen

ter o f the un derworld that separate Helheim r from Niflheimr,

bu t he also claims that Nidafjoll belongs to Niflheimr, which means that, according

to Rydberg, Nidafjoll - Mimir - M imisbrunnr is no t a neutral region in the unde r

world, bu t belonging to the dark and cold world of Niflheimr and its rime-thurses.

How is it possible tha t Mimir s wonderful and peaceful regions belong to Niflheimr s

world? He obviously bases his understanding on both the Scemundar Edda and the

Snorra Edda, which are totally different and just makes his theories confusing and

self-contradictory. Snorri evidently changed the whole cosmology by freely moving

Urdr and Urdarbrunnr s realm to heaven, and let Helheimr become the whole of

the unde rworld, and made it equal to C hristianity s Hell. Gylfagitinings autho r did

all this without even considering that this wou ld have severe consequences in the

mythology. The underw orld before this dramatic change was partly a place of peace

and tranquility, but after Sno rris ruthlessness it became just a place o f death and

anguish.

92



U n d i r h e i ma r

*

In my studies I've noticed that the OI word undirheimar, underworlds, is not

used once in the Scemundar Edda or Snorra Edda. The underw orld and its homes

are written ab out extensively but no t once is the O I word for the underwo rld used.

This seemed strange to me in the beginning, bu t after going through the sagas over

and over I realized tha t the poe tic language used in the sagas embellishes the use o f

the concept undirheimar, and the underw orld that concerned the human beings

was the world of the dead, a specific location in the under-

world called He lheimr (often shortened just to Hel), there-

fore more dramatic phrases were used for (the descending

into) the underwo rld: fy r ndgrindr nedan1 (Skirnismdl 35),

jara til Hel jar og padan / Niflhel ( Gylfagimmg 2>),fyr jord nedan

.. .2 at solum Heljar (Voluspd 43), a helvegum3 (Voluspa 47),

fara til heljar hedan (Fdfnismdl 10), nidri i jordu ( Gyflagin-

wing), and i jord nidiA ( Gylfaginning).

ON Jormungrund, the vast earth, is another name for the underworld, the O ther

World, found in Grimnismal 20. The underworld was seen to be an immeasurable

void: a reversed and b igger version of the universe, but with a different function.

The undenvorld was the first void which sprang from Niflheimr and Muspellzheimr,

and the demiurgic god OSinn created the universe with his brothers as he wanted

his own abode outside the Giants' worlds.

The following hypothesis comes from a vision I received in a dream. There is just

really one reason for a human being to go to the underw orld, and th at is when you

die, your spirit goes the re with certain chosen objects which are burned w ith you

at the funeral in you r grave; the objects' essences become connec ted with you dur-

ing the funeral rite. W hen you descend into the underworld you still have your body

etc.; this can be explained by saying that all cosmic life is an "illusion”: your spirit

has been disconnected with your ego and thereby blinded from your true self, and

in its turn became tricked into actually believing having a body; w hich in reality it

does not (hence the illusion). In the underw orld the remnants o f your former ex-

istence stay with you like an echo from the past, and once reb orn in the un derw orld

you believe that you have a physical body again. It is only when you transcend un to

Niflheimr, i.e. beyond the unde rw orld and un to Chaos, that the illusion ends an d

your spirit becom es free again and you are able to open your blinded true eyes. As

I said earlier, in the underw orld the re is only one place for the spirit of a dead hu man

to go and it is to the world o f the dead; Hel's secondary home, Helheimr. All other

1 Below the gate of the

dead/corpses.

2Under the world.

3On H els paths.

4 In un der the earth, meaning

into the underworld.

93



Gu l l v e ig a r bo k

worlds and space in the underworld belong to divinities and such, e.g. pursar and

jotnar. Much like our reality and universe, the humans only live in a small part of

the universe, the earth; the rest belongs to oth er powers and life-forms.

So this is why the poets did not use the OI word undirhcimar for the und er

w or ld^ ) in the O N p oetry but rather different forms of the phrase *HeTs dominion

in the underworld.” The most common phrase used for this in the ON sagas was

“go to Н еГ, but in a wide variety (see examples above), meaning “for a human spirit

to descend into one definite location in the unde rworld” It was com mon knowledge

in ancient Scandinavia that we humans only went to one specific place in the un

derworld: Helheimr.

As a devotee of Hel and the rim e-powers o f Niflheimr, 1 personally see the tran

scendence unto N iflheimr as an hon or and goal, not a punishment. I also see the

rather young concep t of Helviti as a gift, rather than the twisted theory that it would

have anything to do with a penalty. I believe that Helviti could be something like

the Hellenic tradition to pay coins for being transported to Hades, as Styx and C er

be rus could easily be compared to Gjoll, Helvegr and Garmr.

MY UNDERSTANDING AND CONCLUSION

(Please look at my chart o f the O N cosmology called Heldrasill in the append ix

while reading this text).

Somewhere in the midst o f Chaos, the endless black ocean o f tranquility, lies a

small intruding creation called the cosmos, O I Allheimr. It is a sphere w ith a collec

tion o f worlds within it. In the O N mythology and belief

the cosmos was allegorized as a tree , a world-tree1- with

the crown being the higher realm, the trunk being the m id

dle realm, and the roots the lower realm. This is a simple

map many o ther traditions use in this form or another. In

the O N tradition the bottom of the underworld,

undirheimar, is in the east, and the highest peak of the upper world where the highgods have their domain, AsgarSr, is in the west. Below on the trunk of the world-

tree lay the middle earth, MiSgarSr, the world o f the humans. To the no rth/ east o f

MidgarSr lies the “upper” world of the giants, &jri Jvtunheim, "upper giant-home."

It was probably thought of as being on th e border o f the underworld, as there is

supposed to be a portal from the uppe r world to the underworld, and it m ost likely

1There has been many disputes

weather it is an Ash-tree or

Yew-tree; in my book it is a

Yew-tree.

94



Un d i r h e i ma r

lies in the ofri Jotunheim. The underworld starts at the world-trees roots

(undirheimar is written in plural because it is no t one world but two); to the north,

right below the efri (upper) Jotunheim, lies the underw orldly version of the giant-

world, the nidri (lower) Jetunheim. In the world o f the giants, Jotunheim r, lies the

well of wisdom w hich is known as the well of Mimir, Mimisbrunnr. The n orthe rn

root o f the world-tree leads to Jotunheim r and Mimisbrunnr. At the no rth/e ast of

Jotunheim r lies the infamous Ironwood, Jarnvidr, the dark and cold dwelling of Gul-

lveig. The darkness and coldness of the Ironw ood comes from Niflheimr s chaotic

blackness and rime-ocean storms, as Niflheimr lies right under Jotunheimr an djam -

vidr in the north-east beyond the realm of undirheimar in Chaos. However, the

shores of Hvergelmir called the icy waves, filivagar, lies on the border between

Chaos and undirheimar , and its poisonous icy waters intrude the underw orld as

eleven rivers. The middle root of the world-tree reaches all the way down to the well

of wisdom which is know n as Hvergelmir in Niflheimr. And the third roo t which

leads to the South ends up in Helheimr, which is the second world in the under

world; the world o f the dead. The roo t leads to its well of wisdom known as UrSr’s

well, Urdarbrunnr. Un der H elheimr to the South-East lies the world o f flames,

Muspellzheimr - beyond the realm of undirheimar in Chaos. Lastly, between Nifl

heimr and Muspellzheimr remains the primordial black portal, the once gaping jaws

of Chaos; Ginnungagap.

There are three worlds that I have not included; the only reason why I didn 't is

that they have no p art in this work. In the crown of the world tree Vanaheimr and

Alfheimr are supposed to lie, and Svartalfaheimr is supposed to lie in theunderworld.

95




SUMMARY

I. Chaos is all, and within Chaos the cosmos lies like an egg.

II. The cosmos holds th e world tree and its worlds.

III. The upper worlds are: a) AsgarSr, b) Midgardr, and c) “upp er” Jotunheim r.

IV. The unde rwo rld includes: a) Jotunheim r, and b) Helheimr.

V. Jarnvi5r (ironwood) is a region in the ea st/n or th ofJotun heim r where Gullveig

(and Fenrir) has he r abode un der the name AngrboSa.

VI. The three roots lead to the three wells of wisdom: 1) Mimisbrunnr, 2) Urdar- brun nr , and 3 ) Hvergelmir.

VII. Elivagar is Hvergelmirs sea-shore where eleven rivers of Hvergelmir s icy

water run out.

VIII. The worlds in Chaos are Niflheimr and M uspellsheimr. They both lie on

each side o f Ginnungagap.

96



H e l - In Sv a r t a

The name Hel, gen. Heljar, derives from the Gothic word halja, Old High German

hella. Halja is commonly translated to “underworld” and according to Rydberg it

derives from the Latin word occulere; to conceal, preserve, which in its turn is cog

nate with occultum, a hidden place. Indirectly it suggests a place in darkness, which

could be allegorized as a grave, cave, an d o f course so mething undir heimar , "under

the worlds", or a divinity from such a place. Hel as a term for the underw orld was

no t a place o f suffering in the early ON religion; it was ano ther dim ension where

everybody descended into after death. The ON religion was a polytheistic religion

and the underw orld as the up per world had many ruling divinities, and therefore

also many different purposes. Your death and descent into the un derwo rld did not

equal suffering and Helvtti; it gave you another sublime opportunity of existence.

Hel could no t simply be compared to Gehen na an d Tartarus, or Hades an d Sheol;

that is why the earliest Christian Bible in a Germanic language used the Gothic word

halja for Hell instead o f the O N Hel, as the O N concept H el did not represent what

the Christians Inferno embraced. But when Snorri s Gylfaginning-saga was spread

through Scandinavia, the O N u nderworld-be lief was quickly deviated and slowly

turned into a m onotheistic belief. Ch ristianity was quick in defiling all good in the

ON belief, bu t kept fragments o f it to make an example of how bad tha t old heathen

religion was. Thats why they kept the O N term helviti and turned it into a word for

their burning underw orld inferno Hell: Swedish and Norwegian Helvete and Danish

97




Helvede. The new traditions in Scandinavia saved a few more terms connected to

Hel to point out a negative tone around Hel, for example the ON saying {Hel ,

roughly translated into "to death" (w ith the no tion d eath as the world of the dead),

which is still kept in mod ern Swedish; ihjal, to beat or starve someone to death etc.;

OI drepa (Hel, "to kill".

Hel, the black giantess - I call her bldrdma and svartheidr - is one of the mo st

complex and challenging characters in the ON mythology. Her role in the sagas and

the belief is to rule the world (s) o f the dead - Helheimr, and also Niflhel-Niflheimr.

There is not much said about Hels characteristics in Scemundar Edda-f it is Snorris

inspiration of the C hristian mytho logy that first describes He ls appearance as the

giantess of the dead. Gylfaginning describes that Hel was cast down into Niflheimr

by Odinn and made her the ruler o f nine worlds. Gylfaginning 34:

Hel kastadi hann \ Niflheim og gaf henni vald yfi r mu heimum, a<5 hun skipti ollum

vistum med t>eim er til hennar voru sendir, (эад eru sottdaudir menn og ellidaudir.

Hun £ bar mikla bolstadi og eru gardar hennar forkunnar h£ir og grindur storar.

tljudnir heitir salur hennar, Hungur diskur hennar, Sultur knlfur hennar, Ganglati

braellinn, Ganglot ambatt, Fallandaforad breskuldur hennar er inn gengur, Kor saeng,

BHkjandabbl arsali hennar. Hun er bla half en half med horundar lit. Pvl er hun

audkennd og heldur gnupleit og grimmleg.

* * *

Hel he cast into Niflheimr, and gave to her power over nine worlds, to apportion all

abodes among those that were sent to her. That is, men dead of sickness or of oldage. She has great might there; her walls are exceedingly high and her gates

great. Her hall is called Eljudnir; her dish, Hungur; Sultur is her knife; Ganglati her

thrall; Ganglot her maidservant; Fallandaforad her threshold, by which one enters;

Kor her bed; Blikjandabol her bed-hangings. She is half blue-black and half flesh-

color, by which she is easily recognized, and stooping and grim.

Evidently she was “doo med” to live in Niflheimr, which in itself holds Niflhel,

due to he r powerful character and adverse tem per towards the cesir, a rime-thursian

giantess - daughter o f Gullveig and Loki. As for Hel as a realm, Helheimr, it could

be und erstoo d in several mod ern sources th at Hel equals the whole underworld,

so what is the difference between Hel, Helheimr, and Niflhel? After Ive been re

searching this in the ON literature I found th at H el later became synonymous with

the underworld as an outcome from negligence to specific aspects. Much like the

ON noun helviti, “H els pun ishm ent” or “the fine o f Hel”, was a concept that got

twisted around by the same kind of negligence, and helviti became the modern word

for the Christian Hell, Jewish Gehenna, and Hellenic Tartaros. This is not a rare

98



ph eno men on , i t actually h appens all the time, even in mod ern times. W hat I want

to say with this is tha t the name Hel, for the realm of the dead, was from the b egin

ning synonymous with Helheimr and Niflhel as a location of the dead in Niflheimr

alone; in its primitive form, as Vafprudnismal 43 informs:

...I went all the way down to Niflhel, where the dead who have died out of Hel

dwell.


The underworld all together was from the beginning only seen as and called

undirheimar , the un der worlds (note plural). However, with time the whole lower

region which contained several worlds became the region o f the dead; hence the

modern and com mo n und erstanding of the name Hel. So in my opinion, Hel as a

name of a realm is just an epithet for a collection of certain worlds, such as the lower

ones, which hold the dead. From this hypothesis I chose to use Hel only in its prim itive and co rrect form for the giantess and daughter of Gullveig, H elheimr for the

world of the dead located in the underw orld (undirheimar) n ot being its equal, and

Niflhel for the realm of th e dead in Niflheim r which lies in Chaos - three different

entities but strongly interlinked. The fact that Helheimr and Niflhel were two sep

arate heimar (w orlds) is told in Bdldrs Draumar 2 and Vajprudnismdl 43; th is shows

however what a big difference it exi s ted be twe en them. To “die out of H e l h e i m r”

and descend unto Niflhel testifies o f the similarity to wh en yo u “die out of MiSgardr”

and descend u nto the underworld. H ow exactly this functioned the sagas do no t

say, but it strengthens my theory that Niflhel/Niflheimr lays in Chaos - beyond the

underw orld and Helheimr.

Now, exactly ho w Niflheimr and Niflhel were separated we d on’t know, so after

a thorough investigation on this subject I take them for being one and th e same; I

believe the name Niflhel jus t emphasizes th e death ly aspec t of th is realm, because

of the epithe t for Hel as the ru ler in Niflheimr. To me, Nifl-Hel means Hel o f Nifl

heimr, which has with time becom e an epithet for Niflheimr too, the hom e o f the

dead in the world o f mists and darkness. C ompare this to the

OI ep ithets hclvitismyrkr, "the darkness o f Hel s fine”, and Hel-

blar ( bldr sem Hel)1, "black as Hel". The last one is interesting

because it denotes the O N people s view upon Hel the giantess;

this was before the stagnant and dualistic thinking came to

Scandinavia with the Chr istendom , where Hel became allegorized as half black and

half white to stress the new religions dualistic view upon death (a good one or a

bad on e) , compared to the primitive pluralistic O N perspective whe re you had at

least four locations for the dead. Some people claim tha t it represents the m oon



99




phases. I myself rejec t this whole allegorization of Hels appearance being half black

and h alf white, I think it degrades her totality as a mighty thursian rime-giantess.

Hel was initially looked upon in Old Scandinavia as a black and livid hue1repre

senting the pure blackness and cold of Niflheimr and death. This

1Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, An [s Very interesting as she is the ruler o f Niflheimr and is allego-

Icelandic-Enghsh Dictionary. rized as bJack; anJ the njfej. Qf Muspellzheimr, Surtr, is called

the black-headed one, Svarthojdi. In addition to this I want to

mention tha t I suspect that Helheimr and Niflhel were looked upon, in medieval

Scandinavia, as being the entire underworld split in two; the bright one and the

dark one - hence He ls late appearance as half white and half black, representing

just this (nijl is generally translated into mist or darkness). Helheimr is located above

Muspellzheimr and its heat, and Jotunheimr, which by this hypothesis must be ex

changed with th e medieval view upon Niflhel, is located above Niflheimr with its

cold and darkness; which could have been allegorized as Helhe imr was green andsumm ery because o f Muspellzheimr s warmth, and Niflhel dark and cold by Nifl

heim r s gloomy cond ition (see char t in appendix). This is probably how Snorri saw

it. There is no proof of this though; this is just my own interpre tation. But with the

medieval Scandinavians’ turning to the monotheistic religion, dualism infected their

whole world-view, and this is exactly how the primitive ON religion withered into

oblivion.

Niflheimr is proven to lie in Chaos, which means that according to Gylfagirining

34 Hel descended into the underworld and transcended onto Chaos (beyond the

underworld). This is again a hypothesis which I do not agree with; I believe thatHel never ended up in the care of the <tsir in the first place, but stayed in Niflheimr

the whole time. She was born there from Gullveig s womb of darkness and there

grew into the icy thursian power allegorized as Death. I strongly believe tha t Hel as

the rule r of the dead has always been seen as the "black hue” in the deepest gape of

the un derworld; the part which belongs to Chaos. Gullveig is the m ightiest and

highest o f all the thursian giantesses, and her daughter Hel is the secon d most pow

erful thursian giantess, so according to this genealogy sprung from Chaos and Icy

Darkness ( hrimmyrkr ), Gullveig is called the Old One and Hel is thereby the

Younger One - which in its turn makes Hel a Chaos-giantess. By her mighty power

and her place next to Gullveig she can rule the whole unde rwo rld and n ine worlds

from her black throne in Chaos. However, as a result of Gylfagirining, H el is in gen

eral seen as a manifestation and personification of the entire underw orld, un der

stood as a realm of the dead by many o f the m odern mythologists; a hypothesis

which canno t be accurate as Hel is no t the sole ruler in the underworld. She is no t

even the sole ruler of the dead; the giantess R in for example swallows the dead that

100




have drowned, and I don t think it is as simple as that. First off, Hel is a giantess, a

queen of the dead with the particular purpose of guiding the dead and their destiny.

She swallows them and makes sure that they do no t return to the u pper world by

letting he r guardian Garmr, the blood-soaked one, watch over them all. Garmr is a

thursian dog, Heljarsintii, who guards the dead at Helgrindr (some compare him to

Fenrir, I believe he is analogous to H ati). Hel is the daug hter of the Chaos-thurses

Gullveig and Loki, which makes D eath the ir invention and apparatus. Hel has the

epithe t Loka maer, Loki s daughter; w hich was also used as a synonym for death;

“to play with” or “to be taken by Loka nicer *for example meant to be dead.

H els siblings were also archetypes of death. Jormungand r is the thursian serpent

which is comm only known as a symbol of death. He encircles the u pper or middle

world and holds it in his grip; he is the threshold facing the un derw orld. H e is ven

omous and gigantic, dwelling in the depth s o f the sea in wait for the day of wrath,Ragna Rok. Fenrir is the violent death unleashed and untamed. He is a symbol of

the wolfish jaws of nature that are always hungry and that are always on the prowl.

Fenrir dwells in the underwo rld togethe r with his m other Gullveig and procreates

unlimitedly; all wolves and werewolves come from him and his m other. The wolves

are attributed with a hellish throa t1due to their greed, and Bugge wrote that the

wolfish Devil was called lupus vorax2} as in «tn Ftnrisulfr fer

med gapandi munn og er hinn efri kjaftr vid himni en hinn nedri

vidjordu3 (Gylfaginning 51) and «skal alda hverrfara til heljar

hedan» 4 (Fdfnismal 10). In symbology the wolf represents

Death and her h unger and greed, swallowing of the dead. The

ON poetry loved to express this in embellished songs; the

Eddas say for example «par er pik Hel hafi, haldi Hel pvt er hepr,

and hefir nu Hel», all saying tha t Hel shall have you. This is in

analogy with the wolfish en tity and descent, and thereby self

explains the nexus between D eath and the Wolf, i.e. Hel and

Fenrir.

1Grimm, Teutonic Mythology.

2Bugge, 1899, The Home of the

Eddie Poems with Especial Refer -

ence to the Helgi-Lays.

3 "Fenrir shall rise with gaping

mouth , and his upper jaw shall

reach the heaven and the lower

the earth."

4 "Though all people shall fare

hence to Hel."

This archetypal trinity of death, Hel, Jormungandr, and Fenrir, is the spawn of

the m ost powerful Chaos-giants in the Old Norse: Gullveig and Loki. An d it is Gul

lveig and Loki s attributes that have created these m onster-children. This is shown

especially in Gullveig, Fenrir and Hel, and in Loki and h is first-born Jormungan dr.

It is partly confusing, but at the same time very fascinating and logical. Hel is

confirmed to be the daughter of Gullveig and Loki, also a Chaos-giantess and ru ler

of Helheimr and Niflhel/Niflheimr. She is the sovereign of the world of death, she

101




is the queen of the darkest underworld and the malady-spirits in the form o f a gi

antess called Leikn1. There is not much proof of Leikns existence, but some very

interesting details are found in Skaldskaparmdl 11, which is a list of giants and gi

antesses killed by f>orr; it says «leggi brauz tpu Leiknar», "you

broke Leikns legs". Could this be connected to when the cesir,

presum ed ly t>orr, threw Hel into Niflhe imr (according to

Snorri) and broke ha lf of her body?2 This might be a direct proof

for their identification as the same giantess. The saga Ynglinga

tal 7 says: «Yngva pjodarLoka nicer of leikinn hefr», "Yngvi whom

Lokis child was playing with". And in Voluspd 22 Leikin is also

men tioned as hug Leikin, not so surprisingly together with the

explanation of Heidrs black magic or necromancy:

1Rydberg claims that the giant

ess Hel is wrongfully called Hel,

that her true name is

Leikn/Leikin due to her necro

mantic and pestilent qualities.

2 Gylfaginning 34.

3 Cleasby-Vigfiisson, 1874, An


Heidi hana hdtu,

hvars til husa kom,

volu velspa,

vitti hon ganda,

seid hon hvars hon kunni,

seid hon hugleikin,

ae var hon angan illrar brudar.* ♦ *

Heidr her name was,

to houses she came,

the seeress with adequate prophecies.


she conjured disease,she invoked Leikin,


by wicked women.

Hug- comes from the ON word hugr , mind, with the notion of thought; hugr can

even by itself mean heart3. The word in its overall sense carries the meaning of in

spirited (with a soul). I like to compare this to the line where Loki is said to devour

Gullveig s heart, which he found among her ashes; Veluspd in skamma 12:

Loki at hjarta

lindi brenndu,

fann hann halfsvidinn

hugstein konu;

vard Loftr kvidugr

af konu illri;

t>adan er a foldu

flagd hvert komit.

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♦ * ♦

Loki ate a heart

burnt upon the embers,

he found the half-singed

heart of a woman.Loptr was expectant with child

of that wicked woman;

and from this

all monsters derived.

Hugsteinn, mind-rock, is an O N poetic metaphor for heart; it was thought that

you r soul lived within yo ur heart, here allegorized as an “inspirited rock.” So when

Loki ate Gullveig s heart he got inspirited by her spirit, which in the sagas leads to

pregnancy. In these two examples above I w an t to put em phasis on hug- and its

meaning “inspirited” which is the foundation of my own hypothesis that hugleikin

in this case refers to necrom ancy - sorcery dealing with Hel-powers; the wielding

of “ensouled dea th” which would be the essence o f Leikn or Hel. The line seid hon

hugleikin would then mean, as I und erstand it, that Heidr is practicing necromancy,

the a rt of her daughter; Leikins black magic. True necrom ancy could more properly

in O ld Norse be called; Heleik inn - NflfflMi.

After I discovered the true mean ing o f these lines, I found the same theo ry in

Rydberg s work from 1886, and he helped me to find even more details on this sub

ject (you can compare this part to his work.) He po ints o ut the two same bu t differ

ent lines in Codex Regius' Voluspd, which says:

seid hon kvni

seif) hon leikin

The first interesting detail is that kvni here is spelt with a “v” and no t a “u”, and

according to Bugge, in Codex Regius “v” is used for bo th “u” and ay n. This means that

kvni could be the O N neuter noun kyn in dative; kyni, kyn which Rydberg says

means monstrous or supernatural. He compares this noun kyn to the OI words kyn-

jamein and kynjasott which are sup posed to mean “a disease received through sor

cery.” Jus t like my ow n hypothesis, in both places o f the two quo ted lines seid is the past tense o f the verb stda, the process of performing magic/sei^r, and no t the noun

seidr itself: see fur ther An Icelandic-English Dictionary by Cleasby and Vigfusson

under Sida, v. > "... of which occur only th e infin. pret . seid, Vsp. 25.” You can trace

the ON kyn in the Icelandic words kyngi, magical knowledge, and jjolkyngi, black

magic and witchcraft. It mo st likely derives from the O N stem kunna, to know, as in

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Gu l l v e ig a r b o k

the English word can (know) which derives from the same root as ON к и т , which

is the Latin gnosco, get to know, gnosis (Greek); knowledge, cognosco, to learn, know.

