Wanner, Sewn Lips, Propped Jaws, and a Silent Ass (or Two)

Sewn Lips, Propped Jaws, and a Silent Áss (or Two): Doing Things
with Mouths in Norse Myth

Kevin J. Wanner

JEGP, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 111, Number
1, January 2012, pp. 1-24 (Article)

Published by University of Illinois Press

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Journal of English and Germanic Philology—January

Sewn Lips, Propped Jaws, and a Silent Áss

(or Two): Doing Things with Mouths

in Norse Myth

Kevin J. Wanner, Western Michigan University

Although it is hardly an unrecognized fact, it is worth recalling from
time to time that Norse mythical beings are consistently imagined by
our sources as having bodies, and that many of the myths feature things
happening to those bodies. Such things can, of course, be interpreted
as symbols that represent something or that communicate messages to
the myth-world’s audience. Yet they can also be considered as events, as
happenings that have consequences within the myth-world itself. In this
article, I analyze a set of happenings in Norse myth involving mouths—
things done to mouths and done with mouths or, as the case may be, not
done with mouths—both as mythological symbols and mythical events.
First, however, I will consider more broadly some of the types of things
that happen to the bodies of different sorts of mythical beings, and what
these happen ings have been taken to mean or represent. This consider-
ation will provide textual and interpretive context for my discussion of
mythical motifs involving mouths.
The things that happen to bodies in Norse myth are often violent, and
they often have lasting effects. when the victims of violence are jötnar (sg.
jötunn) or giants, these effects are usually fatal. Specifically, many jötnar are
described as having their skulls shattered by Þórr’s weapon, the hammer
Mjöllnir.

while Þórr often states that this treatment will send his victims

down to Hel or Niflhel, it is unclear whether they actually do experience
any kind of afterlife existence; at any rate, they play no further role in the
mythic world. when the victims of violence are æsir (sg. áss), the outcome
is more often injury or defect, as when Óðinn loses an eye, Týr a hand,
Heimdallr (perhaps) an ear, and Mímir even his whole body from the neck
down. Scholars have frequently observed that these injuries and losses
suffered by æsir tend not to signal or result, as in human experience, in

1. See, for example, Gylfaginning, chap. 42, in Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Prologue and

Gylfaginn ing, ed. Anthony Faulkes, 2d ed. (London: Viking Society for Northern Research,

2005), p. 35; Skáldskaparmál, chap. 17, in Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Skáldskaparmál, ed. Anthony

Faulkes, 2 vols. (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998), I, 22; and various

of the skaldic verses quoted in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 4, ed. Faulkes, I, 14–17.

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disability, but rather in some added or augmented ability or benefit.

They

constitute, in Lois bragg’s words, “motifs of markedness, not handicap.
To be a great man, a god, a founder, a legend, is to be marked.”

In the cases of Óðinn and Heimdallr, it seems reasonably clear that
the former’s loss of an eye and the latter’s loss of “some portion of his
hearing, or perhaps an ear”

—stanzas 27–28 of the eddic poem Völuspá

(The Seeress’s Prophecy) seem to describe both body parts being depos-
ited in a well at the foot of the cosmic tree Yggdrasill

—are symbols that

signal or sacrifices that result in augmented and even supreme ability in
corresponding senses or capacities. Óðinn, although he lacks an eye, is
able to see further in time and space than other beings and to discern the
significance of what he views. According to Gylfaginning (The Deluding
of Gylfi), the first major section of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (ca. 1220–25),
when Óðinn sat upon his throne Hliðskjálf, “he saw over all worlds and
each man’s doings and he understood all those things which he saw.”

also, according to the same text, sends his ravens Huginn and Muninn
out each day “at dawn to fly over all the world . . . . Thus he becomes
informed of many happenings.”

