Svipdagr
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Svipdagr (Old Norse "sudden day"[1]) is the hero of the two Old Norse Eddaic poems, Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, which are contained within the body of one work; Svipdagsmál. Svipdagr is set a task by his stepmother to meet the goddess Menglöð, who is his "fated bride."[2] In order to accomplish this seemingly impossible task he summons, by means of necromancy the shade of his dead mother, Gróa, a völva who also appears in the Prose Edda, to cast nine spells for him. This she does and the first poem abruptly ends.
At the beginning of the second poem, Svipdagr arrives at Menglöð's castle where he is interrogated in a game of riddles by the watchman, from whom he conceals his true name. The watchman is named Fjölsviðr, a name of Odin in Grímnismál 47. He is accompanied by his wolf-hounds Geri and Gifr. After a series of eighteen questions and answers concerning the castle, its inhabitants, and its environment, Ultimately, Svipdagr learns that the gates will only open to one person: Svipdagr. On revealing his identity, the gates of the castle open and Menglöð rises to greets her expected lover, welcoming him "back" to her.
A champion by the same name, perhaps the same character, appears in the Prologue to the Prose Edda, Heimskringla and in Gesta Danorum.
In most scholarship, Menglöð has been identified with Freyja since the early part of the 19th century, following Jacob Grimm. In his Our Fathers' Godsaga, the Swedish scholar Viktor Rydberg identifies Svipdagr with Freyja's husband Óðr/Óttar. His reasons for doing so are outlined in the first volume of his Undersökningar i Germanisk Mythologi (1882). Other scholars who have commented on these poems in detail include Hjalmar Falk (1893), B. Sijmons and Hugo Gering (1903), Olive Bray (1908), Henry Bellows (1923), Otto Höffler (1952), Lee M. Hollander (1962), Lotte Motz (1975), Einar Ól Sveinsson (1975), Carolyne Larrington (1999), and John McKinnell (2005).
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Orchard, Andy (1997). Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. Cassell. ISBN 0 304 34520 2
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