I compare this to the rune Kyn (<); which is, in my understanding, the tru e name

and m eaning of this rune. The O l no un kyngi is a remnant of what the Kyn rune

stands for; enlightenmen t and gnosis (received as magical/divine knowledge). The

rune belongs to the bringer of the black flames - the M uspell-born Loki.

So for Heidr to seid leikin m ust mean that she practiced necromancy by invoking

and evoking her daughter Hel/Le ikin to bring death and disease1. This is most likely

connected w ith the ON belief that diseases arise from the act of being ridden by

witches2: as Hel is allegorized riding her black gandr when she ascends from the un

derworld to eat the dead in MiSgarSr, which in its turn could

have been an allegory of H els essence possessing the world-

tree s roo t and in that way spreading sicknesses and death to all

life which is nourishing from the world-tree - thus Hel is riding

her three-legged gandr Heldrasill. In Saga Olafs Tryggvasonar,

in Snorr i s Heimskringla, we find a very interesting testimony

about H els steed, Leiknar hest:

1Compare to Vigfusson, Ryd

berg; and Egilsson, 1931, Lexicon Poeticum.



Tldhoggvit let tiggi

Tryggva sonr fyrir styggvan

leiknar hest a lesti,

Ijotvaxinn hrae Saxa.

Vinhrodigr gaf vi'da

vfsi margra Frisa

blokku brunt at drekka

Ы66 kveldridu stodi.

It is skittish, styggr, foully grown, Ijotvaxinn, black, blokku, it drinks blood, drekka

Ь Ш , and it is called a steed of a death-rider, kveldridu stodi. The saga Heimskringla

was written during the years of 1200 AD, which means its a pretty late medieval

saga. So wheth er this allegorization of Hels steed is a remnant from an early ON

mythology or n ot we don't know. However, without me being too m odern in think

ing, I believe that this kind of a metaphor for H els Nifl-steed could have some truth

in it Chthonic monsters and troll were strongly believed to be deformed and malignant, even before the Christian influences corrupted the original body of the ON

sagas. Just take Garmr, Fenrir and Jormun gand r for example; they are not really

friendly pets of the aesir, Fenrir is described as being a horrible giant beast: «en Fen-

risulfr fe rr med gapandi munn , ok er inn nedri kjd ftr vid jordu, en in efri vid

himin. Gapa myndi hann meira, ejrum vceri til. Eldar brenna or augum bans ok

104



nosum» l. Jormung andr is called su er god fia, the o ne hated by the gods - they are

giant-monsters, wrathful and antagonistic. Hymniskvida for example explains multi

headed giants from the east:

sa hann or hreysummed Hymi austan

folkdrott fara

fjolhofdada.2


HEL’S ATTRIBUTES

Necroman cy is obviously attributed to Hel; she is the qu een

of deathly powers and keeper of the realm of the dead. She

was viewed as a black shining hue that came to collect the deador the ones dying. She embraces their spirits and her ally

Nidhoggr gorges on the ir corpses, i.e. their dead remains. Hel s

ower in MidgarSr dwells in places o f dea th an d liminal

areas, such as burial sites in general and crossroads. In Bangs

irreplaceable work on Old Norwegian magical formulae

Norske Hexeformularer ogMagiske Opskrifter( 1901-1902) he

proves w ha t significance certa in black magical actions had in

necromantic praxis, such as the use of crossroads, walking

backwards, the nu mbe r 3, and noc turnal workings. All these

attributes are given to Hel and sh ould work as a found ation in

ON necromantic magic in Hels name. She is death personi

fied, and she was illustrated in th e medieval sagas as riding on

a rabid and pestilent black three-legged horse, which looked

like death itself. This is undoubtedly a m etaph or for Heldrasill

itself, drasill in ON means horse and the skeletal roots of the

und erw orld were seen as a three-legged horse: Hel-drasill -

Hels Horse. The Heldrasill also worked as the gandr o f the

deathly queen Hel, gandr being he r black magical vehicle she

is riding on w hen she travels - Hel rides the black three-legged

horse and her mother Gullveig rides the thursian wolf (as

Hyrrokin). The gandr becam e an attribute to giantesses in general and the gandr

(pi. gandar) was originally viewed as a wolf (hen ce the O N w ord vitnir, wolf, which

derives from the O N word vitt, magic; vitnir 3then being the magical wolf-gandr of

the giantess, witch, and fjolkunnigr-seidberandi)4, bu t also as monsters such as drag-

1"Fenrir shall fare with gaping

mouth, an d his lower jaw shall

be against the earth, bu t the

upper against sky, he would

gape more if there were room.

Fires blaze from his eyes and

nose." Gylfaginning 51.

2 "He saw a multi-he aded lot

fare with Hym ir from the east

out of the beep s of rocks."

3 Fenrir was called Vitnir in the

ON poetry, most likely a rem

nant from the Hyrrokin-

mythos which is symbolizingthe wolf as being the ‘carrie r' or

"conveyor" of (supernatural)

knowledge as the ON word vit

suggests. Compare this to the

wolf's ep ithet gifrs hest, witch-

horse, i.e. "the conveyor o f a su

pernatural power."

4 Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874, An

Icelandic-English Dictionary, and

Egilsson, 1931, Lexicon Poet-

icum.

105



G u l l v eig a r b Ck

ons and serp ents (as in Jorm ungandr), representing the g iantesses’ staffs of power

(voir - velva) w hich in the ir turn became the w itches’ broo m s in later folklore. This

is connected to the O N belief in kveldrida, w hich was a giantess or witch wh o rode

a gandr in the night or in the twilight, he r gandar was known to be a w olf (kveldridu

stod; th e wolf, which is a derivation from the primitive O N word gandr, wolf), mostlikely remnan ts derived from the primitive Gullveig-mythos. And kveld- is not de

rived from the O N word kveld, evening or dusk, but from the ON word kvelja as in

to torm ent or kill. So a correct translation of kveldrida would be a d eath-rider or a

torment-rider. The view upon the kveldrida fits also better with the equivalent

myrkrida. Gifr and tunrida are also connected to the entity kveldrida-, « tunridur leika

lofti a» (Hdvamal 155), "hedge-riders play in the air". Tunrida, hedge-rider, was a

"witch" or a ghost who flew around in the air, thus the Old Scandinavian people be

lieved that tunrida rode on the ir hedges and th e tops o f houses during the nights.

The gifr was a nam e for witches or fiends, as in gtfrs hestar , witch-horses, which was

an epithet for the wolf. ON hest in mythology meant n ot just horse but many times

carrier or conveyor, and the wo lf was viewed as being the g iants' an d witches' horse,

and ships were called sea-horses and even sea-wolves.

The raven was also seen as one o f the animals which belonged to the possessors

of the death-aspect. In my opinion there is a reason why Odinn's underworld-spies

are ravens. Ravens were like mythological serpen ts and dragons in the way tha t they

represented a messenger - Heljarhrafn; he rald o f death. Ravens symbolized the

black death: airborne an d intelligent. To see ravens was o ften seen as a bad om en;

as if Hel herself was present. Solarljod 67 confirms their con nection to Hel:

...Hel’s ravens violently hacked out their eyes from their skulls.

The raven is naturally a symbol of death; the flying black bird who seeks places

of death. The raven is considered an omnivore, b ut he is very often a scavenger living

off carrion, this is how he naturally becom es a m etaphor for death, he is often scout

ing for cadavers. Hun ters in Sweden have told me that if you go out in the w oods

and shoot a round w ith your rifle ravens will soon gather arou nd you. Indeed, if you

have been close to a raven and had the chance to loo k into his black lustrous eyes

you kno w that it is no t you who is observing him, it is he who observes you. Wh en

you see a flying raven at dusk cawing his melancholy, you soon u nde rstan d why the

raven has been an om en and herald o f death for ages. The raven also has a hab it of

nesting close to humans, simply because he is no hun ter and it is easy to steal from

us. Back in the superstitious times this o f course gave people the uncom fortable

feeling that death was their neighbor. The scientific nam e o f the species is Co rvus

106




Corax, and in the same genus there is a smaller Corvus: the crow. The crow is no t

that different from the raven as a bird o r in folklore and mythos. In the ON sagas

Gullveig turn ed into a crow and h er daughter Hel has ravens, with the attributes

given to the raven and th e crow com pared to the attributes given to both Gullveig

and Hel, there is no doubt that they all are attributed and interlinked to each other.

107



T h e O f f s p r in g

Jormundgandr, Fenrir and Hel are the mythological children of Gullveig and

Loki, the m ost feared thursian m onsters throug hout the entire mythology. They

were conceived by Loki eating Gullveig s heart th ree times after she had bee n

burned, as he r hear t was not bu rn t (because o f its rim e-cold essence). Jormungandr

being the serpen t that encircles MiSgardr, hence his epith et MiSgarSsormr1; he is

an allegorization of what snakes through the worlds and encloses them with the

thursian venom - Nifl’s tortu ous venom - Hvergelmis eitrdr. This metaphor could

be seen as a serpent-like pow er which circulates darkness an d adversary in the

worlds. He controls the worlds by enfolding them. Jormun gandr represents both

wa ter/ice and fire as a sea-monster and a serpent. Fenrir is the second son and he is

a wolf, so big his lower jaw rests on the ground and his upper jaw touches the sky,

so much drool oozes out from his blood-stained m outh th at the river called Van

came ou t of it. He is the un controlled force, the flames' hunger and the oceans'

thirst. Garmr, Hati and Skoll represent him, the restless and ceaseless hunters who

aim to swallow the m oon and th e sun. Fenrir s abode is Jarnvidr with his mother

Gullveig; there they spawn thurs-wolves and werewolves together. Fenrir represents

the fire of Miispellzheimr and Loki s trait. He! is the divine manifestation o f death;

which is self-explanatory, bu t with a much deeper sense and

purpose. She is the ruler o f Niflheim r and everything within

it, hence h er ep ithet Nifl-Hel. It is said that she comes at night

upon her three-legged pestilent horse to reap humans. Hel

represents the wa ter/ice of Niflheimr and Gullveig s trait.

1Gylfaginning 34.

2&3Rooth, 1961, Loki in

Scandinavian Mythology.

All three o f them, Jormundgandr, Fenrir and Hel, are part of the supernatural be

ings which are connected to the entities called the “children o f Cain”2. Rooth also

explains that “Cain becomes the father, not only of monsters, bu t also of all defective

and deform ed crea tures”3. This is a mythological aspect that has been adopted by

the O N people to describe the mon strous giants.*

*

109



Fenrir, the wolf o f death, the cesir’s most feared antagonist

Fenrir, the wolf ofgreediness, OSinn’s bane and Т ут s enfeebler

Fenrir, second born o f Gullveig and Loki

Fenrir, pursgandr, Hyrrokin’s cruel companion

Fenrir, fursvitnir , the mighty wrath ofJarnvidr

Fenrir, the grandness of the thurses, His jaws reach from soil to sky

Fenrir, the strength of the thurses, once fettered by the weak Laedingr,

which He shattered in mockery

Fenrir, the powerfulness o f the thurses, once fettered by the weak Dromi,

which He sha ttered in glory

Fenrir, the assiduousness of the thurses, once fettered by Gleipnir from Svartalfa-

heimr, which shall shatter at Ragna Rok

*


The Antagonist, the Opponent, the Adversary.

FENRIR

The cold and dispassionate eyes wan der over the dark and misty lands from the

snow-clad rock where he stands; the windows of cold hunger are a legacy from his

mother. The inextinguishable hung er stems from the ever-flaming insides of the

beast, his appearance is made for cold, but his inside is an ever-flaming torch whichreach out in rage through his jaws of death. The flaming core is a legacy from his fa

ther. He is Fenrir the mighty; the one called The Wolf, because he is the essence of

the wolf-entity, he is the first wolf, father of the wolf-race, and father o f werewolves.

He spawned abho rrent and d eformed d emo ns with his mother, their lust is his

hunger, a loathsome and c orrupt sexual nature which is unnatural and profane -

lawless and formless - their comm union is above human nature, it supercedes the

gods’ procreation. It is the way o f para-creation: the act of creating what is not supposed

to be created. They create lawlessness in a world o f law; they create war in a world of

structure; they create antithesis and oppos itions; they create world-destroyers and

enemies to the world of the cosmos. The wolf is the allegory of the wild and u ntamed force that dwells deep within the darkness and encircles you witho ut you

knowing it. And like the lightening thrust ou t his burning arm, the wolf springs out

of the d ark and locks his jaws around you. H e is an allegory of the malice in the

abyss; the hateful fiend and his allies who wish to destroy the faith and hope of the

world and to dam n them to perdition.

110




As Fen rir is a mythological offspring of Gullveig, the authors wan ted to make an

allegory of an aspect o f Gullveig (and Loki) separately from her own entity. G ul

lveig s power is such a complex mass of energies tha t they cannot keep together;

some parts of he r essence release themselves from their matrix and strides away by

its own will-power and assiduousness, and become separate entities; independentand self-governing magical wills who turn themselves into thursian giants.

Fen rir holds Gullveig s ferocious aspect; he is a rabid an d destructive power

which brings forth ruin and stunning potency. He is the bestial thurs-wolf, wrathful

and uncontrolled, something tha t a life-worshipper would do anything to keep away

from - as he is ferocity unleashed. Deformed and untam ed he strides on his own

paths only, everything in his way he plows dow n with his talons of hunger; a hunger

of an assiduous purpose, no t for the calming of his belly. He is spawned in darkness

and in darkness he dwells; in Jarnvidr, the depths of the underw orld, he has his

abode - howling in restlessness, breeding grim races (cettir ) of wolves and were

wolves, and stalking the rim to the worlds, agitated and edgy, with the gaze of a

starving and irate hunter. The inner eye fixed upon the main target, this he never

loses, this he forever fantasies about, this he is preparing him self for every second

of his existence. Indeed, as he is the strongest and the spearhead of his cettir, he will

without doubt and questioning take ou t the strongest and mightiest of his oppo

nents: 6<3inn. Fenrir laughs at the though t or his moth ers seering of killing him;

he is obsessed with the idea of it, and he cannot wait until the momen t when he is

standing face to face with Odinn and ripping him in two as he spits MuspeJJs flames

at his naked spirit till it incinerates. Gullveig has already seen it, it will be done!

The derivation of Fenrir s name has been discussed but I have no t seen a con

vincing or satisfying theory yet. My own theory is that the nam e derives from the

OI wor d Jenna, covered with snow; Г т thinking of Fenrir s origin: the snow-covered

lands ofJarnvidr, due to its location close to Niflheimr. In Baldrs Draumar Fenrir s

mother is said to be resting in a snow-covered grave: «Р reid OSinnfyrir austan

dyrrpa r er harm vissi volu leidi... snivin sncevi», "Then OSinn rode to the east ofth e

door, as he knew where the witch lay ... snowed over by snow." This might have been

a com mon idea for the monsters ofJarnvidr to do as they wait for the day of wrath:

Ragna Rok. If the verb fenna was to be made into a noun,/enr, the one covered withsnow, it could easily have been m ade into the nam e Fettr-ir. Sophus Bugge discusses

Fenrir s name in The Home of the Eddie Poems with Especial Reference to the Helgi-

Lays, 1899, where he stated that the ending -r rr did not exist in the O N language;

he says:

I I I




limity - and she will, as Angrboda is Fenrir’s mother , com panion, and leader. He

and his brothers Skoll and Hati will join their dark mothe r in avenging the tyrants

who call themselves dsmegin, "the heavenly divine power" - the gods who brag about

their dsmodr, "the divine streng th o f I>6rr", which is nothing m ore th an a replica of

the thurses ultimateness, their dsrflci,".Heaven", which slowly fades, an d the ir proud

dsajporr , "t>6rr", whom will soon d rink the rime-w ater of Fenrir’s sibling.

113



Th e O f f s p r i n g

Just from this qu otation we can draw many parallels with Jorm unga ndr s ON

mythos, and I think it is obvious that they share essence, attributes and manifestation.

Sadly, the very limited mythos about Jorm ungandr and h is/h er relationship with

Gullveig do not give us much, bu t by using our imagination we could hypothesize

that it was thou ght of, in the Old N orse mythology, as Jorm ungandr being Gullveig

and Lokis conjoined Will: a manifestation of their purpose if you will. Wh en Loki

devou red Gullveig s rime-heart he m ight no t really have given bir th to a serpent, it

might have been an allegory for their conjoined Wills taking form. Jormungandr

shows up at Ragna Rok and kills I>6rr, but Gullveig is, strangely enough, not men

tioned during this final battle. So the serpen t might have been her m ighty gartdr

(jormund-f mighty, -gandr, a magical vehicle, or an object used by a sorce rer)1which

she sent in her place to kill her archenem y l>6rr,2As Porr has tried to kill Gullveig s

children: Jorm ung and r in the saga Hymiskvida and during

Ragna Rok in Voluspd ; Hel according to Skaldskapamal 11,

Fenrir, and finally Loki and Gullveig herself several times (e.g.

in Gylfaginning and Skaldskaparmal 11: Hyrrokkin dofyrr i).

The anti-cosmic poison, eitr, in ON mythology represents the

destructive thursian influence which is absorbed by the world

trees roots and in that way infecting the gods and all life.

Within Thursatru3the eitr represents the anti'cosmic gnosis

which is spread by the C haos-powers to enlighten the receptive

and to "melt off” or “kill” the Ego and the cosmic illusions. This

po ison is the arms ofJormungandr, an d might as well be histrue Self. It is no t strange to allegorize mythical water with a

serpen t; rivers normally look like giant serpents. Indeed, Jormungandr spit his eitr

on h6rr, which kills him, in the seering of Ragna Rok, so he is definitely interlinked

with the ON concept of the eitr. With this said I want to add that the explanation

ofJormungand r laying in the bo ttom of the ocean and there encircling the world,

MiSgardr, is for me a m etaphor for the eitr taking form as Jormu ngandr and holds

Midgar5r in its grip - saying tha t the eitr has contaminated the whole creation,

through the roots o f the world tree; “from u nde r the bottom of the sea” and that

there is no way aroun d it.

Jormungandr is called « su er godfia », "the one the gods hate", in Hymniskvida.

It is a very severe appellation and shows that h e/s he was as much an antagonist, op

pon en t, and adversary as h is /h er siblings.

1Compare to Fenrir s epithet

Vanargandr. Gandr also has the

meaning of divine monsters

such as thursian wolves, ser

pents, and dragons.

2This however reminds me of

Lilith and how she used the

serpent.

3See the part o f this book

called Fjolkyngi.

115



G u l l v e ig a r b 6 k

А Л , SK0LL, AND GARMR

Grimnismdl and Gylfaginning illuminate us with the knowledge that the thursian

wolf Fenrir, also called Hrodvitnir, is the father of Hati, as Hati is called Hati

Hrodvitnisson in Gylfaginning 12 and Hati, « hann erHrodvitnissonr» in Grimnismdl

39. Gylfaginning continues and says:

A giantess dwells to the east of Midgardr, in the forest called Jamvidr: in that wood

dwell the troll-women, who are known as Jarnvidjur (ironwood-women). The old gb

antess bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this

source are these wolves sprung (i.e. Fenrir, Hati, and Skoll). The saying runs thus:

from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named M£na-

garmr (Moon-Garmr); he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and

he shall swallow the moon, and sprinkle with blood the heavens and all the lair;

thereof shall the sun lose her shining, and the winds in that day shall be unquiet

and roar on every side.

“Managarm r shall be filled with the flesh of all those m en th at die, and he shall

swallow the m oon’. This line explains very much, it shows us that the name Mana-

garmr is both linked to Garmr, the guardian dog in the underworld, and to H ati

who chases the moon. A nd the words “he shall be filled with the flesh of all those

men that die” refers most definitely to Garm r who attacks and devour the dead in

the u nderw orld, and the w ords “he shall swallow the m oon” refers to H ati who

chases the m oon and at Ragna Rok catches and devours it. This in my opinion

proves that Garmr and Hati are in fact the same thursian wolf. It also means thatFenrir is Garmr s father as well as Hati s and their mutual m othe r is then naturally

Gullveig: “the giantess dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest calledJarnvidr...

(she) bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape o fwolves; and from this source

are these wolves sprung.” And concerning Garmr, dogs have frequently been used

by hum ans to guard their grounds, so I dare to hypothesize that th e Old Norse p eo -

ple thoug ht wolves an d dogs were very close in nature.

116



Gu l l v e ig a n d Li l it h

All tha t a wom an wants to be; Gullveig is - because she has no fem inine weakness

or submissiveness. She is the representation of the ultimate feminine power.

FOREWORD

Something that struck me in my Edda-studies was tha t m ost of the aesir have wives

and they are living toge ther in AsgarSr, much like us humans. However, the giant-couples never live together; it m ight say in some few stanzas that in this or tha t yard

a giant couple lives, bu t they are never depic ted as both of them really living there

under the same roof. This is a very interesting detail and the symbolism o f this is

something that m ust be bro ught up, as I will soon explain. I have an interest in other

goddesses such as Lilith, Hecate, Kali and Ereshkigal, and this has brought me a

deeper u nderstanding of the high feminine principle and its role in the mythology

and of the essence o f the divinities. By unde rstanding o ther traditions and mytholo

gies I understand ours better, the O ld Hellenic and M esopotamian ones are funda

men tal influences of the G ermanic religion and have thereby had an imp act in

universal elements amongst the mythological characteristics and essences. W hat I

am trying to say is tha t both Lilith and Hecate are linked in essence to Gullveig and

her daughter Hel, as I have explained before, and they share certain fundamen tal

characteristics such as for example the ultimate elemental fem ininity in the dark

goddess.

Fundamental aspects of especially Gullveig and Lilith are self-independence,

strength, rebellion, and m otherhoo d.

Giants represent the lawlessness, e.g. unnatural essence, attributes and manifesta

tions, and th e sesir represent law and order, e.g. natural essence, attributes and m an

ifestations.*

*

117



G u l l v eig a r bo k

GULLVEIG; THE UNDERWORLDLY MOTHER, CRONE,

AND MAID

She first саш е out o f Chaos as a black icy essence, infesting creation with a hostile

intent. She, the Old One, then embraced the seed of Yggdrasill in the beginning of

time and injected the poison which is metaphorically called waters of Chaos. She

made h er abode by the young roots of Yggdrasill, in the shadows of the world tree

and brilliant stars. Close to the icy and misty world o f eternal w inter she dwells so

that its cold and darkness can Unger in her valleys in a world u nder m en an d gods -

the rulers o f the uppe r worlds. She knows them well as she lurks amongst the m all

in the guise o f their own. Cunning she is, the wise one, drawing her veil of darkness

over their existence - sending he r beast to devour the silvery eye, sending her beast

to devour the golden eye; he guards her realm and gives her sons and daughters.

Crafty she is, nourishing men and the gods with the foul water o f he r icy well; fromwhere all waters, oceans and wells spring. The shining spirit of the old water is black

and foul for men and gods.

She is the old one o f the lower world and the m other to the ruler of the lower

world. She is the wise one who bo re the serpent who keeps the world of men, the

wolf who tames the upper world of the tesir’s races, and the keeper o f the un der

world.

I have shown that Gullveig is a mother-giantess, as she in Jarnvibr produces the

demon-hordes. The sagas say too tha t Barningar are coming from those woods andtracts, and also Loki comes with Naglfar out from the east at Ragna Rok. As it is

told in Voluspa:

In the east in Jarnvidr where the Old One sat,

and there she bore Fenrir’s offspring.

And:

The ship comes from the east,

over the sea the Muspell’s Sons shall come,and Loki steers.

All of Gullveig s offspring are monsters and hybrids; the re are even incest-related

suggestions in Voluspa between Gullveig and Fenrir. Her most famous children are

of course Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hel; a giant snake, a giant wolf, and a giantess

118



Gu l l v e ig a n d L il it h

- all of them are deformed Chaos-creatures - anti-cosmic essences which have taken

an unn atural cosmic form. JarnviSr is located in the farthest east in the depths of

Jotunhe imr, a dark place, where only malign an d anti-cosmic forces dwell. Their

function is com prehen ded as wrathful because they stand for the reaction of the

wrathful acosmic Chaos, a so-called dissolving impulse, towards all bou ndaries and

laws, which are o f cosmic nature (Chaos has no bound aries and laws). JamviSr could

be looked up on as the sphere o f the black moo n; where the dem on-mother procre

ates her kin, a portal to the dark powers - to the anti-cosmic and dissolving impulse.

Esoterically speaking, I see the thurse s as parts o f the impulse; in the ir highest as

pec ts m aybe the who le impulse - what C haos ’ formless energies have be en b ound

into, or boun d the m into.