Óðinn also gathers information about

the past and future and their interrelation from deceased völur (sg. völva)
or seeresses, and others among the dead.

while in each of these cases

Óðinn employs some specific information-gathering device or consults
some knowledge-supplying agent, the point is that his lack of an eye, far

2. See, for example, comments, sometimes with references to comparative materials,

in E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia

(London: wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), pp. 63, 149–50; Georges Dumézil, Gods of the

Ancient Northmen, ed. Einar Haugen, trans. Francis Charat, George Gopen, John Lindow,

and Alan Toth (berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973), pp. 27, 45–47; william Sayers,

“bragi boddason, the First Skald, and the Problem of Celtic Origins,” Scandinavian-Canadian

Studies, 5 (1992), 3; and John Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals,

and Beliefs (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), p. 170.

3. Lois bragg, Oedipus borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga (Madison,

NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2004), p. 51.

4. Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide, p. 170.

5. In Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, vol. 1: Text, ed. Gustav

Neckel, 5th ed., rev. Hans Kuhn (Heidelberg: Carl winter, 1983), pp. 6–7. All references to

and quotations of eddic poems will be to Neckel’s edition, though I have used normalized

spellings of the poem’s titles.

6. Gylfaginning, chap. 9, ed. Faulkes, p. 13: “sá hann of alla heima ok hvers manns athœfi

ok vissi alla hluti þá er hann sá.” Translations unless otherwise noted are my own. In the

case of Snorri’s Edda, I have relied heavily on Faulkes’s translation (see note 9 below) and

the glossaries to his editions. In general, when I deviate from or modify others’ translations,

my aim is to sacrifice readability and style for greater literalness.

7. Gylfaginning, chap. 38, ed. Faulkes, p. 32: “í dagan at fljúgja um allan heim . . . . Þar af

verðr hann margra tíðinda víss.”

8. Óðinn contacts völur raised from the dead in the eddic poems Völuspá and Baldrs draumar;

see also Ynglinga saga, chap. 7, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. bjarni Aðalbjarnarson,

3 vols., Íslenzk fornrit, 26–28 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941), I, 22.

Wanner

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from impeding his literal or metaphoric vision, can be taken as a sign
and understood as a trade-off for his farsightedness and perception. As
for Heimdallr, according to Gylfaginning he hears “grass growing on the
earth and wool on sheep or everything that sounds louder than that,” and
his alarm-trumpet Gjallarhorn’s “blast can be heard in all worlds.”

Thus,

as with Óðinn’s eye, Heimdallr’s loss of part of his auditory equipment
corresponds to heightened rather than lessened sensitivity, and he is thus
suited to serve as Ásgarðr’s hyper-alert border-guard, who can detect as
well as project sound at farther distances than other beings.
The stunted shaft of Þórr’s hammer is also sometimes discussed as part
of the set of injuries or infirmities suffered by major æsir. Despite this
flaw, Mjöllnir is the most valued of the gods’ treasures and the cosmos’s
most effective tool of violence. Indeed, with one possible if significant
exception (about which more below), it never fails to kill those whom it
strikes. while, phallic interpretations aside, this defect or lack is found in
a god’s possession rather than body, Þórr also suffers an injury that, like
those of Óðinn and Heimdallr, can be read as contributing to rather than
detracting from exercise of his paradigmatic functions. Skáldskaparmál
(The Language of Poetry), the second major part of Snorri’s Edda, relates
that as a result of his clash with the jötunn Hrungnir, Þórr ends up with
half of a whetstone embedded in his head. He enlists the aid of a völva
named Gróa to extract it using magic. As the whetstone stirs and starts to
come loose, Þórr cheers up and decides to brighten Gróa’s day as well.
He informs her that he was recently traveling back from Jötunheimar with
her husband, Aurvandill, in a basket on his back. Although Aurvandill
lost a toe to gangrene while crossing a frozen river, Þórr had broken it
off and cast it into the sky to become a star, and he assured Gróa that her
husband would soon be home. Upon hearing this news, “Gróa became
so pleased that she remembered none of her spells, and the whetstone
did not get looser, and remains still in Þórr’s head.”

while Þórr is often

described as being or becoming angry, this is one of a very few times when
he threatens to get happy (the only other I can think of, and it is a moment
of exultation rather than contentment, is when he gets his stolen hammer
back in Þrymskviða [Þrymr’s Poem], and proceeds to use it to slaughter
Þrymr and all of the giant’s kin).