The impulse can allegorically be pictured as a storm of anti-cosmic powers, which

the O N my thology explains with the hordes of demons, werewolves, thurs-wolves,

thurses and all kind o f monsters storming o ut ofjarnvidr w hen the war-cry of Ragna

Rok echoes throughout the dark forests o f the Old On e.1

I want to remind you tha t Gullveig-Angrboda is seen as

the mother-goddess/giantess, and as Heidr she takes the

form of the witch-aspect and beco mes the giantess of black

witchcraft. She is the witch who walks the earth arou nd the

farm-houses under the name Heidr, and teaches "wicked”

wom en the dark runes and seidr. As the keeper ofjarnvidr

and procreator o f the thurs-m onsters she goes und er thename Ang rboda and is called "She the Old O ne” - In Aldna.

1Its not just from Jarnvidr, in

the sagas the whole world is at

tacked from the underworld

and Jotunheimr by this impulse

of malevolent thurses. I get the

image of the Chaos-ocean

flooding the universe from all

its comers.

This shows that she bears the mother- and the witch-aspects. Additionally, it

shows that she is linked to the m oon , the wolves, and werewolves.

LILITH

I would like to mention that Lilith had b een wo rshiped for more than at least two

thousand years before the G erman mytho logy and worship appeared, and that we

have to bear in m ind th at the Germanic religion derives from places like for example

Mesopotam ia and Hellas. Lilith’s name appeared at the earliest in the Sumerian king

list approximately from 2400 BC. Lilith is the female goddess o f darkness, the bride

of Satan. She is the first wife of Adam who refused to subm it to masculine d om i

nance because she claimed to be equal — and by her rebellious flame she rejected

119




Adam and voiced the secret name of God and took off to the deserted lands at the

Red Sea where lecherous demons dwelt. At this place she stayed and bore demonic

hordes of hundreds of demons every day. This successful rejection o f submission

and utterance of enormity towards G od could without difficulty be seen as analo

gous with Gullveig's exodus from the world (Midgardr) to the underworld (Jarn-

vi5r) away from God's residences. Gullveig refused to be overpowered, and as she

was reborn every time the gods killed her, she obviously showed them that it was

impossible to overpower her; th us her ceaseless repellence of submission. To com

pare the utterance of God's secret name is probably too farfetched, and it m ight be

too mystical as an allegory, but Gullveig s seering of the g od s (cesir ) and the cosmos'

apocalypse could be compared in the symbolism of the action of stupefying the po

sition of God, to gain the result o f deadening and weakening.

So she migrated to th e dark land called JamviSr, just like Lilith, and there Gullveig bore swarms of demonic monsters, looked upon as the world-destroyers, just like the

spawns o f Lilith are called the plagues o f mankind. On the note of procreation of

demons it is impor tant to b ring up the detail that Lilith is called the soul of all the

beasts, and Gullveig the m other of all wolves and werewolves. Ano ther interesting

detail in this context is that some believe that Lilith lived in a cave in the deserted

land by the Red Sea. An ancient Mesopotamian tablet says

abo ut Lilith: “Oh, F lyer in a dark ch am ber”1, which could be

imagined to have been a cave. A cave could be a symbol of a

place in the underworld, “with in the earth” which connects he r

abode with Gullveig's Jarnvidr, which lies in the underw orld.This reminds me o f wha t Jacob Grimm once said: “for a cave covers, and so does

the nether world.” This metaphoric comparison brings another myth about Lilith

to mind; it is when Lilith and Adam were created as one and Liliths soul was lodged

into the Great Abyss. This Great Abyss could be mythologically equated w ith the

Old N orse underworld, which is many times explained as being an abyss. The same

goes, as I understand it, for what the Jewish m ythology calls “The O ther Side.”

Lilith is said to have been initially seen as a storm demon associated with de

structive winds and to be a spreader o f disease and death. This is strongly analogous

with Gullveig’s aspect as a “giantess o f the eastern (sea) storms.” This mythologicalaspect of Gullveig comes from her role as Hyrrokin, who gets called upon at Baldr's

funeral by OSinn himself, as not even the strongest dss o f them all (porv) could

manage to move Baldr's funeral ship to pu t it out to sea. Gullveig came from the

east (i t’s where her abo de JarnviSr is said to be located) as Hyrrokin, riding on a

giant wolf ( pursulfr ), and with one hand she lifted up the ship and blew on it, and it

1 Patai, 1990, The Hebrew

Goddess.

120



Gu l l v e ig a n d Li l it h

stormed ou t to sea. This myth connects he r with eastern storms and feared feminine

power. In another saga it is said ab ou t Gullveig: "G ymirs primevally co ld witch

bears ships amongst s torming waves in the jaws o f AEgir.” Gymir is one of Gullveig's

husband s th rougho ut the myths, and Aigir is an ocean giant, and he is also looked

upon being the same as Gymir.

As I have stated earlier, Gullveig is also looked u po n as a giantess of diseases, death

and destruction; she carries this out in the w orld in the form o f something the an

cient peop le called FrceAurbodu, Aurb odas Seed - the carrier o f the poison. Philo

sophically I would say that this "seed” could also be compared to the noctu rnal and

malicious impulsion and persuasion Lilith has on both men and women, sexually

and black magically. However, the seed might be analogous mostly to the theory

tha t Lilith is in fact the serpen t tha t offers Eve the fruit from the tree o f knowledge,

the "fruit” here being a symbol o f a seed that im pregnates Eve with Qayin and his brothe r. Gullveig is not really men tio ned anywhere in the Old sagas as being a sex

ual persuader, bu t Voluspd tells us this:

Heidr her name was,

to houses she came,

the seeress with accurate prophecies.


she conjured disease,

she invoked Leikin,


by wicked women.

Lilith is also said to have "attached herself to” Qayin and bore his demon-children,

many in number. This correlates perfectly with the myth ofjamvidr, where Gullveig

bore her son Fen rir’s children, m an y in number. A s it is said in Voluspa:

In the east in Jamvidr the Old One sat,

and there bore Fenrir’s offspring.

1Patai, 1990, The Hebrew

Goddess.

It is also said that Lilith forced herse lf upon Adam, against his will,

and thereby bore his children (demons, spirits and Lilin), and theysometimes "ascend from that earth to this world upon which we

stan d”1. This ascension must mean that these demons, spirits and Lilin came from a

world below, and as a metaphor and mythological comparison I take this as that

they ascended from the underworld - the Other Side. This again is analogous to Gul

lveig and he r hosts of children in the underworldly dominion ofJamviSr. Here are

121



some Old Norse thursian analogies: demons; ON flogd, spirits; ON andar, Lilin;

O N Jarnvidjur.

Lilith is also believed to be Samael's twin-sister and mate, and they were em

anated as one below the “Throne of Glory” as androgynous beings. The Teutonic

Germans were obviously very inspired by this while the Germanic mythology was

taking shape. Gullveig and Loki, which are the most known vicious husband and

wife within the n orthern tradition, are mates and they had bo th a known and rogy

nous nature.

Ab out the m oon, Lilith is explained as being connected to the moon, and the

moon phases being a symbolism of her transformation. Gullveig is connec ted to

the m oon as a m other of dem ons in the forms o f wolves ( pursulfar ), and he r wolf-

children are hunting the m oon and the sun to devour them, attempting to destroy

the world. The complex system of Qabalah and Kliffot, and the lunar connections

to Lilith canno t be compared with Gullveig, as the Old Norse tradition did n ot have

that kind of a complex system o f gods and demons. Neither was Gullveig ever men

tioned as being connected to the moon directly.*


*

122



THE DARK FEMININE NEXUS

I have endeavored to show that Hel is the younger form of the dark feminine god

dess in the Old N orse tradition; w here she is the daughter. The elder dark feminine

form of the goddess is her m othe r Gullveig. With this proven, they are in certain

aspects in analogy with Lilith and h er daughter Naamah in the Kliffotic mythology

and tradition, where Lilith is sometimes called Ama Lilith which means Mother

Lilith, and the OI word amma, m other o r grandmother, is obviously connected to

the same Ama in the old name o f Lilith. Amma has never been connected to Gul

lveig in the sagas, but as a mother-giantess very closely connected to the Lilith

mythos I would say it would be correct to give Gullveig the epithet Amma Gullveig.

Furthermore, according to G unnel and Goran Liljenroth in their book Den Gomda

GudinnanlNordiskMytologi (19 95) Hel was called Ama in

a pre-Viking era. I have never come across this information 1 Temple of the Black Light,

elsewhere; regardless, it is very interesting. Lilith is also 2002, Liber Azerate.

called Lilith-Taninsam, Lilith the poisono us se rp en t1, a 1Her serpent child connects

name that represents something similar to Gullveig and her her to serpents and dragons, as

son /dau ghter Jorm ungand r2. her children represent hers and

Lokis aspects. Remember that

both Fenrir and the Serpent o f

Midgard possess epithets that

end with -gatidr, a word repre

senting divine monsters as in

wolves, serpents, and dragons.

123




'34'WVi>i

It s very hard to p ut iron into place in the context of this book, and I have thoug ht

long and hard in order to be able to really understand why Gullveig s final abode

would be called the hon wo od, Jarnvidr, a n d Im still bewildered. I will first present

sundry theories that Iv e come up w ith concerning the name Jarnvidr - even if some

of them might seem a bit far-fetched - and th en I finalize with my conclusions.

It s easy for one wh o follows the left hand p ath to think impulsively of traditional

black magic wh ere iron correspo nds to Mars an d th e co lor red - iron is an attribu te

of the Egyptian god Set, the R oman war god Mars, the G reek Ares, and the Baby

lonian god Nergal: gods o f war, the und erw orld an d the dead, as iron most often

reflects weaponry and bloodshed. Rust with its reddish color has a resemblance

with coagulated blood and iron has been for long been connected to blood as it

smells and tastes like iron. As for rust, it has been thought of being pestilent, in mag

ical symbolism. To a certain extent this is analogous to Gullveig s complex character;

it s probably misleading to call her a war-giantess, bu t she is the instigator of the re

bellion of the thurs-race, the rise of Ragna Rok, as she and L oki are the ones who

trigger this downfall o f the worlds. However, the sagas are no t directly calling her a

war-giantess, neither a leader of wars, but indirectly representing her as one, and

concerning the/oMcvig-mythos in co nnection to her name she is definitely an ou t

come of war. She is coming to this world as three ho rrible thurs-giantesses and

bringing its do om with her; she is in O N symbolism the very essence of the fem i

nine destructive principle, an d in ally w ith Loki they bo th constitute the absolute

destruction - the bloodshed and the curse which OSinn and his brothers brought

upon the cosmos the day they killed and slaughtered Ymir. Thereby Gullveig rep

resents war and bloodshed as it is a means for her pu rpose and existence.

This brough t me to make the same discovery Rydberg did; in Hd va md l

Rydbergnoticed a detail, and it s the name of a giant called AsviSr, which mo st likely belongs

to the giant called “the friend of the gods”, Mimir. An d according to Rydberg, Asvidr

and Asvinr are the same w ord, meaning dss-friend, which caugh t my interest. It

means tha t the O N suffix - vidr could mean “friend”, and th at gives a new approach

to JarnviSr; which in this interpreta tion cou ld mean “iron-friend”/ ’’friend o f iron”

124




magically imprisoned metaphorically by iron - they basically tried to make a prison

of iron which they tho ught cou ld confine Gullvieg. But just like her equal, Lilith,

she was too powerful to be imprisoned or banished, she always came back for her

immortal purposes:

Thrice burned,

thrice born,

oft, not seldom,

yet she still lives.

But there are a few things tha t still bo the r me with this hypothesis. First; the ac

tion of imprisoning Gullveig is no t really of an O N mythological nature, because it

is not like any other confinement that you can find in the ON literature. Loki and

Fenrir got bo und and kept in a cave, but according to the hypothesis above Gullveig

supposedly got kept in a region, called the Ironwood, free to do whatever she

wanted, e.g. having thursian offspring with h er son F enrir many in number. Indeed,

nowhere in the O N sagas is it told that she got imprisoned o r cast down into such

confinement. Also, if she got imprison ed against her will in Jarnvidr, how was it po s

sible for Gullveig to appear at Baldr s funeral to the cesirs aid? This is what makes

me so uncertain in what this woo d o f iron really is.

Iron has many different meanings in traditions and folklore around the world.

But som ething that m ost old cultures have in com mo n is that iron symbolizes evil

and darkness; destruction in a sense, as the iron was used mostly for weapons. Gul-

lveig-Angrboda is actually Chaos’ weapon w ithin the alien creation called the cos

mos, and she and her spouse and ally Loki are the spearheads w ho shall pierce the

hea rt o f the demiurge and his creation: the iron seen as a meta pho r for the thurs -

essence which was bo rn out o f the ore (Chaos). This process o f iron could also be

symbolized as a birth and transformation, and is again connected to the function

of Gullveig as the mother-giantess. To compare all this and the Ironwood with a

blacksmith and his workshop, th e allego rization of a da rk and evil place for a

mother-giantess to procreate evil is very fitting. She spawns werewolves there; the

transformation of Chaos-powers allegorized by wolfish monsters. To understand

the symbolism o f iron and transformation a bit better you can study the m ythos of

the thurs Ljazi; the most excellent blacksmith in the Old Norse mythology, hismagic was unconquerable and he transformed himself from the entity Valand into

the w rathful thurs Ljazi. Iron born of ore (into weapons and too ls) could be seen

as the symbol of productio n and destruction. So if we see her abode o r region as

the place o f darkness where evil is continually generated, the name Ironw ood all of

a sudden makes very much sense.

128



JAr n v i b r

♦

The iron-scythe is the symbol of transformation: the tool of produc tion and the

weapon of destruction. After Gullveig s seeds are spread the iron-scythe will shed.

*

The Gylfaginning saga tells us in sho rt abo ut the troll-women that inhabit the

Ironwood; they are called Jarnvidjur: «peer trollkonur er Jarnvidjur heita». This name

gives me a feeling tha t the prefix jam- is an adjectival form which is suppose to ex

pla in a certa in aspect of the characters; Jarnvidr the land and Jarnvidjur the inhab

itants in my theo ry being an allegory o f the inhabitants’ mythological functional

essence, no t the law of the region. If we take a look at the older spelling of the O N

word jam, isarrx, it is actually a combination of the O N words ($s, ice, and earn, iron,

which I found very interesting in this case. This might o f course just be a coincidence

and not have any etymological authen ticity at all, but xsarn does have both iss and

earn within its body. We all have m ost certainly heard of the saying cold iron or cold

steel, this is an old folkloric saying which was supposed to mean that iron always

felt very co ld and in folklore was known to ward off ghosts and spirits. This was

common knowledge even in Old Scandinavia and there seem to have existed par

allels between ice and iron. As allegories in po etry I can see many similarities be

tween ice and iron; the coldness, the deathly aspect, icicles look like daggers and

swords, and their silvery resemblance. It is not impossible tha t the word isarn hada much deeper and ex tended meaning in the ON language, a meaning that has with

ered through the ages. Isarn might have been connected to the rime aspect of

hrimpursar, it may even have been seen as another usage of the word hrtm. This is

only speculations o f course and with allegorizations you can take it very far if you

do n ot put an end to it. Anyhow, if the ON word jdrnvidr is an ou tcome of an older

version o f the word isarnvidr we have someth ing very interesting, because isarn- fits

much better with the inhabitants’ name Jarnvidjur. Isarnvidjur would, according to

my theory, con nect them to the rime aspect as in rime-thurses, because they are

thurses, and as Gullveig’s children they must be o f the rime essence too; Gylfaginning

saga says that the Jarnvidjur are the children of the old giantess - Gullveig - ingamla gygr. With this hypothesis the Ironwood might have mean t to be seen as the region

of the rime essence; a dark and cold place deep in the eastern part of the underworld,

connected to the depths o f Niflheimr (I believe Jarnvidr lays directly above Nifl-

heimr in the underworld, so the Nifl-cold most certainly affects Jarnvidr with eternal

extreme winters and ice - see my chart Heldrasill in the appendix), a place where

129




ice is so old and prim itive that it is as solid as iron and even shimmers like iron -

the shade o f silver. The usage o f the word iron in the name Jarnvidr would have

meant "the ever cold” as iron seems to always be cold. Its very important to remem

ber that the autho rs o f the sagas in Old Scandinavia were very much into explaining

all elements and entities in deep m etaphors; the ir allegories were often so complex

it is hard to translate and u nderstand their full meanings today To use iron for a

me taphor for ice would be a reasonable thing to do. Snorri tells us that this connec

tion was noticed in Old Scandinavia, as he tells us in Gylfaginning 1 1:"... horses that

drew the chariot of the sun, which the gods had fashioned, for the world's illumi

nation, from that glow which flew out of Muspellzheimr. Those horses are called:

Arvakr and Alsvidr; and under the shoulders of the horses the gods set two wind

bags to cool them, but in som e records tha t is called uron-coolness’.”1“Iron-coolness”

is called in OI isarnkol, m uch similar to what I just discussed.

1« ... hesta, er drdgu kerru sdlar-

innar, peirar ergo ftin hojdu ska-

pa t til atlysa heimana afpeiri sxu,

er fl auS ° r Muspellsheimi. Peir

hestar heita svd, Arvakr ok

Alsvidr, en undir bogum hestanna

settu godin tvd vindbelgi at kcda

pa, en i sumum frcedum er pat

kallat isarnkol».

Skadi is called a Jarnvidja, and she is the daughter of the

rime-th urs I>jazi, he who evoked the three terrible winters

(fimbidvotr ) that would be the beginning of Ragna Rok. Is this

no t an obvious “coincidence”, that the wrathful thurs who is

one of the most dangerous a ntagonist to the aesir and the

worlds, and who use win ter and ice as weapons, is the father

to a fsamvidja? And as Skadi s moth er is no t known, and that

Jarnvidjur are said to be o f the O ld one in Jarnvidr, who might

2"In the east sat the Old One in

the Ironwood and gave birth toFen rir s chiidren."

3"A giantess lives to the east of

Midgardr in the forest which is

called Jarnvidr."

her m other be?

There migh t be a confusion abou t the location o f the Iron-

wood; it s easy to get the impression tha t it dwells somewhere

in the uppe r Jotunheim r next to Midgardr. However, tha t is

impossible as it is told that the Ironwood lies in the east of

Midgardr, and only the underworlds lie there: a) Voluspd 40

«austr sat in aldna xJarnvidi okfceddipar Fenris kindir»1, b) Gylfaginning 12 «Gygr

tin byrfyrir austan Midgard xpeim skogi, er Jarnvidr heitir » 3 (please see my cha rt of

the Heldrasill in the appendix). This proves that the Ironwood is located in the un

derworld.

♦

130



Gu l l v e ig a r b Ck

too deep as an allegory, we already know the full myth ab out F jalarrs intent to visit

Egg^er, and it is to collect the magical sword Gamban teinn for Fjalarr s father Surtr,

the sword that Egg|>er guards and looks after as it is hidd en deep within Jarnvidr.1

The kenninggygjar hirdir refers bo th to Gullveig (the gygr) and Eggf>er (the hirdir). If we would to allegorize a tree in JarnviSr, a gallows tree would actually fit very well

in a dark underworld forest full of malignant and hateful werewolves, troll and

thurses. Not to forget, haugr in ON was also a grave, and since EggJ>er, the herder

of the giantess-witch who he lped plan the men, gods, and worlds' downfall, sat

und er a gallows-tree on a haugr to protec t the sword that will burn down th e world,

I would say that the author tried to add a deathly aspect to the Voluspd stanza 42.

Gaglvidr, which is found in Codex Regius, means literally

goose tree or wood, and considering the Voluspd stanza above

which th e word is taken from, goose has nothing to do withits contents, so it must mean som ething else. According to

Egilsson's Lexicon Poeticum (1931) and Cleasby-Vigfussons

An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874), the OI word gagl was

typically used for various birds in poetry, e.g. Gagl is synony

mo us to raven as ingagl ognar, "gosling of battle", and Hnzgagl,

Nagagl, Blodgagl, and Valgagl, as well as puns like Gagls leid,

the air, Gaglfar, enemy, and Gaglhati, enemy. These kinds of

epithets rem ind me o f Hel s birds, the ravens and (carrion-)

crows connected to Gullveig. As a bird-epithet, th is leaves me

with th e hypo thetical translation "bird tree” or "bird wood”, and the sagas are fullof these "witty” epithets as the O N po ets loved to be clever - it was/is an art. As I

und erstand it, the a uth or simply chose a more poetic way of saying "tree”, as the

rooster sat up in it and crowed, he called it a "bird-tree” (as birds normally sit up in

trees and sing in the wood s).

1 Loki explains this in

Lokasenna 42: «Gulli keypta

leztu Gymis dottur ok seldir pit t svd sverd ; en er Muspells synir

rida Myrkvid yfir, veizt-a pu pd/

vesall, hve pu vegr». Where

Gymis dottur is Gerdr, the

sword; sverd, is Gambanteinn;

Myrkvidr is analogous to Jarn-

vidr, and Muspells synir is refer

ring to Fjalarr, in Voluspd 42,

and his assumed company.

Brate s Swedish translation o fgaglvidr suggests that it would have to do with the

plan t Bog Myrtle, wh ich is taken from the above men tioned b ook An Icelandic-Eng

lish Dictionary. Kocks hypothesis is that gagl would come from the Germ an word

gagel (in Latin Myrica Gale), bu t in my opinion it s at the same time n ot too far

fetched, neither convincing.

132



K e n n j n g s a n d Me a n i n g s

ANGRBODA

I believe -boda is the feminine form o f the ON word bodi, mes

senger or foreboder1, derived from ON bud, which still remains

in modern Swedish bud, message, to b&da, bode as in forebode,

which is the English form o f ON bodi, and in modern Icelandic

boda. And angr- is without doubt the ON word angr, g rief and

woe. So the name AngrboSa means “she the messenger o f woe.”

1Reference; Cleasby-Vigfusson,

1874, An Icelandic-English Dic

tionary, and Zc^ga's A Concise

Dictionary of Old Icelandic, see

under bodi.

AURBODA

Aur- has been m ost often taken as the ON w ord aurr, m ud and wet sand; but I op

pose the idea that i t would stand for all words containing aur-. I believe it derives

from the ON prefix or-, which deno ting a negative meaning as in English un-, and

in Swedish o-. In a few sources Aurboda has even been written 0rboda: see Teutonic

Mythology by Grimm, III, page 1149 where he quotes Fjolsvinnsmal 38, An Icelandic- English Dictionary by Cleasby and Vigfusson unde r 0rboda whe re it is said: “the

name of a giantess, Hdl., Edda”, and Lexicon Poeticum 1860 unde r the word 0rboda

where she is called uxor Gymeris; giganteae originis), etc. Indeed, the transition

from aur- to or- did occur; see for example under aurgdti in above mentioned An

Icelandic-English Dictionary. 0r-boda, Aurboda would then mean something equiv

alent to her other name A ngrboda: “she the bringer o f bad tidings”, or simply “she

the messenger of woe”.

HEIDR

Heidr means brightness an d as a name of the giantess it is “she the bright one”, as in

‘the one wh o brings enlightenment.” The dictionary An Icelandic-English Dictionary

says that the Old Icelandic word heidingi, a heathen, could mean “a wolf” which

probably derives from th e ON word heidr with the denotation “one who lives on

133




heaths and wildernesses.” Hei5r was also a com mo n synonym for a velva, an ON

seeress or witch.

HYRROKIN

The deno tation is “the flame smoked ” The name is created from the Old N orse

words hyrr , fire, and rjuka, smoke; an epithet being made after the three times Gul-

lveig-Hyrrokin got held over a pyre by piercing spears and got flame smoked to

death.

GULLVEIG

First of all I would like to dig into the minds o f the people from Old Scandinavia

and try to find out how they came up with the name, o r rather the epithet, Gullveig

(Gulveig, Gullweig, Gullveg). The nam e is clearly a made-up wo rd in an Old Norse

- at least north European - language. There are so many different explanations of

this name, and n ot one is like the other, so here I will inves

tigate this and hopefully I will find the tru e m eaning o f the

beautiful c arrier of so many hid den things.1 Wessen, 1968,

Sprakhistoria.

Svensk

2 Later the countries of Scandi

navia developed their own

runic languages which were developed through dialects of dif

ferent parts of Scandinavia, as

they still were pretty much the

same sounding and looking.

3Something tells me that they

also used techniques like paint

ing runes and magical figures

on animal skin, bones, etc. ( I’m

thinking about the Swedish

Samer which so carefully and

understandingly have kept

much of our Old heritage and

traditions.) If you look into the

religious history in the ancient

times worldwide, this would be

common and credible. But this

is just my own speculation.

Until the Viking-age, people from Scandinavia were speak

ing urnordiska - ancient Nordic. Urnordiska was a runic language, and what we know of it was used approximately

be tween the years o f30 0— 700 AD. After th at it sta rted very

slowly to show slight differences in the form of dialects in the

countries and places o f Scandinavia'. It is safe to say that back

in that time the Norsem en had pretty much the same lan

guage all over Scandinavia: the runic language2. It is very im

portant to look into this in the investigation o f names in the

my thology from tha t era, to be able to find traces of the an

cient peoples’ vocabularies and way o f thinking. All the words

which have survived from the ancien t times in the Scandinavian languages do not always have the same meaning today.

The hard thing about U rnordiska is that the O ld Nordic

pe op le on ly carved their runes in woo d and softer natural

materials3; some few occasions on stone-blocks (which were

134



K e n n i n g s a n d M e a n i n g s

rather a later cultus and custom) and in metallic items. This means that almost all

evidence is lost, moldered away by natura l causes. There's a big chance tha t Chris

tianity when it came to Scandinavia in the early medieval times, made sure to bum

the rest o f the remaining relics of antiquity of the Viking age Heathendom. This is

why there is so little known about the runic language, runes and its usage. Almost

all the evidence o f witchcraft and magical use are lost, most o f the hidden meanings

and mysteries o f the runes have gone astray, the same goes for the mythology. There

is just a small percentage of surviving evidence left on a variety o f materials e.g.

stone-blocks, bracteates, amulets and some few simplified writings in books by non-

and Scandinavian authors.

OLD AND MODERN SCANDINAVIAN WORDS ASSOCIATED

WITH THE NAME GULLVEIG

Initially I will split up the nam e Gullveig and try to find any associations, connec

tions or unders tandings concerning the meaning of her name. I will divide the name

into two word-stems; gul( 1)- and -veig.

The Icelandic has the noun gull which in modern Icelandic

means ‘gold”, “treasure”; and “excellent person”, and a second

noun, gull, which in m odern Icelandic means “outgrowth”,

“unevenness”; and “mouth cavity”1. There’s also the Icelandic

adjective gulur (gul-ur ), which means yellow. There is an

other m odern Icelandic word which has caught my attention

and I would like to look into, guluveiki, also called gula and

gulusott2 in Icelandic, which means jaundice3. It derives from

the Icelandic words gulur (yellow) and veiki (disease). The

g-sound and the k-sound are related and no t far from each other. This was common

in the ancient runic language; for example: it was no t odd to use the <-rune for both

letters “g” and “fc” So concerning the word guluveiki I just want to look at it in a

different way: If I split it up (stem \ case\stem \suffix) gul-u-veik-i, the w ord already re

minds me o f the name gullveig. If I then presume that the was originally a g, or

supposedly the O ld Norse people just thought o f it as the same consonant, and then

I also remove the case (-u-) and the suffix (-i) the word would look like this: gulveig

(gul-veig). The word guluveiki and its association with the name gullveig is inter

esting for me because it is a disease - seen by the ancients as a seed of the devil,

brought by demons, taught to witches: “I say that from the most po tent poisons he

(the demon) extracts a quintessence with which he infects the very spirit of life, and

1Gunnar Leijstrdm and J6n

Magnusson, 1943, Islandsk-

Svensk Ordbok.

2“Giilsot* in Swedish.



Heggstad, Hednebo, Simensen,

2008, Norren Ordbok.




dinavian languages I have found tha t the transition d to / took place during the m e

dieval times. More examples of this transition are traced in the Runic Swedish word

gulli which is considered to be an abbreviated form of gudh- which in English meansgod, and the same goes for the name Gudhlef-Gullelf. This proves that there was an

actual transition from god-/gud- (meaning god) to gull-/gal-, and that the gull- in

the name Gullveig could be the Old Norse word god-/gud-, and thereby giving a

whole new meaning to her name.1

11 have confirmed this theory

with the Institute of language

and folklore in The Swedish

Academy, and th ey agreed with

its authenticity.



I personally consider this theory as much more appropri

ate and truthful than the other ones, which to me seem like

guesses and unexplored hypotheses. According to Cleasby-

Vigfusson s dictionary o f the Old Icelandic language, the Old

Norse word god was from the beginning a neuter which is to

say that it had no gender, and it was almost exclusively used

in plural, as in the O N w ord regin, (with very much the same

denotation as god) the powers, which might no t have meant

a plurality of gods but rather their power conjoined as in a “godhead”.2The very old

saga Voluspd 6 gives us a good example of how the word goS was used: «pa gengu

regin dll d rokstola, ginnheildg god», "all powers wen t to their power-seats, the all

holy gods". However, on rare occasions god was also used in singular and feminine

form as in Vanagod for Freyja. Thus as a hypothesis let's say Gullveig was a transition

from GoSveig, and let s say tha t god- was a plural neuter, this would m ean that the

name m eant “the ba ttle o f the powers”, powers as in the godly power, e.g. the Old

Norse two-folded godly power: the cesir (heaven) and the vanir (earth). So was there

any reason for the ON people to name Gullveig the battle o f the powers or shou ld I

say named after a battle of the powers? I believe everything is explained in the Voluspd

stanza 21:

She remembered the folk-war

the first in the world,

when Gullveig

they with spears pierced,

and in the hall of 6dinnburned her,

thrice burned

and thrice born,

oft, not seldom,

yet she still lives.

The/o/fcvig-myth (folk-war) and the account on Gullveig s executions are to be

found in Voluspa and in Saxos Gesta Danorum ( The History of the Danes) which




com plement each other. The/o/fcwg-myth is abo ut the vanir, the lower god-power

who considered Gullveig as an ally, and when the cesir, the h igher god-power, killed

Gullveig because of her illr witchcraft, wh en O Sinn himself used witchcraft at Rinds,the vanir became furious and ac ted with war as the cesir refused to compensate what

they had unjustly done. This can be read in Voluspa 21-26. So this war between the

two-folded god-power, god, was because of Gullveig and he r evil witchcraft, « volu

velspa, vitti hon ganda; seid hon kyni, seid hon leikin, ce var hon angan illrar brudar»

( Codex Regius).

It is evident to me that G ullveig is an ep ithet embodyin g this/e/fcvig-myth which

her name suggests, and he r name Gullveig is only me ntioned once in the Scemundar

Edda all together and it is in th e same stanza where it is explained abo ut the war be

tween the vanir and the cesir, i.e. thefolkvig. As you will see below -veig derives from

the ancient Germanic waijd, pow er or strength, which is also connect to the O N

word v(g, battle, as in folkvig.1

*

In the age o f the Old Norse, Scandinavians had pretty much

the same language. Equally, the literal transition from d to l that

I presented above was a pan-Nordic transition, not just a

Swedish one. For example, in a grave found at Herjolfsnes

(H erjo lfs Point) in Greenland a piece of wood was found with

Runic inscriptions: «Pessi kona var lagdjyrir bord i Grcenalands

hafi, er Gudveig bet», which reads in English "this woman, who

was named GuSveig, was laid overboard in the Greenland

ocean."

In Run ic language we find that the nou n gull/goll generally

meant gold, and I m pretty sure that the classic An Icclandic- English Dictionary (of Old Icelandic) by Cleasby and Vigfusson

already gave people during the 1800s the idea that Gullveig meant "the one who

loves gold; the one w ho drinks go ld” or something similar; the gold-hypothesis was

also triggered by the m odern erroneous com parison between Gullveig and he r con

tradictory goddess of light - Freyja2. Gull- in the meaning gold has also been used

in Nordic literature in kennings for a woman (gulls selja); "the on e who wears gold

or valuables."3

1Peterson, 2002, Nordiskt run-

namnslexikon.

2 How even this comparison

was accepted amazes me, no

bo dy would compare Lil ith

with Eve. This only shows,

again, how ignorant people can

be and ho w easily they just ac

cept any hypothesis presented.

To believe this comparison is to

defile the giantess’name itself.

3Palm, 2004, Vikingarnas SprdL




I don t get it, and I have never found an authentic source in the original sagas that

says that Gullveig loved gold, something too many authors claim: Wagner claims

that Gullweig means gold-ore1, Grim m in his Teutonic Mythology talks about Aurinia

and translates Gullveig to gold-cup2, and Rydberg talks about the similarity between

the name Aurinia and Gullveig s bi-name Aurboda in his work Undersiikningar I Ger-

manisk Mythologi: he points out that aurum is gold in Latin, which he though t could

have a connection with Gullveig s name3.1 am convinced that b oth Grimm and Ry

dberg got diverted by Cleasby and Vigfussons An Icelandic-

English Dictionary, as it says that Gullveig means “gold-drink”

and “gold-thirst”; in Latin auri fames. Something they both

overlooked (as well as Simek, amongst many others), was that

aurora in Latin means, amongst othe r things, east This, in my

opinion, has a much bigger relevance because o f Gullveig s

abode in the eastern p art o f Jotunh eimr; Jarnvidr. She even

has the epithet “the giantess of the eastern storms.” I have

never come across any good reason for why Gullveig should have been connected

to gold in the way people have shown so far. If the Old Nordic people named he r

after gold there must have been a good reason, and I just don t see it in the repre

sentations yet. Gullveig is connected to the m oon, no t the sun - gold has always

corresponded to the sun in religions worldwide. She is not known for looking for

wealth as in gold and she is often called The Old One in the darkest woods o f them all

- e.g. the black sphere o f the m oon, or the shadow side o f the world; the black earth

- JarnviSr is located in the u nderworld.

1Wagner, 1917, Asgard and the

Gods.

2 Grimm, Teutonic Mythology.

3Rydberg, 1 1886, II 1889, Un-

dersoknitigar I Germanisk

Mythologi.

She is thirsting everlastingly for victory and she is covetous and greedy, tha t wolf

like hunger and greediness cou ld be allegorized as the gold-thirst tha t spread like

the plague throughout the world. In the “Viking” society too o f course; gold there

was a very treacherous symbol and was offered to gods in sund ry rituals, and the

sagas tell us much of its usage in blothus, skurdgod, etc. G old has also been looked

upon as “evil” in many cultures, as well as the metal o f “the sun-god”. Indeed, what

the gold-thirst did to people we all know, and if you d o n 't know you can surely

imagine; it drove (and still does) people insane, it drove people to fighting and

killing each other - and it created wars. So if I use the O ld Norse w ord veig with the

meaning “a drink”; gull-veig could mean “gold drink” as in “gold th irst”: it could bea possibility of an epithet for the way Gullveig s essence allured peoples weak minds.

It is this that only convinces me why the Old N orse people would give Gullveig

this name: she came as the ice-cold maid and seduced and allured men as well as

women. A g ood testimony of this is allegorized in the Eddas Voluspd as it says:

139




derworld and are distributing its water all through the rest of the worlds - this is

the origin o f all oceans and waters. This allegorization is the axis o f the giant race as

a whole, evidently all giants came from this source; Ymir, father of all thurses - Ymis-

nidjar - was an ice-giant, and Au3humla, the cow, produ ced the jotuns by licking

on salty icebergs. Ice here is a metaphor for sluggish water o r dormant power which

is waiting to be released. For me, th e ice which melts and sets its water free in a vi

olent flood is a very good metaphor for the sleeping powers of Chaos which gets

woken by force by the disturbance o f the creation of the cosmic powers. The sleep

ing powers of Chaos - the dorm ant ice - then awake and become at once wrathful

- the ice melts and flood - the disturbances which awakes the Chaos-powers are

the struggle by this new imposter called the demiurge - the creator of the cosmos.

Thereby Chaos floods the cosmos w ith its wrathful powers to try to prevent the

demiurge in succeeding with the creation o f the cosmos - this opposition towards

the cosmos is apparent in the O N M ythology in the giants’ action towards the gods

and humankind. A nothe r important issue is that the acosmic powers of Chaos are

too complex for the limited realm of the cosmos, so C haos’ manifestations always

become deformed, unnatural and lawless. W ith this Gnostic view upo n the creation,

the ice- and water-metaphor and th e deformed exterior of the giants make good

sense, in comparison to othe r mythologies. So the storming waves o f Hvergelmir

are in fact the w rathful powers storm ing out o f the Jaws o f Chaos: Gap Ginnunga.

By my understanding of the nexus between the storming waves of water and the

wrathful giants (thurses) the giants’ essence is mythological interlinked with the

wild ocean, the alarming and foaming waterfalls, and the violent and destructive

rivers; this and all other violent, harsh and destructive nature-forces. Indeed, aswater is a represen tation of sources of power, especially well-water which is known

to car ry the und erwo rldly powers, this element fits well as an aspect o f the giant-

essence.

was the proto-giant and the foundation o f its races (cettar ); his

first named and known son and grandson E>ru5gelmir and

Bergelmir. Ymir is his most know n name w hich is suppo sed to

be derived from Sanskrit Yama; Latin geminus; and the Indo-

Germanic root iemo- “twin, hermaph rod ite”1, and this conclusion is of course made out of his herm aphroditic fathering of the two mysterious

thurses by his left hand and th e deformed thu rs t>ni3gelmir from his feet. However,

it is his second name Aurgelmir that is more o f interest in this subject; this name is

explained to be his name among st the rime-thurses (the ones with the deep and

ancient knowledge). Aur- derives from the ON word aurr, wet clay or loam2, even

In this aspec t I want to brin g up Aurgelmir-Ymir first as he1Simek, 2007, Dictionary of

Northern Mythology.



Heggstad, Hednebo, Simensen,


141



K e n n i n g s a n d Me a n i n g s

A sacrificial well from the Viking-age. Photography by the author.

Let's take a look at the suffix -veig in the nam e Gullveig. The

suffix -veig is very com mo n in Norse wom ens names and it

has not been a riddle to understan d its etymological meaning,

but we know that it derives from the ancient G ermanic word

waijd, power or strength.1The primary theory amongst experts

is that it origins from the Old Norse suffix -vig of the Old

Norse noun vig; which means battle.2 Vig has survived in m od

ern Icelandic with th e same meaning.

A secondary -veig theory is that it derives from the Old

Norse word ve which m eans "a sacred place” or "a sacrificial place ”

We have the noun veig in m odem Icelandic which means wine, which drives from

the Old Icelandic and O ld Norse word vieg, which means “a drink” - this meaning

is used in Gullveig s name as the 4gold drink.” The modern Icelandic word veigur -

1Peterson, 2002, Nordiskt run-

namnslexikon.

2 See Palm, 2004, Vikingarnas

Sprdk , and Peterson, 2002,

Nordiskt runnamnslexikon. Also

under vig in Dahlgren, 1914-16,

Glossarium dfver Fordldrade eller

Ovanliga Ord och Talesatt i Sven-

ska Sprdket.

145




which drives from the same O ld Icelandic word above veig with the secondary

meaning of pith, strength, and gist - is mu ch m ore interesting, as it means power,

strength an d solidity, which makes me interested and I defiantly see a connection.

I would say that is no t a very bold guess to affirm that veig - veigur derives from the

Old Norse word vig.

To conclude this survey I would say that I think I have proven that the name Gul-

lveig actually means "the battle o f the powers” or something similar, and derives

from the/o/fcvig-myth.

146




SUMMARY

L The ON 'word gull in the name Gullveig is most likely a literal transition from

the ON word god, god - and not the O N word for gold.

II. The ON word veig in the name Gullveig most likely derives from the O N w ord

trig, battle.

III. In conclusion and by all evidence I have hereby presented, I consider that

the name Gullveig is based on the/o/fcwg-myth found in Voluspa, in which Gullveig

was allegorized as the trigger of the war between the gods; and thereby was called

the “divinity/p rovok er of war”.

147




) 1ulf Loki vie) Angrbodu...

Loki at hjarta lindi brenndu,

fann hann halfsvidinn hugstein konu;

varS Loftr kvidugr af konu illri;

£>a5an er a foldu flagd hvert komit.

-Voluspd in skamma

The abyss yawned immensely, as eleven black projections reached o ut o f the ab

solute darkness, uncontrolled and beyond measure the energetic limbs entangled

the emptiness o f the nothingness. They were to be called poisonous serpents - bale

powers extruding from the abyss. All of these powers had an essence with a purpose

and they took form - elemental and deformed. Darkness spawned darkness, and

its light was black. One of the black serpents carried The Flare - The On e who was

two - he was bo m in the image of his originator; and as inferno in essence, attributes

and manifestations he came, horrible and giant, out of the pr imordial world and o f

the oldest o f slumbering entities. Through the flames he was brought, and o f the

flames he became - bringing the heart of the powers unknown to unleash Hel upon

whatever that would be called life. He unleashed the ever-hungry iron-night with a

blood-stained veil up on the unb orn seed o f the creation. He brough t from the abyss

the om nipo tent scepter: his ever-evolving axis, which would run throu gh the com-

ing egg. He was perceived as the core o f fire, som ething that only lightening could

become in the mom en t of strike, or the blinding ho rns of the sun, or the infernal

tongue of the raging volcano. The lightening is his arm reaching ou t o f the under

world as he grasps whatever his cunning plans have hunted down. H e is wrath, seen

as wildfire driven by the eastern winds - devouring, burning and corroding eyes

and lungs; suffocating from all angles as a heavy black smoke. He is called Loki,

Keeper o f Keys - The Dissolver - Gullveig's Companion.

As a thurs spawned out o f the Muspell-fires, Loki is the perfect illustration of an

ally to Surtr. His essence in the sagas being like extreme heat; it pierces through

anything. Unstoppable, Loki runs through all cosmic entities with his heat as if the

world tree itself were aflame (w ith eitr) and dissolves them from inside. The cosmic

148



Gu l l v e i g a n d Lo ki

illusions are like a temple made ou t of glass for Loki, he sees right thro ugh it and

with sundry strategic strikes from his part it will fall into pieces and remain un re

pairable.

The complex essence o f Loki is extremely hard to divulge, amongst many namesand ep ithets he is known as inn Icevisi Loki, "the cunn ing Loki"1, and GeSreynir,

which means som ething like "challenger of the m ind or patience." In Loki s true

essence he is a thurs giant which various episodes in the ON sagas testify to:

1) In Voluspa in skamma 11 it says “Loki bore a wolf to

AngrboSa, and Sleipnir to Svadilfari; amongst all a witch who

seemed the worst, she was begotten from Byleistr's brother.”

This stanza explains many things abo ut Loki s giant-descent,

he gave birth to th e giant wolf Fenrir, ‘the w olf’, and according

to Gylfaginning he transformed himself into a mare and bore

the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, and only giants have the traits

of deformity and inborn superna tural powers (as in eight legs

on a horse). The ‘witch wh o seemed the worst’ is the thurisan

giantess of Niflheimr Hel, she is said to be begotten from

Byleistr’s bro ther wh om we know is Loki, an d as Byleistr is

mo st likely a giant, his brother, Loki, must be one too. Note

tha t Byleistr’s name, “eastern storm”, and Loki’s epithet Loptr,

air, are connected.

2) In Voluspa 47 it is said that, “the tall Ash Yggdrasill

trembles, the old tree wails when the giant comes loose.” Con

sidering the big drama the sagas have presen ted o f the captur

ing of Loki and h is imp risonment, I think it is safe to say this

pa rt is referring to him - Loki the giant. To sup po rt this Gul

lveig says in Baldrs Draumar 14, “Loki will be free o f his fetters

and all Ragnarokian destroyers will come.”

1 In Grogaldr a mysterious

threaten ing witch is called bin

lavisa kona, this epithet is a

feminine version of the Loki

one. The Old Icelandic word

lavfss means often crafty orcunning in an evil sense (skilful

in finding out how to bring

harm upo n others, says Bugge),

as in the Old Icelandic word la,

bane, and the saying blanda lopt

lavi, "to poison the air", and

Loki is called both Loptr and

Laviss which is very interesting

in this context. This saying can

be traced to Voluspa 25: «Pd

gengu regin dll d rdkstola,

ginnheildg god, ok um pat gat-

tusk, hverjir hefdi loft allt lavi

blandit е а att jotuns 6ds mey

gefna», which refers to the

story, found in Gylfaginning,

when the cesir on Loki s advise

and guidance lets a giant build

Asgardr in trade for Freyja, Ods

mey, and the cesir understood

that Loki wanted the cesir to

lose the bet and Freyja, and

thereby Loki is the one who loft

allt lavi blandit

3) In Voluspa 51 it says “the ship fares from the east, the

Muspell-folk shall come over the sea, and Loki steers; themonsters come with the wolf, with them comes Byleistr's

brother.” Here it explains how th e thursian powers, mixed

races, are coming with th e Naglfar-ship over the poison ous Elivagar waters from

the east as Ragna Rok has begun. An im portan t detail is mentio ned here: only Loki

and Byleistr are nam ed am ongst these ragnarokian thurses, (wh y Loki s other

149



Gu l l v e ig a r b6 k

1Bugge theorizes: "Loki was tho ugh t of as the dem on of fire... We

have, however, further evidence that Loki was regarded as the dem on

of fire in several expressions in use among the Scandinavian peasantry.

In Iceland Loka spanir was formerly u sed as 'shavings to light fires

with/ and Lokabrenna is a name o f the dog-star. In Telemark, Norway,

the common people say, 'Lokje is striking his children/ when there is

loud crackling in burning trees. This conception of Loki as the demon

of fire is based on the words o f St. Luke: 'I beheld Satan as lightning

falling from heaven/ and on the belief of Christian theologians, that

the body of the demon consists of fire and air. In the Cornish drama,

'The Creation of the World,' Lucifer says: 'I am the lanthom o f heaven,

certainly, like a fire shining.' Loki is also called Loptr, i.e. 'air.'” - 1899,

The Home of the Eddie Poems with Especial Reference to the Helgi-Lays.

Cleasby-Vigfussons An Icelandic-English Dictionary from 1874 ex

plains this about Loki s derivation from a fiery origin: “Loki, the name

of the terrible fire-demon, ha lf god, half giant, the friend and com panion of the gods, and yet thei r most fearful foe. We have a new sug

gestion to make as to the origin o f this name. The old No rthern Loki

and the old Italic Volcanus are, we believe, identical; as thus, - the old

Teutonic form of Loki, we suppose, was Wloka, whence, by dropping

the w before l, according to th e rules o f the Scandinavian tongue, Loki.

A complete analogy is presented in Lat. voltus, vultus, A.S. wlits, but

Icel. lit (in and -fit, a face); and, in p oint o f the character of the two

demons, the resemblance is no less striking, as we have on the one

hand Vulcanus with Etna for his workshop (cp. the mod. volcano),

and on the o ther hand the North ern legends of the fettered fire-giant,

Loki, by whose struggles the earthquakes are caused. O f all the per

sonages of the N orthern heath en religion, the three, Odinn, W it , andLoki, were by far the most prom inent; but n ot even the name of Loki

is preserved in the records of any other Teutonic people. C an the

words of Caesar B.G. vi, x. xi, Solem 'Vulcanum' et Lunam. refer to

our Loki? Probably not, although in Caesar's time the form would

have been Wlokan in acc., a form which a Rom an ear might well have

identified with their own Vulcanus. The old derivation from loka, to

shut, is inadmissible in the present state of philological science: a

Wodan from vada, or Loki from loka, is no bette r than a 'Juno a ju-

vando/ or a 'Neptunus a nando.' May no t Loki (Wloka) be a relation

to the Sansk. vrilca, Slav, vluku, Lith. vilkas, Icel. vargr, iilfr, meaning a

destroyer, a wolf? It is very significant that in the Norse mythology

Loki is the father of the world-destroying monsters, - the wolf Fenrir,

the World-serpent, and the ogress Hel; and, if the etymology sug

gested be true, he was himself originally represented as a wolf”

And on Iceland Loki was connected to Volcanoes, like Surtr, which

connects them to both; as a result o f this the smell of sulfur was called

on Iceland Lokadaun. And the Old Icelandic had Lokabrenna (the

blazing o f Loki) as a synonym to fire.

“brothe r” Helblindi is not m en

tioned here has an obvious expla

nation to me, w hich is that he is

no t a thurs n or a giant, bu t the ass

OSinn), which only means that

the author wanted to emphasize

their involvement in the Ragna

Rok mythos; which in its turn

proves that they are both thursian

giants. Gyljaginning complements

this with the words “Loki and

Hrymr shall come there also, and

with him all the rime-giants. All

the champions of Hel followLoki” Neither, rime-giants nor

Muspell-sons would follow an dss,

which proves again tha t Loki is a

thurs.

4) Gyljaginning also explains

that “Loki shall have battle with

Heimdallr” and Loki kills him.

Loki evidently fought on the

thurses side and killed an dss-god;this line itse lf proves his descent.

5) To conclude this list I be

lieve we all can agree that in most

of the sagas that involve Loki he

unyieldingly tries to trick, mislead

and give the cesir away to the gi

ants - wh ich includes theft, lies,

abduction, and m urder - which

could only be seen as an antago

nistic, adverse, and evil trait.

Loki is also known as a fire

giant1: «Sa er nefndurLoki е а Lof-

tur, sonur Fdrbauta jotuns», "His

150



name is Loki, also Loftur (Lo ptr), son o f the giant Farb auti” and Loki bore G ul

lveig s children: «vard Loftr kvidugr afkonu illri» "Loftr (Lo ptr) got pregnant by an

evil woman” - ( «padan er afolduflagd Invert komit», "from this all monsters derived",

which m eans tha t according to this Loki and Gullveig are the ancestors of all mon

sters and troll in the ON mythology.) Loki is also called ulfsfodur, "the wolfs father”.