Thus, it could be argued that Þórr’s

9. Gylfaginning, chap. 27, ed. Faulkes, pp. 25–26: “Hann heyrir ok þat er gras vex á jörðu

eða ull á sauðum ok allt þat er hæra lætr . . . heyrir blástr hans í alla heima.” Translation from

Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans. Anthony Faulkes (London: Everyman, 1987), p. 25. Heimdallr

blowing loudly on the Gjallarhorn is also mentioned in Völuspá, st. 46, ed. Neckel, p. 11.

10. Skáldskaparmál, chap. 17, ed. Faulkes, I, 22: “Gróa varð svá fegin at hon munði ønga

galdra, ok varð heinin eigi lausari ok stendr enn í höfuð Þór.”

11. For Þórr getting angry, see Gylfaginning, chaps. 45–46 and 48, ed. Faulkes, pp. 38,

41–42, 44; Skáldskaparmál, chap. 17, ed. Faulkes, I, 21; Eilífr Guðrúnarson’s Þórsdrápa, st.

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deforming injury, far from inhibiting his actions as defender and hit-man
of the gods, helps to keep him in the state of irritability threatening to
slide into rage that allows him to perform these roles to the fullest.
There is, then, a pattern in Norse myths of senior gods displaying sig-
nature injuries or infirmities that, from an extramythic perspective, signal
or, from an intramythic perspective, contribute to a heightened and cor-
responding ability or capacity. In the cases of Óðinn and Heimdallr, these
injuries are self-imposed, and in the case of Þórr, partially self-caused, since
it is his hammer which breaks Hrungnir’s whetstone in two and sends half
of it ricocheting into his head. On the other hand, the jötnar, the gods’
principal enemies, derive no benefit from the injuries that they are made
to suffer, which tend to result not in disability but in fatality. However, as
with any good binary opposition, there are intermediate terms between
the two poles. Týr’s and Mímir’s injuries might fit into this middle zone,
insofar as their injuries are neither self-caused (though the former’s is
accepted voluntarily) nor result in any clear benefit to themselves. They
do, however, benefit others, and primarily Óðinn. More specifically, Týr
sacrifices his hand in order to bind the Fenrisúlfr and thus to keep Óðinn
from getting swallowed for a time, while, according to Ynglinga saga and
perhaps Völuspá, Óðinn keeps and talks with Mímir’s head as one of his
sources of arcane knowledge.

while more could be and has been said about Týr’s and Mímir’s injuries
and their significance, I will turn now to discuss a set of intermediate cases
involving three major mythic figures each of whose mouth is damaged and
incapacitated. This set of injuries to mythical bodies can be considered
intermediate in at least two ways. First, although they are inflicted by oth-
ers, they do not prove fatal, and, second, they can be thought of as causing
or corresponding to both positive and negative results or conditions, for
those who inflict as well those who suffer them. The figures in question are
the ambiguous áss Loki and two of his anim al-shaped offspring, Fenrir or
the Fenrisúlfr, and Jörmungandr or the Miðgarðsormr. while these three
have often been discussed and analyzed together owing to their kinship
and the central role each plays in ragnarök (doom or downfall of the gods)
I have not encountered any study that analyzes the shared locus of their
injury and what this motif might signify. before discussing this trio and
their mouths as a set, I will describe and discuss the ways and contexts in
which each of their mouths is maltreated, beginning with Loki.

18, in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 18, ed. Faulkes, I, 29; Völuspá, st. 26, ed. Neckel, p. 6; and

Þrymskviða, st. 1, ed. Neckel, p. 111.

12. The loss of Týr’s hand is narrated in Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, pp. 27–29.

For Mímir, see Ynglinga saga, chaps. 4 and 7, ed. bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, I, 12–13, 18–20;

Völuspá, st. 46, ed. Neckel, p. 11; and Sigrdrífumál, st. 14, ed. Neckel, p. 192.