He is also considered an dss-god, for a certain am oun t o f time, with m any conflicting

qualities, Gylfaginning says:

Among the >£sir is he whom some call the slanderer of the >£sir, the originator of

falsehood, and blemish of all gods and men: he is named Loki or Loptr, son of

Farbauti the giant; his mother was Laufey or Nal; his brothers are Byleistr and Hel-

blindi. Loki is beautiful and fair to look upon, evil in spirit, very false in habit. He

surpassed other men in that wisdom which is called cunning, and had crafts for all

occasions; he would ever bring the /Es\r into great hardships, and then get them

out with craft y counsel . His wife was called Sigyn, their son Nari or Narfi. Yet more

children had Loki. Angrboda was the name of a certain giantess in Jotunheimr, with

whom Loki begat three children: one was Fenrir, the second Jormungandr, which is

the Serpent of Midgard, the third is Hel.

As his parents are giants, why call him ass? The father is

called the bale striker1, and his m oth er ’s name is Laufey which 1F^ba uti w hom I believe isthe

has been com monly translated into a "leafy isle”; supposedly same as urtr*

be ing a m etaphor for the crown of a tree. Here we have to re

mem ber that the giants' names and epithets were not made up at the time when the

Eddas were wr itten down, the names are very old and have been saved through gen

erations o f oral tradition. The names are hundreds of years older than the dates of

the Eddas; some names might even be remnants from times before the Co mm on

Era. This is som ething I have noticed th at has been overlooked too often. For me,

Laufey does n o t necessarily have to m ean a leafy isle, thou gh I agree that it is very

fitting and logical that Farbauti is an allegorization for th e lightening and Laufey is

a "tree isle” - the tree crown, an d by Farbauti to strike it which sets it aflame and by

that creating Loki. However, I am still uncertain of this translation, so I like to bring

up th e hero called BjoSvar Bjarki in Landndmabok who owns a sword called Laufi,

this leaves me wi th the gut-feeling that lauf- had ano ther m eaning back in the age

of the runes. If lauf or laufi once was an epithet or a synonym for a sword the nameLaufey on Loki s mo ther w ould make m uch sense as Loki is "the sword s father”; as

he created the vindictive sword called Gambanteinn - ano ther name for Laevateinn-

Haevateinn - as it is said in Fjolsvinnsmdl:

Gu l l v e ig a n d Lo k i

151




Laevateinn hann heitir,

en hann gerfli Loptr ryninn

fyr nagrindr nedan;

\ seigjarnkeri

liggr hann hj£ Sinmoru,ok halda njardlasar mu.

Snorri s Nafnapulur actually confirms tha t laufi is a kenning for a sword; which

in turn confirms my finding. Concerning the stanza quo ted above, it says tha t Loki

created the sword Laevateinn-Gambanteinn, and in Snorris list of mythological ep

ithets he mentions Ulfr, wolf, as one amongst many wolf-related epithets for a sword

(Nafnapulur 43). Furtherm ore, Loki is called ulfsfedur, "the wo lf s father", (Loki is

also called fadir morna, "the swords father"), an d this epithet has been taken for

granted to be a name after his wolf-child Fenrir, bu t as it also could intend the sword

Gam banteinn I think we should think again - considering his epithet fadir morna.

The same list men tions Nidhoggr (48) and Naglfari (47 ) as epithets for a m ytho

logical sword, this is very interesting and could give the Ragna Rok m ythos a whole

new perspective. NiShoggr, the on e who strikes with scorn, is a very good epithet

for a sword, especially the sword Gambanteinn. Now, I do not exclude that

Nidhoggr is a Chaos-dragon dwelling in th e depths of Hvergelmir, I am just specu

lating on different aspects of the sagas. This rich list, Nafnapulur, also mentions

many names tha t mean fire or flame, which reminds me very mu ch of the flaming

sword given to or made for Surtr: Gambanteinn.

Something very strange is that Loki is also connected to the

rime-thurses in a paradoxal way, which we can trace in these lines

from Lokasenna:

pa gekk Sif fram ok byrladi Loka \ hrimkcilki mjo6 ok maelti:

Heill ver pu nu, Loki,

ok tak vid hrimkalki

fullum foms mjadar...***

Then Sif walked up to Loki and poured mead in a rime-chalice,

and she spoke:

Hail to you, Loki,

take this rime-chalice

full of yearlong mead...

Hrim- is only connec ted with rime-thurses in the ON mythology, and Loki is the

only one in Lokasenna who gets served mead in hrimkalki, a rime-chalice1. This is

1The ON word hrimkalki is

only used three times in the

Edda; two times in Lokasenna

and one time in Sh'rnismdl 37

where Gerdr, daughter of Aur-

boda-Gullveig, offers Skirnir a

hrimkdlki with yearlong mead,

but he rid es home instead of

taking it; compared to

Lokasenna 53 where Loki takes

the hrimkdlki and drinks o f it:

in both cases the “rime-chalice”

belongs to t he (rim e-) giants.

152




evidently a way for the au thor to connec t him with the rime-thurses, hrimkalki for

a hrimpurs; which reminds me of Gylfagitining where it is said: “Loki and H rym r

shall come the re also, and with h im all the rime-giants.” Indeed, the rime-thursian

prefix hrim- is used once more in Lokasenna 49:

Lett er [эёг, Loki;

mun-at-tu lengi sv£

leika lausum hala,

pvi at f)ik a hjorvi

skulu ins hrimkalda magar

gornum binda доб.

For Brate and many othe rs it is just taken for granted that

this stanza says that Loki will be bou nd by “his own sons rime-

cold bowels,” bu t it says no thing ab out his son in this stanza, itis Snorri in his later Edda who says that it is his sons bow els1.

Here it just says that Loki will be bou nd with hrimkalda bowels,

they could be his own or a metaph or for magical chains of rime-

thursian strength. It is also com mo nly assumed tha t the stanza

says that Loki will be pu t on sharp rocks, when it actually says

on a sword: hjorr2, sword. For me, Hjorr here being hypo thet

ically an allegory for sharp rocks is actually misplaced and mis

leading. In Lokasenna it is said that Loki shall lie on a hjorr, a

sword, and in Gylfaginning it is said that he shall lie on three

eggsteinar (prjd eggsteina): eggsteinn, an edge or a sharp sto ne3.

1«Brugdu cesir Vila i vargs tiki og

reifhann i sundur Narfa, brdtiur

sinn. Pd toku xsirparma hans og

bundu Loka tried . . .»



Zc^ga, 1910, A Concise Diction

ary of Old Icelandic. Egilsson,

1931, Lexicon Poeticum, and

Heggstad, Hodnebo, Simensen,




4Fjolsvinnstndl.

But in Nafnapulur, Snorra Edda, under epithets for swords we find Eggsteinar

(49) . This shows that eggsteinar are no rocks, they are three swords. This connects

Loki even more with the sword-mythos.

Loki is the son of the hurrican e- and th under-giant Farbauti, “the bale striker”;

whom I believe is the same as Surtr, supreme ru ler o f Muspellzheimr. This could

mean that Loki is Surtr s burning sword that he plans to thru st the demiurge and

the creation s heart with. Indeed, as Loki is said to be the c reator o f Gambanteinn4,

Surtr s sword o f vengeance, pieces s tart to fall in place, at least for me, and I star t to

see the co nnec tion m ore clearly. Gambanteinn is mostly likely an aspect o f Loki as

he is always involved in the m yths and developm ents o f this sword. Loki made this

sword out o f the flames of Muspell and with the incinerating thursian runes of his

father, and it is analogous with Mistilteinn and lays as ground fo r th ejjolkyngi-

weapon he killed Baldr with.

1S3




I will not go further into the Gam banteinn-myth here as it is too m uch o f a big

work and it does no t belong in this book o f Gullveig, but I will investigate this ex

tremely imp ortant G ambanteinn-m yth elsewhere.

Now, back to Gullveig an d Loki s relation, the mos t classic evidence for their al

liance is found in some lines from Voluspa in skamma 11,12:

Loki begat the wolf

with AngrboSa

Loki ate a heart

burnt upon the embers,

he found the half-singed

heart of a woman.

Loptr was expectant with child

of that wicked woman;and from this

all monsters derived.

The wolf is Fenrir, and A ngrboSa is, as you know by now, Gullveig; L op tr is an

other name for Loki which means “the one aloft” and the wicked wom an is Gullveig.

Then we have the classic par t from Gylfaginning 34:

Yet more children had Loki. Angrboda was the name of a certain giantess in Jotun-

heimr, with whom Loki gat three children.- one was Fenrir, the second Jormungandr,

which is the Serpent of Midgard, the third is Hel.

These two examples are the foundation o f Gullveig and Loki s relationship and

then many sagas with themselves individually elaborate their companionship and

unconquerable purposes. Like Niflheimr and Muspellzheimr they came out o f no th

ingness, one was created from rime an d one from flames, Gullveig and Loki came

as a two-fold fiend to counteract and antagonize the creation and its demiurge. Bo th

came storm ing ou t of Utgardr, Logi and Ursvol, to dissolve from all ends - fire and

ice striking from each side. Two heroes who sacrifice themselves fearlessly - warriors

and rulers: liberators and avengers.

In addition, I want to ad d an other strong piece of evidence of their relations,

Loki s ep ithet/a rm r arma galdrs hapts in P6rsdrapa-,farmr arma, "the arm-burden",

which means spouse, and galdrs hapt , "the deity o f sorcery ".farmr arma galdrs hapts

for me refers to Gullveig as she is known in the O N mythology as the sorcerous

spouse to Loki.

154




name.” The ON epithets often explained characters’ actions in the old sagas, which

in turn helps you with identifying the characters. E.g. Loki is called Litr, salmon, as

he twice (th at we know o f) transforme d himself into a salmon in the sagas, and

Gullveig is called Hyrrokin, flame-smoked, as she got burned thrice by the desir .

Now, Loki has two brothers, o ne is called Helblindi, and ON blindr normally means

blind, b ut could on rare occasions mean dark or hidden , and I think his name has

just that deno tatio n; the exact m eaning of Helblindi is very hard to figure out but

“the one blinded from Hel or the one who shuns death” are, for me, two possible

translations. Helblindi is never mentio ned in the Scemundar Edda, but in Gylfagin-

ning is he mentioned b oth as Lokis brother and as an epithet for OSinn (20). This

makes me think of Loki and Odum's mysterious blood-bro therhood , blddi, Helblindi

is only mentioned once in Gyljaginning as Lokis brother, bu t it does not say if they

share parents, it is no t said there, which have been comm only

taken for granted, that Farbauti is specifically Helblindi s father,

Helblindi is only men tioned as being Lo kis b ro ther1. The saga

called Soria pdttr makes it even clearer as it says that Farbauti jus t

got one son in its second chapter: «Р а и dttu ser einn son barna.

Sd varLoki nejndr», "They had one son, and he was nam ed Loki".

With this I strongly suspect th at Helblindi is exclusively an epithet for OSinn.

Indeed, as OSinn just has on e eye and canno t see as far as to Nifl-Hel (Niflhe imr)

the name makes sense to me. Lok is othe r brother is called Byleistr , his name is put

together from the O N words bylr , a whirlwind o r a violent gust o f wind, and eistr,

the one coming from the east, eistr being an epithe t for a giant. Byleistr, "the whirlwind or the storming one coming from the east" kind of reminds me of a certain

gygr who is called “the giantess of the eastern storms.”

Furthermore, b oth Loki and Gullveig-Aurboda were adopted by O Sinn into As-

gardr in the ON sagas, a very odd thing for him to do as Allvisi. This can only mean

that Gullveig and Loki tricked OSinn and the rest of the cesir into believing that they

were one o f them. Gullveig and Loki are the only antagonistic giants who have been

adopted into the realm which otherwise is strictly forbidden for any rime-thurses

and muspell-thurses to enter.

But long after Loki had fooled the gods and brou ght his evil cunning u pon them,

his final act was to kill Baldr, (see m y chapter on the killing of Baldr for a detailed

survey of Gullveig and Loki s conspiracy), they finally understoo d his true self, and

Loki withdrew from their realm AsgarSr. It is said that the gods eventually found

Loki hiding ou t in a river:

1«Sd er nejndr Loki е а Loftr, sonrFdrbauta jotuns. M6dir bans

heitirLaufey eba Ndt Ъ г с е Ъ г hans

erupeir Byleistr ok Helblindi».

156



Gu l l v e i g a n d Lo k i

En eftir betta falst Loki i Franangrsforsi \ lax liki.

So when Loki was revealed as Baldr s murderer he left Asgardr and hid trans

form ed into a salmon in a river called Franangrsfoss. First off, I want to put emphasison Loki s transformation into a salmon. Fo r me it was no accident that a salmon

was chosen to allegorize Loki in the myths, because the salmon is a very strange

fish and it has extraordinary qualities that fit Loki s essence in the mythology very

well. The most kno wn curiosity with the salmon, and trout, is its remarkable trans

formation, the salmon is something called anadromous; bo rn in freshwater then

migran ts to th e ocean and lives the bigger pa rt o f its life in saltwater, and finally it

returns to the freshwater where it was born, the same location, to reproduce and

die. The salmons life span witness, strangely enough, o f Lok is odd existence in the

sagas: he is master o f disguises, as well in transform ation, regardless in wha t situa

tion; and Loki started his journey in the u nderwo rld - or in M uspellzheimr if youwill - and travelled to MiSgarSr and to Asgardr to live the m ost pa rt o f his life. In

this context I compare Mi3gar3r and Asgardr - the upper worlds - to the salty ocean

water: salt being here a metaph or for “the repellence of evil” or the “dayside” of the

world “free” from thursian influences, and Loki had n o problem in adjusting to this,

because his Miispell-core is eternally glowing and forever concealed for anyone or

anything to perceive. Subsequently Loki returns to the “nightside” - the underworld

- to finish his ragnarokian journey. Analogous to the salmon, Loki goes through

several major transformations throu ghout his journey, to best adjust to the situation

at hand, this is exactly what makes him a superior thurs w hich no god can defeat.

1Cleasby-Vigfiisson, 1874, An

Icelandic-English Dictionary,

Zoega, 1910, A Concise Diction

ary o f Old Icelandic, and Palm,

2004, Vikingarnas Sprdk.

Now, a natural th ing for Loki to do when he is hunted by

the cesir for the m urder o f one o f their most beloved gods is to

withdraw to his hom e lands; to Jotunheimr in the underworld,

o r even to Muspellzheimr. The last location is no t reasonable,

an d as neither o f the sagas Lokasenna o r Gylfaginning explain

in what direction he went (normally the sagas add cardinal

po ints) or where this river was located, we have to guess whe re he withdrew , and

my best guess is of course Jotu nhe im r in the underworld. And why of all places does

he hide in a river as a salmon? If he w ent back to Muspellzheimr he would be per

fectly safe. There m ust have been something else the story-teller wanted to manifest

with this strange allegorization - and I think the answer lies in the choice of

nam e/ep ithet of the river Franangrsfoss. Fran- can only come from o ne O N word:

frann, which means gleaming and flashing, which was only used in poe try as an ep

ithet for serpents, swords an d sharp w eapon s1* -angr- is unmistakably the same

angr , woe, as in Angrbo5a. -foss simply means river. So franangr would m ean some-

157




thing like the shining woe, wh ich by me is an undeniable epith et for Gullveig: she is

called Heidr, the shining one, and AngrboSa, the messenger of woe. Equally, the

fact that I have already established that Gullveig is originated from water and ice

connects h er with rivers too o f course. Furthermore, the ingenious choice o f the

word frann w hich is a metaph or for a gleaming river - rivers which look most often

like giant serpents - and the wo rd frdnn's connec tion with swords in poetry in this

context m ust have been though t of as the underworldly rivers which spring from

Hvergelmir, rivers with poison, eitr , which is allegorized in the ON sagas as rivers

with swords and sharp weapons on th eir beds.

In Jotun heim r lays the abode of Angrboda and Hvergelmir s rivers m ost likely

run through o r into her abode, which is of course Jarnvidr. So for me, Loki withdrew

after the m urde r of Baldr to his coun terpart and com panions tracts in Jarnvidr in

Jotunheimr. And at Ragna Rok Loki comes with the ship called Naglfar, the shipholds Fenrir, his monster kin and Heljarsinnar. Gylfaginning says:

Thither shall come Fenrir also and Jormungandr; then Loki and Hrymr shall come

there also, and with him all the rime-giants. All the champions of Hel follow Loki.

And Voluspa says:

Hrymr steers from the east,

the waters rise,

Jormungandr is coiling

in jotun-rage.

The serpent beats the water,

and the eagle screams:

the beak tears corpses;

Naglfar is loosed.

That ship fares from the east:

come will Muspell’s

people over the sea,

and Loki steers.

The monster’s kin goes

all with the wolf;

with them the brother is

of Byleist on their course.

This shows that Loki does dwell in the east in Jotunheim r close to Ragna Rok,

and th at Fen rir and all his kin follow him. Fenrir and his kin dwell in JarnviSr to-

158




gether with Angrboda , she is the m othe r to Fenrir's offspring. Naglfar mu st have

gone by water from Jotunh eimr (Jarnvidr) and the only known waters in the un

derworld are the eleven poisono us rivers from Hvergelmir and its shore Elivagar.

This can't mean anything else th en th at Loki abides in JarnviSr for some time. It is

here my point actually lies, I dare to go as far as to think the river Franangr tha t Lokihides in as a salmon, Litr, is in fact a metap hor for (a river in) Gullveig-Angrbodas

abode.

Com paring this myth with Baldrs funeral I see many similarities: Gullveig ap

pears in both as a powerful feminine force: a river th at conceals Loki and as

Hyrrokin being a powerful eastern storm. Loki also appears in both sagas as a

salmon swimming in the water, and in both sagas I>orr discovers him, catches him

and “reveals" Loki s true “form".

LOKI AS A LUCIFERIAN ESSENCE

Loki could be an epithet built on the meaning “to lock" or

“the locker"1, and thereby Loki could be looked upon as the

one who brings the anti-cosmic light and locks up the Thur-

sian Gates: Loki Thurs of Destruction, the one w ho triggers

the day of wrath; Ragna Rok and the end of the world.

Ro oth tells us in her bo ok on Loki that “according to an

othe r popular concep tion, the supernatural beings are of

Lucifer's race'"2

As I've compared Gullveig to Lilith, I would like to, in short, represen t Loki as a

Luciferian essence. Loki viewed from an anti-cosmic perspective grants him many

qualities linked directly to the god Lucifer - bringer of light. This is of course an

angle which relates to the anti-cosmic Chaos-theory. Loki is therefore the bringer

of light. The light is a representation of the forbidden knowledge, which the gods of

cosmos have secluded from th e hum ans to avoid conflict and resistance. This knowl

edge, called gnosis, is the wisdom of and from Chaos; the understanding and the awak

ening - which leads to evolution and strength. To make this all less confusing, one

usually refers to the light of Lucifer as the Black Light , because C haos is wrathful

against the creation of cosmos, all its stagnating forms, weakness and all life enslaved

to it. However, the one who sees through the cosmic light; false light , those who

have opened their third eye and received the black light of Lucifer, only they look

upon the Luciferian light as the bright and true one. For them, and only them, the

1A hypothesis that has been

harshly criticized by many.

2Rooth, 1961, Lob in Scandina

vian Mythology.

159




light of Lucifer, the light/fires o f Chaos, are true. Such an awakened individual sees

the cosmic light as filthy, deceiving, weak and enslaving.

Mythologies and traditions mention that Lucifer had sacrificed a great amount

to com e out o f Chaos with Chaos-essence and -gnosis, into this world o f cosmos

in orde r to enlighten the few chosen ones. So to a Chaos-Gnostic, Lucifer is re

garded as heroic, and all those who have truly received the light of Lucifer; the gno

sis of ones black flame, are very grateful, living beyond question as warriors,

worshippers an d upho lders o f the supreme gods of Chaos. For those o f weakness

and adversary towards Chaos, the fires of Lucifer are annihilating and exterminating.

His flames incinerate all to nothingness and show no mercy. For only the awakened,

the allied and strong are to be kept. Everything else belongs to the demiurge o f the

cosmos - the enslaving force; and is therefore an enemy.

All qualities o f Lucifer are visible in Loki, and u ndeniably so. Otherwise, witho ut

these attributes, the character o f godly form some call Loki, is anoth er form entirely.

These people misunderstand Loki s nature and essence. Loki is a symbol an d aspect

of the incensed Chaos-fire1, an aspect tha t reaches out from Chaos into the cosmos

and distributes Chaos-gnosis to those receptive. Loki, like Lucifer, burns with the

black fires of Chaos all illusive forms, and through th at brings all that is beyo nd (e.g.

the Chaos-essence) into light. If one studies the Norse sagas, one quickly notices

tha t Loki, early in the dawn of gods, insinuated into the cosmic gods’ world, know

ing that he was to be m urde red o n the spot because of his thurs-blood. Yet, Loki

still doubtlessly undertook the risks and managed to infiltrate, which leads to the

fall of the World. This allegory of the very primitive Chaos-essence concerning Loki

can be interpre ted and un derstoo d in m any sagas in the ancient Scandinavian

mythology, where he “kills”, “deceives” and “misleads” manifold of the cosmic gods

and purposes, just to guide the thurs-race into the World. Loki is the supreme leader

of all that is dark2, with a bright torch in his left hand; which he reaches above his

head as he always travels anterior in the front-line. This is the fundamental and prime

essence of Loki in the sagas, in which the giant-race alluded to

1In the ancient times it was

called Muspilli - as from the

fires of Muspellzheimr.

the Chaos-essence, and the cosmic World and its gods to the

illusive forms in cosmos.

1 All that belongs to the anti-

cosmic Chaos.Clearly, Loki is the messenger, liberator , defender and leader -

he bears the same heroic role as Lucifer.

Heill Loki!

Heill Lokaj rekr!

160




Importantly, one cannot simply transfer all qualities, facts and mythologies from

Lucifer to Loki, or the reverse. Mytho logy is mythology and it is simply a tool for

humanity to chronicle spiritual experiences and revelations. Yet, Hie fundamental

significance o f the deities' existence is the core of importance and the very relevant

source o f understanding, and this may transfer from one dei ty to another. O ne must

know the difference between Lucifer and the Luciferian Powers. The Luciferian teach

ings m ention Lucifer as the Highest Principle of the Illumination. Yet, below him, so

to speak, resides other emanations that are Luciferian in form, effect and essence.

Let us take th e god Azazel for example; he is no t Lucifer,

bu t Luciferian. This because he is included in a system where

Lucifer /Satan already is the highest principle and by tha t he

beco mes a lower aspect of the sam e essence, an essence

equalling The Heralds o f the Black Light

1According to the Nephilistic

Luciferian tradition.

2Rooth, 1961, Loki in Scandina

vian Mythology.

Lucifer is not in himself fallen, but has let his light fall into the cosmic abyss to enlighten

those who are receptive and of his essence.

GULLVEIG AN D LOKI ANDROGYNOUS

It is pretty obvious tha t bo th Gullveig and Loki were viewed as being androgynous,

something tha t mus t have been passed down from the ir thursian forefathers as anadaptation, as this is not a quality known amongst the gods. The very first known

thursian giants, Aurgelmir and I>ruSgelmir, were androgynous and this aspect seems

to have just been passed dow n to certain ragnarokian an d sympathetic thurses,

amongst these are NiShoggr, Gullveig and Loki. Loki in, what Rooth calls it, the

AsgarSr Myth2 by Snorri (Gylfaginning 42) turns himself into a mare and lures the

stallion Svadilfari away with her neighing, some time later Loki as a mare gives birth

to the eight-legged giant horse Sleipnir. Sleipnir s deformity testifies of its giant-de

scent. Voluspd in skamma supports Snorri's saga: «61 ulfLoki vidAngrbodu, en Sleipni

gat vid Svadilfara», "Loki bore the wolf with Angrboda, and Sleipnir with Svadilfari",

and Lokasenna 33 testifies that Loki has given birth: « hitt er undr, er ass ragr er her inn ofkominn ok hefirsa born ofborit » , "it is incredible tha t a such unmanly dss-god

has com e here, who has given birth to a child", which m ost likely refers to Loki

transformed into a mare. Rooth, amongst others, d oub t that this is an authentic

ON Loki trait, bu t I feel that they misunderstand the essence of the tra it itself. De

formity and androgyny are thursian traits only, and they were no t added to the sagas

161




Syn <

The Muspell-flames are my true manifestation,

the god know this, and dare n ot to seize me,

because I crush the en tity o f god at will.

I am the restlessness in the flames,

mankind knows this, I am their leader,

I devour the shining and incinerate the blind.

I am the first-born o f the Muspell-flames,

from the south I am invoked,

I only acknowledge blazing will.

I spin the destruction,

I spin the ru nes o f Muspells carriers of iron-wolves

to ride the golden waves of wrath.

I dissolve in purpose to strengthen.

I am Surtr s blade.

I am Sur tr’s purpose.

I hold th e key to the on ly lock,

the apparatus which is called contraction.

I devour illusions.

I cu t divine power like clay.

My essence feeds the sons ofMuspell.

I am the black fire and de structo r o f weakness.

I am the provoker o f power and supernatural reasoning.

I am unlimitedness and lawlessness.I

I am the spider,

I am the net,

I am the wra th the god should n ot have upset.

166




SUMMARY

I. Loki and Gullveig s relation is based on a companionship to act as a twin-power

which com plement each other as a masculine and feminine alien opposition to the

world and its demiurge.

II. Loki and Gullveig are the begetters and ancestors of all monsters, e.g. troll,

werewolves, wolves, and supernatural beings.

III. Loki is the father ofJormungandr, Fenrir and Hel.

IV. Loki and Gullveig s purpose is evidently to infiltrate the very essence of the

world’s “godhead”, god or regin, in Asgardr and MiSgarSr to poison it from w ithin

and thereby killing it.

V. Loki is a thurs ian giant, no t an iss. He transformed himself into an ass to mis

lead the vanir and the aesir; just like Gullveig under her disguise AurboSa.

VI. Loki is strongly connected to the Gambanteinn-myth.

VII. Loki is a m aster o f transformation.

VIII. Loki s named “bro ther” Helblindi is most likely Odinn, and he is therefore

just linked to Loki by an unsolved blood-brotherhood.

IX. Loki s mythological essence and traits in the sagas can be compared to those

of Lucifer and Prometheus’.

X. And Loki, as well as Gullveig, had androgynous traits in the O N sagas, a very

rare quality only inborn in giants.

167



b a i l И

/T lusp elljbu rs a n a w arrior o f /T lusp ellsbeim r!

Com e loose a na fu lf il l pour p urpose !

2 ln lea sb pour b la j ing wratlj!

*

5 inuofee pour f lam ing essen ce!

3 inuofte pou r i l lum inat ing power!

*

Lobi* i lluminate me with pour f lam ing t f lu sp e lN igl j t

s o that mp ego a i s so foe a ana mp sp ir i t becom es free !




This survey is mainly born from Hdvamdl and Helgakvida Hjorvardssonar found in

Scemundar Edda, and Gylfaginning found in Snorra Edda. As well as Rydberg s Un-

dersokning i Germanisk Mythologi I 1886, II 1889, Bugges De

Nordiske Gude- ogHeltesagns Oprindelsell: Helge-Digterne 1896,

and Saxos Gesta Danorum.

1Rydberg 1 1886, II 1889, Un

dersokningar i Germanisk

Mythologi.

A STRATEGIC DEED TO PROVOKE THE WRATH OFRAGNAR0K

“Hyrrokin retaliated on the cesir with the h elp of Loki causing Baldr s dea th”1

BALDR MYTHOS OVERVIEW

I. Baldr got horrib le nightmares: death bringing illusory apparitions visited him

at night and indicated that he w ould die.

II. Ho5 r went to war against Baldr and the cesir .

III. Frigg, Baldr s mo ther , got everything to swear an oath: life, fire, water, earth,

ore and iron, rock and stone, tree, disease and animals.IV.V.VI.

IV. The gods amused themselves with throwing and shooting at Baldr in the

cour tyard of Valholl.

V. Loki disliked that nothing hu rt Baldr.

VI. In the disguise o f an old woman, Loki went to Frigg and learned from h er

that she h ad n ot taken an oath from a small sapling o f mistletoe which grew west of

Valholl, because she tho ught it was too young to demand an oath from.

170



T h e D e a t h o f Ba l d r

VII. Loki took that very mistletoe and made an arrow from it assumedly with

help from the thurs I>jazi.

VIIL He went back to the courtyard, to the gods and helped Baldr s “blind"

brother HoSr to sh oo t the arrow at Baldr. Baldr fell dead.

IX. The death o f Baldr was the biggest misfortune o f all mankind and all the gods.

X. OSinn took this the hardest and un derstood at once what this meant for them

all.

XI. The gods could not dem and re taliation because it all hap pen ed o n holy and

peaceable ground.

XII. By Friggs will, OSinns son HermSSr took the assignment to go to Hel to

offer a ransom for the dead Baldr.

XIII. But the corpse o f Baldr was brou ght to his ship Hringho mi.

XIV. And no o ne of the gods could dislodge the ship.

XV OSinn then sent for the giantess Hyrrokin which came riding on a thurs-

wolf with snakes as bridles. And she freed the ship w ith ease.

XVI. This made t>6rr mad as he grabbed his hammer to crush the witchs head.But all the gods asked him n ot to and stopped him.

XVII. And they b urne d Baldr s corpse, toge ther with his wife Nanna, OSinn s

ring Draupnir and Baldr s horse.

XVIII. OS inns son got the promise of Hel for Baldr to retu rn to the living, if all

the living things in th e wo rld cried for Baldr.

XIX. All cried for Baldr bu t one being, the giantess-witch called ftokk.

XX. O Sinn uses forbidden w itchcraft at Rindr s, and H oSr is killed by OSinn s

son Vali.

XXI. Loki gets pu nished for the deed of killing Baldr.

171



Gu l l v eig a r b Ck

Note: Sno rr is account of this mythological saga is construc ted from both pre

served poe tic sources and lost.

1Depicted by some medieval

authors as a Scandinavian Jesus

figure.

2 This direction and location of

the mistletoe sapling is most

curious to me. I figure that

Snorri chose west for the

sapling to grow as it is the clos

est way to the oute r rim o f the

world from Valholl and heaven,

where the abyss Amsvartnir lies

and surrounds the worlds. Westmight even have suggested that

the sapling was supposed to

grow in Utgardr.

Baldr, the dss-god and protector o f the sun - the pro mo ter

of cosmic goodness an d righteousness1, is the perfect target

to destroy if you want the cesir and the ir worlds to weaken as

a result of confusion and finally collapse. Indeed, this is ex

actly what the cunning and triumphan t primordial thurses

Loki and Gullveig thought of. I will here expound my per

sonal theory o f Gullveig s role in this strategic move; taken

from the ON m ythology and some medieval sagas.

THE DARKNESS' PREPARATION AND

FORMATION

Before the killing of Baldr, he had nightmares, which he

31 find this detail as be ing a

proo f of how excellent Loki was

in the magical trait of transfor

mation. He just transformed

himself into a woman and the

goddess Frigg, who being a god

and should be more powerful

and sharper than a giant, just

bought his trick and gave away

what could be used to kill Baldr.

In contrast, when P6rr tried to

“transform” into a woman to

fool brymr in brymskvida he

failed as brym r was very suspi

cious, and it was Loki who had

to “convince” brymr that the

dressed up b6rr was a woman.

called visions of his own death and was sure that he would

soon die. All the gods became troubled and thought of some

thing that could save him. They agreed that Frigg would ask

for safety for Baldr from all kinds o f dangers - fire, water, iron

and metal of all kinds, stones, earth, trees, sicknesses, beasts,

birds, venom and serpents - and to swear an oath n ot to harm

Baldr. This kind of an oath had to be a magical spell otherwisearrows and rocks would be harmful. It is said that they all

agreed, but rime-thurses were no t included in this list; Gul

lveig and Loki did not swear any oath, nor did the worlds'

now most feared being, th e furious world -hater t>jazi, who

after being known as Valand and becomin g his own wrath

turn ed in to a terrible rime-thurs.

The saga explains further that a certain small sapling, a

teinn, o f Mistletoe which grew to the west o f Valholl2had not

sworn the oath not to hurt Baldr. Loki, the Ragnarokian prospector , who I believewas involved in this plot from the beginning, knew exactly where to find this plant;

as he and Gullveig could have pu t a protective spell on the p lant to be overlooked

by Frigg, a theory th at I feel corresponds to the ON mythological narration tradi

tion. However, Gylfaginning clarifies tha t Loki transformed himself into a woman

and w ent to Frigg to ask where this sapling grew, and Frigg gladly spoke of this.

172



T h e De a t h o f Ba l d r

W hen Loki had gathered the M istletoe11 like to imagine that he bro ugh t it to his

and Gullveig s ally Pjazi who made, with his incredible blacksmith-craft, a perfect

arrow from the Mistletoe and cast ominous black magical powers into it, and it was

thereby called Mistilteinn, synonymous to the weapon Gam-

banteinn in the O N mythology; w hich is proven by the fact

that Mistilteinn is actually in a list for sword-kennings in

Snorri’s Nafnapulur 42. Indeed, that is how I connect I>jazi

to this myth.

Teinn means branch, also rod and sapling, and it is often

used as a word for a sword in the old myths, as in

laevateinn/haevateinn2, gambanteinn 3, etc. The interesting

thing is that M istilteinn became a name for the sword o f re

venge belonging to Surtr, which is the same sword which is

called gambanteinn in the old sagas and laevateinn/hae-

vateinn/homateinn: Saxo called it cuspis in Latin after trans

lating Fjolsvinnsmdl’s name of the sword Broddr 4.5All these

sword-synonyms are in analogy with the sword of retaliation

that Loki made6and t>jazi fulfilled.

From the day, or even earlier I would say, the m istletoe re

fused to swear the oath, it was connected with the sword

which was going to trigger Ragna Rok and to scythe down

the gods and the cosmos. If Loki went to Ejazi and asked him to forge it into an ad-versary-teinn and cast black runes upo n it, I think it indirectly complements the

mistletoe s transform ation from a plant to a Ragnarokian weap on - the sword o f

revenge.

But why did Frigg just leave the mistletoe out? O r did this lonesome teinn reject

the oath? Something must have influenced this res ult Better yet, som ething must

have given it this purpose for a very devastating reason. As stated above, Baldr

started to get severe nightmares: dea th bringing illusory apparitions visited him at

night and acknowledged his death. Frigg, O din ns wife, queen o f AsgarSr, made a

magical oath no t to hu rt Baldr, and supposedly she had the pow er to make everyonein the whole cosmos to agree with this oath. This depiction o f her pow er is mighty;

the m yths said that Frigg just let the mistletoe be: “because she thoug ht it was too

young to dem and an oath from”. Well doesn't that sound like a fraud to escape the

actual explanation? There must have been an imm easurable am ount of “too young”

plants thro ugh out the world. W hy just le t this particular sapling be? It makes no

1Snorri says here that «L oki t6k

mistiltein ok sleit upp»f "Loki

pulled up the Mistletoe", as if it

was growing in the ground. It is

evident that Snorri had no

knowledge of the Mistletoe

plan t, I dou bt tha t he had ever

seen one, because it is impossi

ble to make an arrow from it,

even more impossible from a

Mistletoe sapling.

2Fjolsvinnsmal.

3Sk(mismdl.

4Broddr means pike and in

Fjolsvinnsmdl it is the nam e of

Hsevateinn.

5Rydberg, 1 1886, II 1889, l/w-


Myth ologi.

6 Fjolsvinnsmdl.

173




sense. So, the little tiny plant jus t simply gets away with no t making the oath, sup

posedly it ha d th at much power th at it could ju st say no and not be affected by

Frigg s mighty spell. Has this tiny mistletoe in some way more power than Frigg? I

don t think so; there must have been something that supported this mistletoe.

1In Cleasby-Vigfusson, 1874,

A n Icelandic-English D ict ionary

and Zoega, 1910, A Concise Dic

tionary of O ld Icelandic flagd is

explained to mean an ogre

(ogress) or giantess, which is

analogous to ON troll, both

being supernatural giants and

monsters. Egilsson, 1931, Le xi

con Poeticum confirms flagd to

be equivalent to troll.


Icelandic-Etiglish D ic tionary and

Hellquist, 1939, Svensk Etymol-

ogisk Ordhok.

3Hellquist, 1939, Svensk Ety-

mologisk Ordbok under т а г а .



Zoёga, 1910, A Concise Diction

ary o f Old Icelandic.

1. Baldr got struck by nightmares in the form o f death bring

ing illusory apparitions that visited him at night. This is a rep

resentative aspect of Liliths craft, genius and succubus

demon-daughters Lilin in Judaic mythology, and I found a rel

evant connection here with her an d Gullveig. Gullveig is the

mo ther of all flagdl, giants, monsters, and troll, which Voluspa

in skamtna 12 tells us: "Loptr got pregnant with the evil woman

(Gullveig); from this have all troll (flagd ) come.” And ON т а г а ,

as in night-mare2, was in Old Scandinavia an ogress, z flagd, who

came to peop le at night and terrorized them. A very interesting

detail is explained by H ellquist3*that т а г а derives from the Ger

manic root mer, to crush, as the ON w ord merjaf, which actually

would make the mara some kind o f (or connected to) a death-

giantess, which makes the supernatural entity т а г а interlinked

with other supernatural beings (giants) as Margerdr, Sinmara,

and kveldrida. Gullveig herself is not narrated as being a bringer

of nightmares in the ON myths, bu t as 1 just proven she is very

much connected to it.

5Snorri s narration says, from

his own personal conception

and understanding of the old

sagas, “in the disguise of an old

woman, Loki went to Frigg and

learned from her that she had

not took an oath from a small

sapling of mistletoe which grew

west of Valhall, because she

thought it was too young to

crave an oath from”.

2. If Frigg was that mighty in magic to make everything no t

be able to hurt Barldr, there is only one witch in the sagas that

can overpower a strong dss-spell like that, which I have proven

above, and that is Gullveig. Gullveig was created in the begin

ning of the worlds by the ancestors of the ur-thurses Ymir,

trudg elm ir and Bergelmir. The dark powers of witchcraft and

runes were entang led and a part of Gullveig s essence, she was

the origin o f the art. This was before even Frigg was bom.

3. Loki, Gullveig s coun terpart, was the one who found this

sapling. In the whole cosmos, there was just one tiny plant that

refused the oath and Loki knew where to find it5. And the only ones who assumedly

would be able to know abou t this sapling and its rejection would be Frigg and the

one sup porting the teinn an d "put the protective spell upon it.” And I must say that

the wise Frigg have seen Loki trick the gods m any times and the gods have had sus-

174




picion tow ards Loki because of it, and I have a hard tim e thinking she would let

Loki know about this sapling, even though Loki was a “trus ted” giant within AsgarSr

and h er husband s blood-bro ther1. This is a paradox though, because we have to re

mem ber that Loki could transform himself into anything, and thereb y would be

able to trick Frigg by having an appearance of a woman.

I believe it was no t Loki alone who made this happen , at least no t in the original

sagas, before S norris account, because he had such a delicate position am ongst the

gods already. Remember, this Baldr-scheme happened near Ragna Rok and the xsir

were already suspicious of Loki, and you could say he was about to get caught, ac

tually this was the last adverse deed he did until the cesir caught him and punished

him. I suspect that it was from the beginning a deed carried ou t both by Loki and

the Old One in Jarnvidr, Gullveig.

A NOTE ON THE MISTLETOE

1This is one version, bu t in the

sagas the gods were at this time

of conflict on the verge of not

trusting Loki, so I think this was

just an easy way for the authors

to go around the facts.

1But you can eat the leaves,

berries and stem and it will not

hu rt you. It is even said that it

will make you r immune-system

stronger and that it is effective

against some cancer-cells.

It s interesting for me th at the old poets picked ou t the

mistletoe o f all plants to be the deadly weapon, because the

non-fictional plant s stalk is pretty frail and you would n ot

be able to make a strong arrow from it. However, if you look

at the fact that the juices from the plant's leaves, berries and

stem are fatally poisonous when it comes in contact with

blood2, which hu nters in our ancient times knew and used

on their arrowheads, and easily killed their prays with, it

makes it pretty obvious that the old poets used this plant as

the lethal arrow which killed Baldr. However, someth ing which surprises m e is that

Snorri disregarded th e fact that the mistletoe is a parasitic plant, which is depends

on and lives on o ther trees and shrubs. In the Edda the author is talking abo ut this

lonely sapling growing by itself on the ground, « m Loki tok mistiltein ok sleit upp»,

well that is just impossible. This “disregard” tells me, once again, that the author is

just oblivious to the sin ister sides o f the mythology - meaning that h e allegorize

Baldr in detail and everything around him, even the asir, but misses a full moon

clear thing such as the fact that the mistletoe is not able to grow by itself on theground, or be made in to an arrow.

An othe r interesting fact is tha t o f an old saying; the mistletoe grows where light

ning has struck a tree. This is interesting because Loki is said to have been created

from lightning hitting a tree, i.e. Farbauti and Laufey.

175




And lastly, with the mistletoe’s infamous reputation of being able to open the

gates to the worlds of death, 1 think it fits pretty well in this myth.

H 0D R KILLING BALD RA ND VALI KILLING H 0D R

So, the gods amused themselves by throwing spears and shooting arrows at Baldr.

And Loki felt disgusted by watch ing it. However, as cunningly as always, Loki in a

disguise of a woman had already gone to Frigg and learned where to get this mistle

toe, and I believe, made a weapo n from it with P jazis help. Then, he somehow got

Baldr s broth er HoSr to shoot the black magical arrow at Baldr and he struck him

dead. Hodr, son of Odinn, known by earlier sagas to be an excellent hunter, warrior

and archer, was the perfect “puppet* for Loki to choose. Loki naturally wanted the

best archer for his and Gullveig s grand endeavor - somebody close to Odinn and

Baldr who could easily join the ir game and aim at Baldr with precision withou t at

tracting any suspicion. Indeed, Hodr s earlier hostile incident with Baldr over Baldr s

wife Nanna makes Hodr an even more ideal “pu pp et”, which will bring him death

by brotherly retaliation and make him descend, too, into the underworld. That Baldr

and Hod r have been enemies in the Old Norse mythology is proven in the ep ithets

dolgr Hadar and Baldrs andskoti.

Now, let s take a look at H odr s “blindness”. How is it tha t one of the mos t suc

cessful warriors and archers - he is also known for being a fine hunter - in the race

all of a sudden is called blind and has to get help from a malicious giant to be able

to aim his bow at a standing target? It makes no sense. I have a hard tim e believing

that the ancient poets just forgot about Ho5r s skills and mistake him for a blind

fool. No way, evidently, it is Snorri that just made this up to fit his story. I am pretty

convinced tha t Snorri and othe r interpreters of the older sagas got it all wrong and

translated the words too literally. Because of the fact that H oSr was not aware of the

sly plans by Gullveig and Loki, he was kept in the dark and unaware (hence blind)

of the purpose of that lethal mistletoe-arrow; which fits in a com mon saying - which

is informal and slang - that reads that to be “blind” means tha t you “do not know

abo ut something that o ther people know abou t”, and does n ot m ean physically

blind.

♦

176




Here is my summ ary of the battle between Ho 3r and Baldr. H od r who is called

Baldrs and skoti in Voluspd 33, Baldr s adversary, and Baldr wh o is called dolgr Hadar

in Skdldskaparmdl 12, H ou r’s enemy; epithets which prove the ir history o f enmity

towards each other. It all began when Ho3 r was out hunting in distan t woods so far

away that no one had set foot there before him, he had gone so far in mists that hegot lost. Suddenly he ran into three witches (he met one or three witches, depending

on the version o f the saga) w ho knew his name and claimed they could make him

trium ph in battle. They told him th at they would come invisibly to the battleground

and aid him, and they supposedly gave him an impenetrable chain-mail. They also

told H od r that Baldr wanted Nanna; H odr s own half-sister that he h imself was in

love with, and she with him. (According to Saxo, Hodr was adopted by the moon-

god Gaevarr; father to N anna, so Nanna is Hodr s foster-sister). After this meeting

with the wom an/wo men , H odr wen t hom e to his foster-father Gaevarr and asked

for N an nas hand, Gaevarr said that he w ould love to see him get married to his

daughter, bu t Baldr had just asked for he r hand and Gaevarr was afraid that Baldr

would be enraged and kill him i f he d eclined his request. However, Gaevarr told

Hodr that there was a sword that would kill Baldr (this mythological sword of

vengeance is analogous to Gam banteinn-M istilteinn.) Unfortunately for HoSr, the

sword was almost impossible to get, it was hidden in an abnormally cold and m ost

impenetrable land, and guarded with in a mountain by a forest-being called Mimin-

gus - who also wore an arm-ring which increases richness. After following all o f

Gsevarr s advice in getting to M imingus’ abode, Ho5r manage to o btain the m ighty

sword and the enriching arm-ring. So when Baldr went to Gsevarr to ask for Nannas

hand, Ho5r decided to go to war with Baldr with Gaevarr s

advice and foreseeing. The first war betw een Hodr and Baldr,

H odr won 1. After the war, he w ent to Gaevarr to marry

Nanna. However, Baldr did not give up, this time he w ent to

war with Hodr and won. By this time Baldr started to be

haun ted in his dreams by apparitions in Nannas shape. Then,

Ho dr went to war with Baldr a second time, but lost the war and ha d to retreat all

alone. Grieved by his loss he wen t ou t to the woods to wander the most deserted

lands where no hum an had yet set foot. In this land, all of a sudden, he came across

a cave where three unknow n women sat. He recognized them because he h ad met

them before, and it was from them he got the impenetrable chain-mail he used inthe w ars with Baldr. They asked him wh y he was wandering in the ir lands and he

told them about his failed war. He blamed the m because they had prom ised him

victory the last time they spoke. They answered him that he had heavily weakened

his enemies and th at he would probably win if he got some of the w onderful no ur

ishm ent tha t strengthened Baldr s powers. In so saying they caused H od r to go into

1The tesir fought on Baldr s side

in this war, which means that

Hodr went to war against the

izsir.

177




battle w ith Baldr a th ird time. During the war, Hod r w ent ou t one night to spy on

his enemy, when he saw three disir, which Hod r presumed were the ones making

the strengthening nourishm ent, leaving Baldr s camp. He followed them back to

their abode, and after they had been acquainted with him one of the disir wanted

to serve Ho dr some of the strengthening nourishment. However, the older one saidthat it would be an act of treachery towards Baldr to give Ho dr it too, bu t H odr as

sured them that he was just one of Ho dr s men, no t Ho dr himself. So doing, he got

the n ourishm ent an d a mighty belt of victory. On his way back to his camp he me t

his enemy Baldr and struck him with a fatal wound w ith his sword. Later Odinn, at

Rin dr s, used w itchcraft to spawn Vali to kill Hodr.

In Saxo's hero-version of the Baldr-myth, Ho dr as Hotherus

gets help in the war by som eone Saxo called Helgo o f Haloga-

land (in Porsteins saga Vikingssonar , Saga of Thorstein son of

Viking, known as Halogi of Halog aland), w hom Rydberg

proves to be Loki1.

This is obvio usly an O ld saga, which ju st leaves us traces of its originality in

sundry newer sagas; e.g. Saxos Gesta Danorum and the Hdvamal episode about

Loddfafhir, wh ich can be com pared to the H oSr-myth.

W hat I suspect in the drama ab out Ho dr and Baldr s battle is that H odr went as

far as the dark woods in the east which are often explained to lay in Jotu nhe im r in

O N sagas, and vast woods o f mists, where H odr got lost, which are often suggested

to be Jarnvidr, Gullveig s residence. It was in this misty and d istant woo d tha t he

met a witch, or three (3 is Gullveig-Heidr-Aurbodas magical and mythological cor

responding nu m ber), wh o offered to help him in the battle against Baldr and the

cesir. I believe this referred to Gullveig as a giant-witch connec ted more than once

to war-myths.

If we look at the w hole Baldr-myth and extract eleven fund amental events it

would be:123456

1 . Gullveig and Loki plan a strategy to kill Baldr.2. Ho dr goes to war against Baldr and the cesir.

3. Baldr is afflicted with visions of his own death .

4. Od inn visits Gullveig in the underw orld to ask abo ut Baldr s future.

5. Loki collects the weapon called Mistilteinn.

6. Loki tricks Hod r into killing Baldr.

1Rydberg, 1 1886, II 1889, Un-


Mythologi.

178



7. Baldr descends into the underw orld where he is kept by the giantess Hel.

8. The cesir visits Hel in the underworld to beg her to release Baldr, but she re

fuses un til all cry for him.

9. A giantess named f>0kk refuses.

10. The cesir revenge Baldr s dea th by killing Н ойг.

11. The cesir also caught Loki for being the m astermind behind this whole plot,

and as they cannot kill him, he gets sent to Lyngvi and stays bound until

Ragna Rok.

Loki s part in this plot is evident, bu t Gullveig s is not. As there is no t much writ

ten pro of of her involvement we have to understand the background to the m yth.

Several things point to her involvement though; l ) it was most likely Gullveig or

her Jarnvidjur in the Ironwood who cunningly inspired and supported Н оЙ г to go

to battle with Baldr and the cesir to prepare a solid wedge between Hodr and Baldr,

as it seems like a typical and cunning thing for her and Loki to do, 2) the strong

protective magical spell on the mistletoe teinn, 3) the deathly visions and nightmares

that Baldr had, 4) Gullveig made sure tha t Baldr s funeral ship would n ot move, so

that the cesir had to call for her aid to "push” it ou t to sea as a giantess o f the eastern

storms; an allegorization for Gullveig as Hyrrokin to send (as in killing) Baldr into

the underworldly realm of he r daughter Hel - I am convinced that this strange

episode was a proo f by the authors of Gullveig s involvement in Baldr s death, 5)

Gullveig s daughter Hel is of course in alliance with Loki and Gullveig and therefore

refuses to let Baldr go, 6) Gullveig as the giantess t>okk refuses to weep for Baldr so

that he stays in the underworld b ound by the giants.