Wanner

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Chapter 35 of Skáldskaparmál tells how Loki’s theft of Þórr’s wife Sif’s
hair led to the making of the gods’ most valuable treasures and weapons.
After having some dwarves craft replacement hair of gold for Sif along
with the spear Gungnir and ship Skíðbladnir, “Loki wagered his head
with that dwarf named brokkr, whether his brother Eitri would be able to
make three equally good treasures as these were.”

Eitri manages despite

Loki’s interference to forge the ring Glaupnir, the boar Gullinbursti, and
the hammer Mjöllnir, the last of which is judged, despite its defect, by the
æsir as the “best of all the treasures . . . and they decreed that the dwarf
had won the wager”:

Then the dwarf wanted to cut off Loki’s head, but Loki said that he had the

head but not the neck. Then the dwarf took a thong and a knife and wants

to poke holes in Loki’s lips and wants to stitch up the mouth, but the knife

would not cut. Then he said it would be better were his brother Alr there,

and as soon as he named him, then the awl was there and it pierced the lips.

It stitched up the lips, and tore the edges off. The thong that Loki’s mouth

was stitched up with is called Vartari.

Loki’s sewn lips have not, that I have discovered, generated much discus-
sion or been regarded as a very significant element of his mythos. Jan de
Vries, who pays more attention to this motif than most, characterizes it as
one of a number of “newfangled myths” which is itself “of no importance
whatsoever.”

He concludes that the motif’s invention may simply have

been “suggested by the sharp and dangerous tongue of the caustic god,”
and Rudolf Simek similarly suggests that it is “a clear allusion to Loki’s
malicious tongue.”

One reason for such responses is undoubtedly that,

outside of a possible iconographic depiction on a hearth-stone from ca.
1000 found near Snaptun, this motif is otherwise unattested.

More to

13. Skáldskaparmál, chap. 35, ed. Faulkes, I, 41–42: “Þá veðjaði Loki höfði sínu við þann

dverg er <brokkr> heitir, hvárt bróðir hans <Eitri> mundi gera jafngóða gripi þrjá sem þessir

váru.”

14. Skáldskaparmál, chap. 35, ed. Faulkes, I, 42–43: “beztr af öllum gripum . . . ok dœmðu

þeir at dvergrinn ætti veðféit . . . . Þá vildi dvergrinn höggva af Loka höfuð, en Loki sagði at

hann átti höfuð en eigi hálsinn. Þá tók dvergrinn þveng ok kníf ok vill stinga rauf á vörrum

Loka ok vill rifa saman munninn, en knífrinn beit ekki. Þá mælti hann at betri væri þar Alr

bróðir hans, en jafnskjótt sem hann nefndi hann, þá var þar alrinn ok beit hann varrarnar.

Rifaði hann saman varrarnar ok reif ór æsunum. Sá þvengr er muðrinn Loka var saman

rifaðr heitir Vartari.”

15. Jan de Vries, The Problem of Loki, Folklore Fellows Communications, 110 (Helsinki:

Suomalainen tiedeakatemia, 1937), p. 96.

16. De Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 96; Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, trans.

Angela Hall (Cambridge: D. S. brewer, 1993), p. 194.

17. On this artifact, see Hans Jörgen Madsen, “Loke fra Snaptun/The god Loki from

Snaptun,” in Oldtidens Ansigt/Faces of the Past, ed. Paul Kjærum and Rikke Agnete Olsen

(Copenhagen: Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 1980), pp. 180–81. Jan de Vries remarks

that “For the sewing of Loki’s lips I do not know any parallel,” and that “no allusion can be

found [to this motif] in any other literary work.” The Problem of Loki, pp. 95, 91.

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the point, evidence for it is lacking in poetry, that is, in the extant sources
for Snorri’s Edda. The tendency has thus been to regard the treatment
received by Loki in this myth as a minor echo of the more severe pun-
ishment, which has been accorded much more attention and weight by
scholars, which Loki receives for his role in baldr’s death and/or his senna
in Ægir’s hall; in this latter case, he is bound across three sharp rocks with
the guts of his son Nari or Narfi and with a snake suspended overhead,
dripping poison into his face.