BALDR’S FUNERAL AND HYRROKIN

The cesir took Baldr s corpse to the sea to give him an honorable funeral in his ship

out to sea; his ship was well-known and called Hringhom i. The ship was big and

the cesir could not find the strength to move the ship from land, not even their

strongest ass ]>6rr. So Od inn called for the giantess Hyrrokin from Jotunheimr. She

came, riding on a thursian wolf, as big as a bear, with poisonous snakes as reins ( I

dare to guess that it was supposed to be F enrir she came riding on; because thestruggle by Odinn s berserks to toss him to the ground, shows the w olf s immense

giant-strength and this allegory is familiar with the myth when Fenrir was in his

youth and got too big and wild for the cesir to control, and finally they captured him

with big difficulty. Fenrir just ripped the magically strengthened chains made by

dwarves into pieces. It took them three attem pts and Tyr s hand before they were

179



1«Р а var sent \ Jotunheima eftir

gygi peirri er Hyrrokkin het, en er

him kom og reid vargi og hafdi

hoggorm ad taumum, pd hljop

hun a f hestinum, en dd inn

kalladi til berserki fiora ad gceta

hestsins ogfengu peir eigi haldid

п е т а peir felldu hann. Pd gekk

Hyrrokkin dframstafn nokkvans

og hrattfram ijyrsta vidbragdi,

svo ad eldur hraut ur hlunnunum

og lond dll skulfu» . - Gylfagin-

ning.

2If you read a bout £6rr you will

see that he is known as a

grumpy and childish killer of

women - take Gullveig and Hel

as examples.

3My personal translation would

be: "The very st rong giantess

made 6<3inns ship lumber

forth, and 6<3inns warriors top

pled over her horse.”

4 Because Litr is a name of a

dwarf in Voluspd: <xVeggr ok

Gandalfr, Vindalfr, Porinn, Prar

ok Prdinn, Pekkr, Litr ok Vitr,

Nyr ok Nyrddr, nu hefi ek dverga,

Reginn ok Rddsvidr; rett of

talda».

s «Pa stdd Por ad og vigdi bdlid

med Mjollni, en fyr irfotu m bans

rann dvergur nokkur, sd er Litur

nefndur, en Por spymtifceti smum

a hann og hratt honum i eldinn,

og brann hann». - Gylfaginning.

able to chain Fenrir down.) She jum ped off the wolf and O dinn

ordered four berserks to hold it down bu t they could no t find the

strength until they heaved him to the ground, a wolf this big and

strong must have been Fenrir. Hyrrokin w ent up to the ship after

Odinn had asked her to launch it in the sea, and in one movem ent she tossed the ship with such speed that flames burst out

from o ut un der the ship and the grou nd q uaked1. l>orr with his

childish and grumpy temper got so mad that he grabbed his ham

mer in order to crush Hyrrokin s head2. However, the sesir asked

frorr not to kill her, saying that the y wanted peace between h er

and them.

An interesting thing is to compare the sagas an d see the de

velopm ent of its contents. The Old No rse rune-m asters warned

about one staring blind o n the text because the y were written

down hun dreds of years after being orally spread. The Gylfagin

ning was inspired by the older Hiisdrdpa which explained the

my th ab out the giantess' arrival and her transpo rtation:


Husdrapa:

Fulloflug let fjalla

fram hafsleipni gram ma

Hildr, enn H ropts o f gildar

hjalmelda m ar felldu.3

Gylfaginning:

£>a var sent f Jo tun he im a eftir

gygi peirri er Hyrrokkin h^t,

en er h un kom og reiS vargi og

hafSi hoggorm ab taumum,

hljop hu n af hestinum, en

OSinn kalladi til berserki fjora

ad gaeta hests ins og fengu J>eir

eigi haldid nema ]>eir felldu

hann.

Then s om ething really interesting happens, before the very feet o f t>6rr runs a

litr (often interpreted as a dwarf), which means salmon and is also an epithet to

Loki. Port kicks Litr into th e flames of the funeral pyre and he bu rns5. This is so out

of context that the authors h ad to have been signifying some thing with this Litr

character. O ne of my personal understandings of this is that the author w anted to

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allegorize bo rr as Lok is captor; because of the saga o f Franangrsfors where b6rr

captures Loki in the guise of a salmon. Instead o f just giving borr an epithet, the au

tho r made an epic allegory of bor r kicking Loki into the fire.

First o f all, Hyrrokin is another nam e for Gullveig, and in some way the authors

wanted to have Gullveig s essence present, and assumedly show how Gullveig is fol

lowing her task from the beginn ing and to th e very end. The same goes for Loki, he

arrives in the myth as a salmon, which the tricky Old Norse authors try to hide by

calling him Litr. Maybe the translators and inte rprete rs o f the o ld sagas got it all

wrong, th at instead it was Loki as a salmon coming swimming in the sea to spy or

enjoy the burning of Baldr’s corpse and funeral. An d tha t b6rr spotted him and

kicked him into the flames of the pyre, which would no t kill him because Loki was

created from flames and instead he would take pleasure in it. Both he and Gullveig

are flame-resistant according to the old sagas. The author of this epic myth most

likely wanted to emphasize the intelligence and masterminds beh ind this strategic

deed - Loki-Litr and G ullveig-Hyrrokin. Loki, just as Gullveig, is here following

his task from the beginning and to the very end by showing up in this funeral

episode. As an ending o f the my th o f Baldr’s death - the whole m yth of Baldr’s fu

neral - Hyrrokin and Litr holds so many allegories and indications to Gullveig and

Loki s plot, th at I personally believe that the authors wanted to reassure th e readers

and listeners of this myth tha t Gullveig and Loki were the foundation of the killing

of Baldr and the trigger o f Ragna Rok. Although, the saga did actually no t end there.

BALDR IN HEL'S GRIP

After the death o f Baldr and wh en he is staying in Niflhel, O dinn an d the aesir asked

Hel; goddess o f the u nderworld, to give Baldr and his wife Nanna th e chance to re

turn. H el cunningly told O dinn and th e aesir tha t she could grant Bald r and his wife

this und er the condition that all the beings througho ut the world will weep for his

death. But there was one, one grim b eing that rejected this action: bokk her name

was, the giantess sitting outside he r cave and refused to weep for Baldr. She said:

“bokk will weep d ry tears for Baldr.” Because o f this, Baldr and his wife never re

turned to the living. This mysterious being is no t me ntioned elsewhere in the sagas,

not anywhere in the m ythology as a whole. I think it is obvious tha t the authors

wanted the evil behind this plot - the killing of Baldr - personified and disguised,

and between the lines it was self-evident that bokk was a manifestation o f Gullveig,

Loki, and Hel’s opposition. Furtherm ore, isn’t it curious that she had the name bokk

which means “than ks”? «Baldr vceri gratinn or helju», "that Baldr shall be wept out

181




of hd"j is it Hel the giantess, the dead, or Helheimr? I think £>okk s wonderful answer

is as diffuse as everything else concerning Hel: « haldi Helpv(, er hefir», "Hel shall

keep what Hel has". Again, is it Hel the giantess, the dead, o r Helheimr? In my opin

ion, logically E>okk is Hel, as it is Hel who asks for everything in the worlds to weep

for Baldr s dea th for her to release him. Just one refused to weep

and it was a gian tess sitt ing in a cave, {belli1; Old Icelandic hella

is a rock, like the Swedish word “foaZZ”. Liljenroth in his book Hel

- den gomda gudinnan claims that Hel was from the beginning a

mother giantess worshipped as a rock, hall-hella, and this is

where h er name derives from. Snorri might have been familiar

with th is assumedly primitive rock-worship, as in the sagas authors preferably con

nected characters with certain objects o r locations, just as they connected Gullveig

with dark and deep forests in the m ythos. W hy this mysterious giantess in the rock-

cave has the name £>okk, thanks, is for me an evidently ironic name for Hel to to r

ment the gods a little extra with he r mo rbid spectacle - a trait not far from her

father s. My point is that I believe Hel was just messing around w ith the gods and

Baldr, as she had the power to just say no w hen the gods asked for Baldr back.

1*finna peir i helli nokkurum,

hvargygr sat Hon nefndist Pokk.

Peir bidja hana grata Baldr or

Helju».

*

Pokk т и grata purrum tdrum Baldrs bdlfarar ;kyks ne daubs nautk-a ek Karls sonar,

haldi Hel pvi, er hefir ;

*

182




Baldr has to suffer death an d does no t get the chance to re turn to life, now Gul-

lveig and Loki have him exactly where they wanted him and by this the ragnarokian

chain-reaction will follow. It is bit ironic that 0 3inn , god of the dead, has to let his

own son und ergo eternal death, and Odinn himself had no po wer to free his own

son from it. Indeed, even though it is said that O dinn is the “wisest one” and “knows

all” - which includes the fu ture (according to e.g. Voluspa and Lokasenna) - he lets

Gullveig and Loki kill his own son and send him to the underworld where he has

to live amongst giants. In the m yths Odinn grieves the m ost over his son, but still

he just stood aside and let them kill him. This my th tells almost more abou t Odinn s

foolishness tha n the killing of his son.

*

In my interp retation of this, either the ancient Scandinavian authors patronized

the highest god, saying he is too oblivious to foresee the killing of his own son, or

they were so haphazard themselves that they did no t unde rstand what they were

saying in their own sagas.

183



II: Fjolkyngi




FOREWORD

This part o f the bo ok holds the esoteric aspects and praxis of my own workings of

witchcraft in the line of what is called the Thursatru T radition - burs atni siSr - and

it divulges a small pa rt o f my magical Gullveig-workings. I share this black a rt as I

know tha t it will benefit the rim e-thursian power o f Gullveig. I wifi no t go into detail,

merely give examples o f good ways to w ork with Gullveig.

It must be rem emb ered that these are m y individual workings; the O ld Norse

tradition, Gullveig and Loki, together wi th my assorted so rcerous background have

assisted me in developing my individual sinister path and tradition. C ertain litera

ture, traditions, and people have inspired me as well, and in tha t way helped me

with understanding and enlightened my eclectic approach to a Gnostic Left Handed

path.

W hat I present below in this part o f the bo ok I would call a pure inspirational

text rather than a com plete system that can be ad opted just by anyone.

There are certain principles I consider im portant in a successful and resultant

practice in th e line o f th e Thursatru Tradition, an d th at is wh at I will put emphasis

on in this chapter; I split my sidr into three:

Sidr - The Tradition

• Blot - Worship

• Seta - Meditation

• Vitt - Practical magic

THE MJRSATRTJ SIDR

Here I want to bring up in short the Pursatru and Jotnatru; anglicized to Thursatru

and Jotnatru. I will focus more on th e concep t o f Thursatru because it is more of a

correct nam e for this line of religion, tradition and praxis, according to the O ld Norse fdrnsidr (Old tradition: I rather call it sidr than fdrnsidr (w ith of course the

full understanding of the essence o f fornsidr), as this tradition should move on and

expand, no t stagnate in a previous era; tha t would be to fail the worship and witch

craft of our O ld ancestors, which the sidr is built upon. They considered it to be

vital for the nex t one to continue the ir sidr.) First I want to make clear that there

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FJ0LKYNGI

was no Pursatru or Jotnatru known in Old Scandinavia; these are modern names

designed to poin t out the line o f Old Norse religion, tradition and praxis - even

though the foundation and essence of Pursatrii has an established tradition today.

Thursatru means basically the belief in thurses, it is the name of the workings

with pursar (anglicized to thurses p i) , the whole o f their religion, tradition and

praxis. With the usages o f the Old Norse plural form pursar it aims at the thursian

powers, the true essences of the darker and adversary aspect of the giant-clans in

the underworld as a whole. The essence o f the thursian powers dwells as a whole in

the ► -rune, and this rune is the symbol of the entire Thursatru. Runic combinations

known as bind-runes will only strengthen the ► -rune's meaning and power and are

used in many sundry ways; this is by the O ld tradition - fornsidr . The ► -rune itself

holds bo th the ► -rune and the T-rune in ► ursatni, if you just take the top v-shaped

figure of the t-rune and put it vertical on its stem, which makes the ► -rune a perfect bind-rune o r sigil for the bod y of Pursatru. Indeed, to use the ► -rune as a bind-rune

it is all of a sudden a rune o f taufr, which means sorcery or even a talisman, and this

is what the t-r un e represents here: taufr as in non-static dynamic pow er of the

cultus.

So what powers are we talking about, who is J>urs and who is jo tunn? Here Г11

bring up a few pursar who all are of great importance: The primordial ur-thurs is

Ymir who is called by his own rime-thurs race Aurgelmir: the first of them all. « En

padan a fkom u cettir, pad eru hrimpursar. Hinn gamli hrimpurs, harm kollum ver Ymi».

He created Erudgelmir the six-headed thurs, Bergelmir was his son («pa var Bergelmir borinn; Prudgelmirvarpessfadir, enn Aurgelmir afi» .) Indeed, many more

thurses were created from this race; many are mentioned throughout the mythology,

mostly rime-thurses and adversaries to the aesir. Loki and Gullveig are two key char

acters in mythology and worship; both are thurses and eminent enemies with the

cesir , probably two of the o ldest thurses.

Their children are of course thurses: Jormungandr, Fenrir and Hel; to my under

standing and studies Fenrir belongs to the Muspell-race (like his father Loki) and

Hel is chief-ruler of Niflheimr (of the Nifl-race like her m other Gullveig.) Surtr and

all his sons of Muspellzheimr are thurses and the y all have a very important role inthe Ragna Rok mythos. I>jazi and his bro thers I5i and Gangr turned into thurses

after being betrayed by the cesir. NiShoggr dwells in Niflheimr, the home of all rime-

thurses. NiShoggr and his breed are gnawing on the roo ts of the world-tree to poison

it and kill it from within - this allegorizes the sole purpose of the thursian powers.

Beli and his dog-headed clan belong to the rime-thurses, etc.

187




The Thursatru worship has its foundation in the un derworld; Jotunhe imr and

Helheimr, and in Chaos; Niflheimr and Mtispellzheimr. The anti-cosmic and sinister

powers of Jo tunh eimr an d Helhe im r are worsh ipped as adverse entities. Equally,

the rime-w orld in Chaos, Niflheimr, with its deformed and icy thurses, the world

where Gullveig once walked out from and w here he r essence still dwells, and where

Hel is the chief-ruler (Nifl-Hel) is worshipped as an acosmic and anti-cosmic eitr-

curre nt invading the cosmos. Mtispellzheimr, also in Chaos, with its ruler Surtr is

worshipped as the flaming world, where once Loki sprang out from. The worship

is devoted to the thurses, to u pho ld them and sacrifice to them so that they will

grow in power. The tradition tha t comes with this worship holds O ld Norse rituals

in many forms, a tradition that com es with devotion and black magical praxis. The

practical sorcery o f this trad ition is very impor tant and has been since ages before

the Com mo n Era. All of this is very important to respect. The rune-row is a central

tool in the Thursatru Tradition, the calling for the powers includes it, and the blackmagical praxis is based on it an d its mysteries. So therefore it is very im portan t to

understand all of the runes, its old language, and its usage - this is an essential part

of the Thursatru tradition.

Jotna tru is the name based on the word jotunn, which is in analogy with the m ore

benign giants who mos t often are friends with the cesir. I t’s very confusing in the

Old sagas because many authors m ix the words purs and jotunn in sentences as if

the words m eant the same, bu t they do n ot. That is the main difference between

Pursatru and J&tnairu, and this is w hy jotna tru is an inappropriate nam e for a cultus

opposing the cesir.

188



Bl 6 t

After the sun has gone dow n he r power opens u p akin to the eyes of the night-owl.

She likes the dark of the night - the nightside of time - like her abode deep in the

east of the underworld, where it is cold and dark, and where the Nifl-mists drift

heavily. This is the time for calling her name and to give homage to her, and doing

so she will come climbing from the depths and o ut o f the earth to answer your call.

She, the Old One comes as the old wise crone, and sits with you; leaning on her

black staff of thursian power, a tool holding the very essence of Chaos’ wrath. In her

black robes she sits in delight o f your devotion. She hungers for you and the essenceof your offerings to her, she absorbs it like ravenous flames.

There it is, high u pon a hill, the big rocks with heavy snow-caps look like giants

are sitting and watching the stars in the night. This is the wilderness , no civilization

close to the se woods, no cars o r filthy city noises. It is winter, and the long w inter

mo nths are corresponding to Gullveig and her Nifl-blood. I consider the winters to

be Gullveig s mos t dom inan t time o f the year, especially Midwinter, which I see as

one of the m ost impor tant nights in homage to Gullveig, Hel and th e Nifl-powers.

The winter n ights in my area are normally abo ut -20°C to -35°C, a trait which helps

you in feeling the cold o f Niflheimr in your very ow n core. The trail which leads up

to this place is old and only animals use it today. Brown bears and wolves are know n

to stroll in these woods - without fire you are a potential targe t for the wild beasts’

curiosity, aggression, and hunting instincts. This knowledge makes you alert; as the

adrenaline infecting you r blood th e m otivation is infecting you r spirit. Their pres

ence can be felt as a lingering reek of their urine and fur, their essence dwells here

but th ey themselves have ru n away as soon as th ey heard my car pulling up below

the hill and smelled the smoke from my torch.

These woods are old, you can tell by the intensity of the entities dwelling here,

the darkness is so thick it feels like it chokes you, but it is only the effect of its unseen

presence, as the darkness here is like a th ick fog, you can actually feel it embrace

you. The tree giants are standing tall and murmuring in the non-present wind, they

look like dark giant defenders protecting the primeval hill of the thurses. The edgy

flames of my torch are dancing eagerly and cast shadows in the dark, the flames

189




make the wo od com e alive, and its heat is wanted in this rime-clad home. The deep

snow and the up-hill trail tests your strength as it is like walking in water up-stream,

it is like the snow wants you to give up and go home. But the very thoug ht o f what

awaits you makes you n ot care about small distractions like this. As I arrive I first

see them, the big rocks which are acting ritual mon um ents represent Loki, Gullveig

and their adverse purpose, at the same time are they representing Jormun gandr,

Fenrir and Hel. They are waiting patiently for the flames to rise again in their lair.

Thoughts on Gullveig and memories of my last visit going around in my head as

I carefully stack the fire-wood in place in the fire-pit I once made by digging a big

deep hole in the rocky ground, a nd I p ut large rocks around it to hold the flames. A

long time ago I and some bro thers made this place with just shovels and pick-axes;

it took month s o f hard labor. And at last the flames lit up th e gian t rocks at the Gul-

lveigarblot, *Heil GullveigГ Specially gathered herbs and resin are mixed in thestone-m ortar and the pestle roughly grinds the mix to nice incense granules. W ith

my hand-made spo on - made out of Yew-tree and which has Gullveig-runes burn t

into it - the incense mix is pu t on glowing charcoal with my left hand; “ й Gullveig!

Heil Heidr! Heil Aurboda Г The smoke is well-known and awakes my spirit, a certain

focus. Heavy breathing m akes you dizzy and all of yourself getting warm and in

spired. With my inner eye I envision Gullveig s essence filling the darkness, my sigils

and fetishes are activated and call for her, like howling wolves in a Feb ruary night,

mist is steaming from the jaws of the hun ters, reeking and rising, the smoke comes

from the underworld, from her abode, it is her essence, like the foul breath o f Garmr.

I fall into m editation, a preparation for the receiving of Gullveig s presence. With

my inne r voice I call, materialize runes w ith my inn er voice an d cast them smoking

and icy down into the depths ofJarnviSr. Semi-improvised and wordless rune-songs

flow in my thoughts; celebrating and glorifying In Aldna. The void spreads like the

black wings o f NiShoggr arou nd me; I can feel the m ight o f the abyss and the claus

troph obic clasp. I can feel the freedom of my spirit ripping the shackles apart like

the father o f Fenrir. I have now awoken the anti-cosmic powers and they climb up

from u nd er the earth like black shadowy mists. The crystal fetish which is repre

senting Gullveig s hea rt is as cold as ice and bites m y left hand as I devotedly touch

it, the clay-pot which represents the well of thursian wisdom - Hvergelmir - is boil

ing with eitr and the black magical runes inscribed are now glowing brigh t bloody

red. So does the master bind-run e Pursakross, which is placed in the east together

with the fetish Gullveig-idol. The black magical wand is held with bo th hands and

used as a focal point of Gullveig s influence as the words o f pow er are u ttered:

190



Bl 6 t

“Heil Gullveig:

heil Gullveig: heil gygr seids oksvartra runa:

heil Gullveig: undir ok ajerdu:

heil Gullveig: med rwfnin Heidr Angrboda Hyrrokin Aurboda:"

“Gullveig - The giantess o f darkness from dr-Chaos!

I cast runes consecrated in your alluring name, burning and smoking, into the

hungry arms ofMyrkvidr ; to seek to uphold your wise monstrosity."

"Gullveig - The thurs-powers’ giantess from Jarnvidr!

See me from your mighty and black seidr-throne; from the deepest darkness in which

you dwell."

“Gullveig, I invoke you! Wise and old giantess!

I implore you to possess my spirit with your black and anti-cosmic power.

I implore you to take me as your disciple in the thursian knowledge and runes.

1 implore you to embrace and infuse my devoted spirit with your thursian strength

and rime-thursian wisdom."

“Gullveig, I invoke you! Wise giantess!

Le t my rune-songs link your powers with mine; and bind my rune-songs

to your black magic.

Le t my rune-songs hail you as my dark and almighty queen."

".Hail Gullveig! Distributor o f the words o f darkness!"

"Pau hetu hana prjar hrcedilegarpursameyjar:

pursamcerin sem er ein ok prjar:

prysvar brend: prysvar borin:

mcer okfelagi Loka: vordr ok drottningMyrkvidar:"

"Drottning jarnvidja, pursameyja, gygja, myrkrida, illra bruda:

Drottning jarnulfa, pursarekka, jotna, svartbldtmanna, illra vera:”

"heil Gullveig in vitra: heil Gullveig in aldna:"

191




I then open up and receive the attention from Gullveig, she always comes and

sits with me, faceless she smiles at me and no ds in approval and shows m e tha t she

is willing to share. Fo r a long tim e 1 just sit as if meditating and studying Gullveig

with m y inner eye as she shows me things, things of impo rtance , this could take an

hou r or two. Then, when the time is right I bring ou t my Blotspcetiir, they are my

specially made divination tools - which I use to comm unicate with Gullveig above

all. I call them my “claws” because they are made from genuine w olf claws, for me

they symbolizes the restless wo lf who stroll in the dark to scou t out what he is look

ing for, no rest and no mercy. My claws have been through these journeys as they

come from a wild wolf: the y have hunted, they have killed, and th ey have devoured

their victims. For me, wh at this represents in m y workings is very important. They

repre sent Gullveig s child Fenrir and the ir offspring, e.g. Hati and Skoll; Gullveig

leads them and they are enlightened by her: so am I, and they are very much c on

nected to h er and she has accepted my claws as a means to com municate.

After my com munication and receiving I prepare an d start my Seta; to gain all

the understand ing o f wh at I have received this night. Then, I en d my blot by giving

sacrifice and praise Gullveig for all that she has given me. This night I bro ught my

sacred bowl with red Gullveig-runes inscribed on it an d I filled it with raw meat

which swam in blood, something the Old One fancies. Even the Old O nes Ja rn -

viSjur gather from the scent o f fresh blood and meat, thirsting for its essence.

“Heil Gullveig! Н й Heidr! Н й Aurboda!”

"Heil Gullveig in vitra! Heil Gullveig in aldna!”

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Se t a

й

Utiseta is a meditative technique that calls for a longer m editation out in the wild

to connect with the divinities and exchange power and hidden knowledge. There

is also the 01 term ndttseta, night-sitting, which might fit better with the workings

according to the Thursa tru tradition. But I just call this praxis Seta, sitting, as I use

this form o f invocatory meditation both outside and inside during nights. Some

will probably disagree with this, as the known (modern) practice o f Utiseta is par

ticularly described as being p erform ed outside in the wilderness. Well, I don 't like

to limit myself with p redes tined boundaries, such as stasis in praxis - even thoughI consider tradition highly important. Instead I use the fundamental ideology o f the

Gno stic Left: Ha nd Path and thurs ian traditions with my personal lawless develop

ments to form any praxis into the best adapt one for me - unrestrained. After more

than a decade o f experience o f ON praxis, I figure that as long as I reach the purpose

with this form of invocatory meditation I can adjust it to my individual practice and

fulfillment.