One exception to such assessment of the relative significance of Loki’s
torments is Anna birgitta Rooth’s suggestion that the sewn lips be regarded
as the more authentic or original of his punishments.

while Rooth’s re-

constructive methodology and many of her conclusions (for example, that
Loki was originally a culture-hero in the form of a spider) are eccentric,
I find her proposal in this case appealing because of how it fits Loki into
the pattern of physical deprivation and corresponding ability that I have
discussed. As Óðinn’s signature powers relate to vision, Heimdallr’s to
hearing, and Þórr’s to violence, Loki’s have largely to do with his mouth.
while Loki’s physical mouth features in a number of myths—in the con-
tests at Útgarða-Loki’s, recounted in Gylfaginning, his special skill is to
be able to eat faster than anyone (except, as it turns out, Logi or “Fire”);
in the tenth-century skaldic poem Haustlöng (Autumn-Long), it is Loki
rather than his companions Óðinn or Hœnir who blows on the fire to try
to get an ox to cook; in a somewhat obscure verse from the eddic poem
Hyndluljóð (Hyndla’s Song), Loki appears to become pregnant from eat-
ing the half-roasted heart of an evil woman; and Loki distracts the dwarf
Eitri from his work by taking a fly’s shape and biting him on his arm, neck,
and eyelids

—of greater significance and effect are the words that come

out of it. As Gylfaginning’s introductory description of Loki states, “That
one is also numbered among the æsir whom some call slanderer of the
æsir and originator of deceits . . . . He is called Loki . . . . He possessed that
intelligence in greater degree than other men which is called cunning,
and tricks for every occasion. He brought the æsir constantly into great
difficulty, and often he extricated them with his schemes.”

Although this

18. See Gylfaginning, chap. 50, ed. Faulkes, p. 49; and the concluding prose of Lokasenna,

ed. Neckel, pp. 109–10.

19. Anna birgitta Rooth, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology, Skrifter utgivna av Kungliga

humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, 61 (Lund: Gleerup, 1961), pp. 46–47.

20. Gylfaginning, chap. 46, ed. Faulkes, pp. 39–42; Haustlöng, st. 4, in The Haustlöng

of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, ed. and trans. Richard North (Middlesex: Hisarlik Press, 1997), p. 2;

Hyndluljóð, st. 41, ed. Neckel, p. 294; and Skáldskaparmál, chap. 35, ed. Faulkes, I, 41–43.

21. Gylfaginning, chap. 33, ed. Faulkes, pp. 26–27: “Sá er enn talðr með Ásum er sumir

kalla rógbera Ásanna ok frumkveða flærðanna . . . . Sá er nefndr Loki . . . . Hann hafði þá

speki um fram aðra menn er slœgð heitir, ok vælar til allra hluta. Hann kom Ásum jafnan

í fullt vandræði ok opt leysti hann þá með vælræðum.”

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passage casts Loki’s verbal abilities in a negative light, it also acknowledges
that he is adept at talking himself and others out of as well as into trouble,
as many of the myths in which he features illustrate.
The potency of Loki’s speech and the other æsir’s inability to match or
counter it is the particular theme of the eddic poem in which he takes
center stage, which is called Lokasenna, “Loki’s Calumny,” or “Castigation.”
before he joins the gods’ feast in Ægir’s hall, Loki informs the door-warden,
“You know, Eldir, if we two alone should contend with wounding words,
I will become rich in replies.”

Upon entering, he challenges, “why are

you so silent, you arrogant gods, are you unable to speak?,” and Óðinn
commands his son Víðarr to open a seat for the new arrival, “lest Loki
speak words of blame to us in Ægir’s hall.”

Loki is from this point forward

repeatedly implored and commanded to be silent, but to no avail. He is
finally driven off by the arrival of Þórr and the threat of Mjöllnir. Even
Þórr, however, does not manage to silence Loki—he vainly commands
Loki, “Þegi þú . . . !” or “You shut up!” four times (by comparison, in the
one instance when Loki directs a “Þegi þú” at Þórr, in Þrymskviða, Þórr
does not speak for the rest of the poem).