In the line of Thursatru the point w ith Seta is for example to reach the depths o f

the underw orld and grasp its knowledge, and /or during a ritual become one with

the invoked thursian power - it could also be used as an extensive meditation toachieve understand ing of previously received knowledge.I

I often use incense during my Seta which I prepare and mix beforehand according

to the type o f working f m doing. After all these years of praxis my brain are used to

the incenses and connec ts its scents routinely with certain states. I use all kinds of

herbs and resin to get certain scents. For inside-workings I rather burn oils, and

these oils I make myself by mixing carrier oil (e.g. sweet almond o il), essential oils,

herbs and resin till I get the scent I want. I think oil is bette r for inside Seta because

it gives a more pleasant scent as you sit in front of it for a very long time, incense

smoke tends to make you a bit too dizzy after a longer while because o f the lack of

oxygen in your brain, and you can get poisoned from it, too. Ajiother bad thing with

using incense on an inside Seta is that you have to refill it often, and that distracts

your m editation. However, for outside Seta I always bu m incense mixes on charcoal

as it lasts for a long time, and to avoid distractions as I sit outside heavier doses of

incenses are need ed, so I always prepare 3-4 times of a batch.

193




Fetishes are very important to me, and they were very imp ortant in the ON

magic. I always have several different fetishes for every single thursian power tha t

I’m working with. All have their exact purpose. A fetish is an item th at has been

worked with for a long time, interlinked and “inspirited” with cer tain chosen pow

ers. These items I always bring to my Seta sessions of course, as it is the ir purpose

to work w ith you anytime and anywhere. Your fetishes are the links between you r

Will and your spirit; your magical praxis and the thursian powers. I beho ld them as

my extended roots; which I have, by my controlled Will, descended into the unde r

world and connected w ith whatever power o r source I wish.

The last item I regularly bring to the Seta is my black wand. It is my black serpent

o f power th at stabilizes my black magical focus.

*

I have several places where I like to go and have my Seta and rituals; m y two fa

vorite places are one u pon a moun tain and one by a certain lake in the outskirts of

my town. A thirty minutes car-ride and I arrive at this deserted lake. The water is

absolutely still this cold night; it makes a perfect giant mirror; which reflects the

black mountains an d trees. Thick and heavy mis ts stroll slowly around the lake and

be tw een th e trees, a sign that even colder weather is approaching due to th e c loud

less night sky. The darkness is bluish as the full mo ons sharp light illuminates it, it

is something very magical with the blue darkness, and it reminds me o f Hels spirit,Gullveig s deathly daughter. As my be ard and fingertips start to freeze I make a fire

on a natural made shore by the lake; the shoreline is very narrow, perfect though

for a fire and room for me and my ritual belongings. The flames soon give me

warmth and the ground gives me cold, it has an odd effect upon me, something I

cann ot experience inside a house. I always start by having a short and relaxing med

itation, to calm dow n and to blend in with this rare nocturnal o utside environment.

It takes time to get used to all the wilderness sounds, and at the same time I have to

get used to the awkward silence. Unusual, silence can b e a distraction. After I feel

tha t I am one w ith the n ight I place ou t my ritual items, everything has its place and

I need it that way. I put the mortar in my knee and start to grind my gathered herbs

and resin with the pestle in my left han d into a rough mix to nice incense granules,

this night I used dried Mistletoe and M yrrh resin as a base. W ith the hand-m ade

spoo n made of Yew-tree I put the incense mix on glowing charcoal with my left

hand and utter: “Heil Gullveig! Heil HeiSr! HeilAurboda!”I started to evoke the pow

ers o f Niflheimr with the he lp o f Gullveig, and I can see with m y inner eye how

194



Gu l l v e i g a r R u n a r

c & U v u v i

GULLVEIG’S RUNES & THE BLACK RUNES

This is a text which I have complied along with my other book URAM, bu t this text

focuses only on runes which are related to the runic Gullveig-workings. Some runes

are only for Gullveig, and other are vital in any black thursian magical practice. These

runes be long to a tradition and should be trea ted thereafter.

Within the thursian tradition Thursatru, the runes with a thursian purpose are

called black, the runes came from the giants and their runic wisdom belongs to

them. From a thursian perspective the runes are black magical practical tools of

comm unication and understanding of hidde n knowledge - the giants are commu

nicating through the runes to you. This nightside knowledge is represented in the

adjective black in black runes. And this nigh tside knowledge comes from the wra th

ful blood of the giant-race purs. The thursian race is the black current of Chaos which

invades the cosmos; symbolized as the black dragon with eleven heads, or

Hvergelmir with its eleven black heads. This anti-cosmic po ison is an allegory for

the hidden knowledge or communication that the thursian powers bring through

the UJ)ark rune-row allegorized as black light All runes of the UJ?ark rune-row orig

inate from the primordial thurses; as a matter of fact they were created by Gullveig

- the thursian giantess who invented witchcraft and the runes. Her black essence is

entwined in the craft and the runes, as Ymir s black blood in the creation.

My understanding of the кф агк rune-row and the runic practical magic has its

foundation in the anti-cosmic Satanic tradition, and the Chaos-Gnostic tradition.

This does no t mean that I have made up my own runes and meanings; it means that

I have embraced the thursian aspects of the runes and their magic, I have embraced

the Old lore and inventions, developed it with modern and personal expansion. Iam very careful to no t neglect the O ld lore an d traditions; I rather sieve ou t the

purs-aspects and upho ld it in my black thursian magic and tradition.I

I have studied and worked with runes for many years now, and I have gained un

derstanding in the depths of the runes by exploring them exoterically and esoteri-

197




cally. I pretty much read everything I can get my hands on when it comes to runes,

everything from Scandinavian history, run ology to m odern rune-magic books. I

must say that old runological texts interest me the m ost, because of their undefiled

knowledge. They may hold a lot of scientific speculations and guesses because o f

the rimes’ poo r evidential history, but at least their authors do not make up fictional

groundless reports. Many mo dem texts and books are overlooked hypotheses made

up from “authors’” fantasies o f a “lord o f the rings” reality, which never existed. So

I can proudly say that I have based my rune-theories on credible sources from

known and respected runologists, scientists and authors, and from that I have

worked and experimented by myself with the runes in magical and ritualistic praxis

for man y years - forming a personal black magical svartriinsidr following the anti-

cosmic tradition.

To interpret the runes in an anti-cosmic way is no t easy and it does no t mean justlooking at runes as some black magical tools. First, you have to have deep under

standing in the anti-cosmic tradition and paths, and this is nothing you receive dur

ing a m on th o f reading some book s, this takes years of eclectic praxis - lectita et

scribe, antiquum novumque. Secondly, you have to understand the runes. So this text

is my personal outcome from m any years of understanding of the black side of the

runes and their thursian magic.

More detailed and compiled texts about the runes and their magic you will find

in my nex t book URAM in the chapters “Black Runes” and “Black Rune M astery”.

runir erpursum к о и fy r niflhel nedan

*

198




URKAOS

The first and most imp ortan t rune is a bind-rune which I call Urkaos (primordial

Chaos), and it is a combina tion between the [Vrune which in thursian magic repre

sents the origin of the primordial powers or curren t of Ginnungagap or Chaos. The

u-rune is a rune represen ting origin and the original source. The second rune is the

К rune which in thursian magic holds all of the thursian power; which means every

thing that the essence and race o f thurs stand for (purs cett). By now we can agree

upo n tha t it is the thursian power which is the anti-cosmic cu rrent originating from

Ginnungagap or Chaos. I will investigate these tw o runes individually in my bookURAM for a more detailed understanding.

( holds both the aspects off) and К and as a combination it represents the ad

verse power-current which came out of Chaos and becam e anti-cosmic as an alien

cosmic power.

( represents the primordial thursian current; the anti-cosmic current; the orig

inal essence o f the Jjurs-powers.

The ( bind-rune is a central symbol which should be used in all that involves

practicing the black magical workings o f the thursian powers, w he ther i t’s Gullveig,

Loki or Surtr workings. This bind-rune connects them all and is more o f a founda

tion of the thursian workings. It is used as a central talisman on the altar or in the

blot-area, preferably hanging or standing in the center as a symbol of ho no r and

leadership. This mighty bind-ru ne stands before the giants themselves.

199




MJRSAKROSS

The powers of Chaos, which are represented by the anticlockwise movement,

will re-invoke everything to its origin: Ginnungagap - The Abyss - Chaos.

Another, as important rune, is the bind-rune which I call Pur -

sakross (the thurses ’ cross, or the thurs ian cross.) The Pursakross

has the thursian purpose of invoking the mighty powers of

I ^ 9 Chaos, which are represented by the anticlockwise movemen t,to re-invoke everything within the cosmos to its origin: Ginnun-

* ga8aP “ Abyss - Chaos. Pursakross is the fundam ental sym-

■ bol o f the anft-sunwheel, hence the four 5-runes which sitting on

the four reverse pru ne s which are representing the anticlockwise

movem ent. This is the black sun-wheel that goes backwards and

bringing everyth ing back to its origin in Chaos. It is the symbol o f Ragna Rok. The

bind-rune above ( \ and1)) is the Surtian Chaos-power Focus rune, a rune I use very often

too.

Within Pursakross you see the Krone: an important notation o f the Krone is thatit holds within itself several important runes in analogy with the Pursatru belief: l)

the |-rune; belonging to Nifelheimr and its ruler Hel, and also the hnmgygr Gullveig,

2) the <-rune; belonging to Loki; and it represents the black light and gnosis, and

3) the 5-rune; belonging to Muspellzheimr and its ruler Surtr.

200



G u l l v e ig a r R u n a r

The black poin t in the middle symbolizes Ginnungagap, the jaws to the acosmic

Chaos. The jaws or portal is also called The Eye of Lucifer, The Eye of Taniniver and

The Black Sun, and can signify the dark portal in the sigil of Azerate1.

Pursakross is also an active rungaldr, an evocatory sigil,made from bind-runes, calling upon the hastening of Ragna

Rok or the Day of Wrath.

1 See Temple of the BlackLight, 2002, Liber Azerate.

i

вяг.cl ckwise movement,

f - The Abyss - Chaos.

bfad -rune which I call Pur-

jarsian cross.) The Pursakross

kir.g the mighty powers of

ae anticlockwise movement,

aosmos to its origin: Ginnun-

woss is the fundamental sym-

KbD- -runes which sitting on

7 re >enting the anticlockwise

nee', that goes backwards andte lymbol of Ragna Rok. The

ns nuie, a rune I use very often

notation o f the Krone is that

у with the Pursatru belief: l)

id ai>o the hrimgygr Gullveig,

e black light and gnosis, and

Surtr.

THE FOCAL POINT OF TRANSCENDING

Transcending in this context means to go beyond; beyond the boundaries and causal

ity of the cosmos. The Pursakross as an anti-sunwheel is the focal point and sigil

which will lead your acosmic and black spiritual flame back through the black gaping

jaws of Ginnungagap. The Pursakross is the wheel that spins anticlockwise and it

spins like a spiral more than a circle, because its purpose is not limited as a closed

circle; instead it is as lawless and acausal as the pandimentional Chaos.

In my Chaos-Gnostic belief and spiritual workings I view my spirit is being linked

to the Urkaos, and its essence being acausal - as my spirit has been bu rnt b y the

acausal Muspell-flames and bitten by the Nifl-ice; and by this enlightened and awak

ened from the hylic slumber; and by so opened my pneumatic eyes. I have identified

karma - 1will now assiduously strive to rise above karma - and from this, work to

spiritually transcend back into Chaos. With this Self-knowledge I have the advantage

to aim my spiritual workings and reach out to powers tha t can guide me to my ob

jective. So I uphold the sigilPursakross over my black altar and make it into a gateway

to Ginnungagap. That’s what the black point in the center o f the sigil represents:

the gaping chasm called Ginnungagap and Chaos.

As I stare with my inner eye upon the Pursakross I envision it to be black, flaming

and icy - it turns slowly and heavily anticlockwise in a spiral-way, absorbing my

focus into its center - its black hole. In my visions it looks like a gigantic axel pulling

in my black flames; seeking to connect its own overwhelming black flames with

mine; as I call for the crone to watch over me; as I call for the light-bringer to guide

me; as I call for Chaos to embrace my spirit.

Fursakross correspondences:Chaos, anti-cosmic gods, thursian powers and their purposes, Satanic elements in

the Old Norse religion, all-devouring fire, incineration of all forms, carbonization,

201



Gu l l v e ig a r R u n a r

> - l X----

OANDAGIPT

For continuous inspiration in my workings I use this stave, which is called Andagipt.

As cosmic forces are all around us and naturally go against ou r choice o f sinister

path, physically and spiritually, I chose to always surround myself with strengthening

tools. Such as this stave Andagipt, the gift to your spirit; the stave which will always

make sure that no intruding force can defeat my ded ication and loyalty. This is not

a protection, this is empowering o f your Self and yo ur black magical work. Andagipt

represen ts your Satanic will.

If you chose to work with this stave you need to come up with a fitting galdr song

to it, to activate this stave in your personal workings.

203




GAUMI

Gaumi is the bind-rune or the stave which helps you to keep focus on the enlight

enm ent given from the Chaos-powers. I use this stave in most o f my magical runic

workings, for example, to stabilize my focus on my aim and true ambition. Bum it

into the black skin which you throw your divination chips on, cu t it into your mag

ical wand and fill it with blood, carve it into your altar, draw it onto your left han d

before magical acts, embellish it into the leather pou ch which ho lds black magical

herbs, fetishes and gems, etc.

If you chose to work with this stave you need to come up w ith a fitting galdr song

to it, to activate this stave in your personal workings.

204




GULLVEIGIAN BIND-RUNES

The three bind-runes below are holy runes given as gifts to o r from Gullveig and

can only be used with absolute dedication and respect. Used in the wrong way they

will becom e destructive to its user and they will become a curse! These bind-runes

are energized with and linked to her black wrathful essence and her blackest magic,

so it’s crucial for everybody to n ot misuse these bind-runes in anyway. For the true

Gullveig-worshipper they are blessings - for the unfaithful a horrible curse.

They are all her malicious seeds created in this world to invoke her and spread

her essence and purpose. The unnatural ways of these bind-ru nes are as unnatural

as her own essence as the thurs-werewolves’ mo ther and inventor of magic: fero

cious and attacking - beautiful and generous.

All o f these bind-runes should be inscribed (w ith your left hand only) w ith ice,

bloo d, a crystal quartz or black Onyx. Magical tools fo r inscription shou ld be a

charged po isonous wand, wolf-claw, icicle, or crystal quartz/b lack onyx-pointer. If

carved, they should be carved with your left hand in to fitting material.

205




KEMIR

Kemir is a bind-rune w hich evokes Gullveig s limitless knowledge and un derstan d

ing of the runes. This sigil has always been on my altar and I constantly keep it there

to help my spirit to be aided in the complex understandings of the runes' essence.

206




This is an a lternative way to use Kemir in Щ эагк rune-magic. The bind-rune made

out o f ^ and К helps your magical purpose to focus on the thursian aspects and it is

also guidance in the depths of the underw orld. The UJ)ark-runes are written anti

clockwise to emphasize the will and pa th o f Chaos.

207




Lykil is Loki w ithin Gullveig.

Only Gullveig herself can explain its meaning and purpose.

208




1SARN

tsarn is the bind-rune which evokes the current ofJarnvidr. It calls for the O ld One

and her thursian werewolf breed.

209



Ill: Ljod



H e n n a r

As darkness she came

Like a shadow out of shadows

a black crone with a black flam e

Old, wise and all-seeing

She took the worlds in her grip,

prevailing against them as a rime-being

The ice-cold current then woke

And the gods knew

she would outlast fire and smoke

And spawned the serpent and the bane

And giants and wolves

and the gods knew they will be slain

Runes she brought from her own abyss

And the blackest magic

which no god dare to reminisce

All fear her as the Old mother

The Death which will embrace them

one after another

As the mother o f the pale queen she came

Three in number - cold in essence

Unleasher of the untame

Anger she loves - squirming unlight

Like earth she consume and like space she is

Cunning and bright

213




Her magic is the keeper of the grave-worm

Abysmal - dark - death-striking

Iron firm

Black moon water colors her dress

Pockets that hold an ocean

Depthless

Under man’s foundation she dwells

Seering - striving - reflecting

Underneath the wells

Do you know the crystal cave?

Where the seed of three spirits live

The mother stave

Do you know the hidden iron gate?

Unnatural dimensions rule behind it

Rime and hate

O f her name do not ask me

“Ages of Wolves" they call her

I call her SHE

214



Y b l o t r u n a z

An anti-cosmic traditional rungaldr to

supplicate the Yew tree, its spirits and the IhwaR-rune.

yr - ihwaR:

grd med Helju:

ek hylli anda ys ok herulfa:

yr-ihw aR :

gro med eitri:

ek hylli andays okpursulfa:

yr - ihwaR:

gro med myrkri:

ek hylli andays ok heidulfa:

gro t Gullveigar nafni

gro free Hyrrokinjar:

yr - ihwaR:

yandar ek kalla:

ek heitiys anda at mcela mersatt

ok at leida mik i myrkri ok riinum:

yr - ihwaR:

yandar ek kalla:

gro t Gullveigar nafni

gro free Hyrrokinjar:

yr - ihwaR:

ek hylli helulfar:

ek hylli heidulfar:

215



G u l l v e ig a r b o k

Heldrasill:

ek virdi pik:

ekforna per blodi:

yr - ihwaR:

lat drekann med ellifu hofud

frd Utgardipda pik:

216



T h e O l d W il l C l im b

Jiwt

In the sinister night I call

Under the obsidian star

And with my myrrh resin I color the air

In your shadowy name

Black wax carries my blessed torch

Flames o f a falcon-spine wander in my thoughts

I see the companion luring grimly

Eyes of a predator thrust me like a spear

But it gives me joy, not wounds

And there, tall and black she rose

Ice holds the moment with us in darkness

Sharing, showing, taking

And she moves, like an old tree in the wind

As her hands are of black icicles

As her hair is long and of black ice

Her face picks me up like a mother her child

Into a caress of the deepest shadow

And she speaks with runes of iron

Burning into my spirit

The great snake shall now come

Black within and like you without

Poison is frozen in its form

And Will is manifested upon my grip

Thrust it into the underworlds she said

And the old will climb

217



G r An a u t r

Hungry he bays as he hunts in the sky

The unnatural entity from a land of shadows

Drooling like a rain-storm without a sky

The one with dried blood on his fur, reeking

Chasing the black swaying in the cold black sky

It's an unconquerable game with a predestined end

Mother, don’t your children gather there?

Mother, isn't tha t your abode?

Black, lonely, blocker of the round fire

Cold, haunting, keeper o f the threshold of worlds

He has been hunting it as an infant

He has been hunting it as the mighty horn

He has been hunting it as the shady eye

Snapping, growling, crying

Crying like winds caressing the shaded crowns of trees

Sadness I hear - victory I seer

O' mother o f darkness, enlighten me as your grey and unleashed companion

219



А м а

1~ 2 С у и и

Hail, hail, hail!

Gullveig; first-born mother

Bringer o f adverse power

Queen-Giantess of darkness

Hail, hail, hail!

Heidr ; second-born crone

Bringer o f sinister dreams

Women's true luster

Hail, hail, hail!

Aurboda; third-born maid

Bringer o f ascending seeds

Eclipse o f the cosmic sun

Blackness I call your throne

The gaping space in Chaos

From where you shine through all worlds

Robes I witness flu tter

As you rise like an icy night sky

With your wand like Chaos' axis

Queen of the wrathful giants

Below, upon and in the middle

Mother o f the deathly race

Sallow earth you trample

And blacken it with your breath

Wordless darkness begets

221




To mart you came as a crone

Proud in vigorous spirit

With light from the world below

As Queen over abysmal lands

And Queen over man and woman;

Queen-witch over the essence of magic

As two you firs t came

Sootless darkness and pure light

The ocean, the soil, and the below

As three you came before the powers

As a wintry cloud o f bewilderment

Dominant , prevailing, and cruel

Blackness lick the soil o f heaven

Terrible shadows pound on its walls

The fir st time you eclipsed its room

Wholesome like from the chasm you came

Unfolding like the infinite rebound

Dynamic as the fertile jaws

Keeper o f the fir st race

Mother of its line

Queen-giantess

Source of the blackest poison

Holder o f the fa te

Key to the rim

Maid, mother, crone

Three in all aspects

r r r

222



Sk a s sl e ik r

The giants stood dark

Deep in the valley

Still as January snow

Silence

Cold

I looked around

Old paths crossed my view

And a rabbit’s left paw came

Triggered the witch

And she came as the crone

Black and frightening

Numerous links ran around her spine

Around and around

She spun like a wolf

Bu t the black stretched out

Like spikes

Like icicles

Like iron rods

Darker she grew

Lighter I grew

She envisioned fo r us both

The vortex is the wand

The wand is the spine

And the spine holds the links

Like iron-talons they swept

Around like dead and fall ing leaves

But the spine is everlasting

Like a spiral in the abyss

223




And him

Swept the valley like a shadow

And she spun

Happy and alluring

The runes danced in the bats’field

Amulets she said

Are the floating good

In my dance and ga te

Gaze and incantation

Incantation and thirst

Thirst and hunger

Hunger, hunger

You shall collect

Manifold is better

Let them embrace your neck

Like a scarf in the cold

Touching your breast

Like my long hair

Burning intense

Glowing in knowledge

My word in one rune

Shall make you descend

In my home blend

In my house stay

With my hound bay

In my heart dwell

Me and Hel I

I do it fo r you

Look a t me

Bare

Wanting Hungry

Spinning

Snapping

Biting

Teaching

224



Taking

Giving

Embracing

Lusting

I do i t fo r you

Look at me

Bare black

Crone-dance

Black spike wheel

Confusing

Pulling

Fulfilling

the charm

Creating

the

deformed

desire

Sk a s s l e i k r

*

225



A pp e n d ix

I do not include all worlds in the ON cosmology of the mythology in this chart,

as they are not relevant in this book.

•The darker outer part of the illustration is Ch aos/K aos, I have written it anti-

clockwise because of its opposite nature towards the cosmos.

•N, E, S, W stands for the cardinal points; N orth, E as t...

•The world tree and its worlds he within the cosm os/Allheimr, I have shaped it

as an egg, please do the same. The cosmos is surrounded by Chaos.

•The world tree is a Yew tree; please look up Yew tree on the ne t to get a good

understand ing of its shape, I like the world tree to look like a Yew tree. I will add a

picture o f a Yew tree that I like.

• AsgarSr lies in the crown of the Yew tree.

•Mi3gar5r lies on th e Yew tree s trunk.

•The “up per” Jotunheim r lies to the n orth of/ in MiSgarSr, above the underworld.

It has a gateway down to the underworld.

•The underwo rld starts at the roots o f the Yew tree. Mark the border w ith a hor-

izontal line.

•To the N orth lies Jotunheimr, I like the form to be like an egg or a testicle. On

top ofJotu nheimr lies first well of wisdom; Mimisbrunnr, and the first Yew tree roo t

leads to i t Under Jotunheimr to the E ast/N orth lies Jarnvidr.

•To the Sou th lies Helheimr, I like the form to be like an egg or a testicle. On top

of Helheimr lie another well of wisdom; Urdarbrunnr, an d the third Yew tree roo t

leads to it.

227




•Below these two underwo rldly worlds lies Ginnungagap, the black portal out

to Chaos. Ginnungagap, Niflheimr and Muspellzheimr all lie in Chaos; th at’s why

I’ve put them on the bord er between Chaos and the underw orld.

•Niflheimr lies on the N or th side o f Ginnungagap, Niflheimr is the world of ice

and mists. And in Niflheimr the last well of wisdom lies; Hvergelmir, and the second

Yew tree ro ot leads to i t A nd on th e ou ter rim o f Hvergelmir lies the ‘sea-shore”

called Elivagar, and from Elivagar runs 11 rivers which are spreading throughout

the underw orld, feeding Jotunheimr, H elheimr, the roots etc with their poisonous

waters.

•Muspellzheimr lies on the South side o f Ginnungagap, Muspellzheimr is the

world o f flames.

228




A SUMMARY

1. Chaos is all, and within Chaos the cosmos lies like an egg.

2. The cosmos holds the world tree and its worlds.

3. The u ppe r worlds are: a) AsgarSr, b) MidgarSr, and c) “up pe r1"Jotun heim r.

4. The unde rworld includes: a) Jotunhe imr, and b) H elheimr.

5. JamviSr (ironwood) is a region in the ea st/no rth ofJotu nhe imr where Gullveig

(and Fenrir) has her abode unde r the name Angrboda.

6. The three roots lead to the three wells of wisdom: l ) Mimisbrunnr, 2) UrSar-

brunn r, and 3) Hvergelmir.

7. Elivagar is a sea-shore at Hvergelmir where 11 rivers of Hvergelmir s icy water

run out.

8. The worlds in Chaos are Niflheim r and Miispellsheimr. They bo th lie on each

side o f Ginnungagap.

Note: the uppe r world, hence th e tree-crow n, starts to withe r as the po ison ou s

underworld water feeds its roots.

231



A p p e n d ix

gullveigardbok-hpe

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