Loki also gets the last words

in, declaring as he exits the hall: “I spoke before the æsir, I spoke before
the sons of the æsir, what my spirit urged me . . . . Ale you brewed, Ægir,
and you will never again hold a feast; all your possessions which are here
inside—may flame play over them, and may your back be burnt!”

Those

are right, I think, who read Loki’s departing words as a curse of apocalyptic
proportions, as announcing and perhaps beckoning ragnarök.

A myth

22. Lokasenna, st. 5, ed. Neckel, p. 97: “Veiztu þat, Eldir, ef við einir scolom sáryrðom

sacaz: auðigr verða mun ec í andsvorom.” Translation adapted from The Poetic Edda, trans.

Carolyne Larrington (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), p. 85. I do not here or in other

quotations from poetry indicate line divisions.

23. Lokasenna, stt. 7 and 10, ed. Neckel, p. 98: “Hví þegit ér svá, þrungin goð, at þér mæla

né megoð?”; “síðr oss Loki qveði lastastöfum Ægis höllo í.” Translations from The Poetic Edda,

trans. Larrington, p. 86. Víðarr’s name is sometimes spelled Viðarr (as in Faulkes’s Edda

editions).

24. Lokasenna, stt. 57, 59, 61, and 63, ed. Neckel, pp. 108–9; Þrymskviða, st. 18, ed. Neckel,

p. 113. See comments about the latter in Jón Karl Helgason, “‘Þegi þú, Þórr!’: Gender, Class,

and Discourse in Þrymskviða,” in Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology,

ed. Sarah M. Anderson and Karen Swenson (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 164.

25. Lokasenna, st. 64, ed. Neckel, p. 109: “qvað ec fyr ásom, qvað ec fyr ása sonom, þatz

mic hvatti hugr . . . . Öl gorðir þú, Ægir, enn þú aldri munt síðan sumbl um gora; eiga þín

öll, er hér inni er, leiki yfir logi, oc brenni þér á baki!” Translation from The Poetic Edda,

trans. Larrington, p. 95.

26. See, for example, Heinz Klingenberg, “Types of Eddic Mythological Poetry,” in Edda: A

Collection of Essays, ed. Robert J. Glendinning and Haraldur bessason, The Univ. of Manitoba

Icelandic Studies, 4 (winnipeg: Univ. of Manitoba Press, 1983), pp. 152–54; and Preben

Meulengracht Sørensen, “Loki’s Senna in Ægir’s Hall,” in Idee, Gestalt, Geschichte. Festschrift

Klaus von See: Studien zur europäischen Kulturtradition, ed. Gerd wolfgang weber (Odense:

Odense Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 246, 256–57.

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that assigns Loki’s speech this role more unequivocally is that of baldr’s
death. In the west Norse tradition, baldr’s killing, which is taken to mark
the beginning of the end of the present cosmos, is physically carried out
by baldr’s blind brother Höðr, the handbani or “hand-killer” as stanza 29 of
Hyndluljóð calls him, but engineered by Loki as ráðbani Baldrs, or “baldr’s
killer-by-council.”

As Loki says to baldr’s mother in Lokasenna: “Still do

you want, Frigg, that I speak more about my meinstafi [words of harm]? I
arranged that you will not again see baldr riding to the halls.”

Given the emphasis that is placed upon and the consequences that
arise from Loki’s mouth in a range of sources, the injury done to it in the
myth of the making of the gods’ treasures should perhaps be given more
weight than scholars have accorded it. Further, it seems to me that Loki’s
torn lips can be classed among and interpreted in similar ways to other
æsir’s lost or defective parts. To belong to this set, it is true, the effects of
Loki’s injury ought to be long-lasting and distinguishing. In other words,
just as Óðinn is identifiable by his missing eye, and Þórr’s hammer by its
unusually short handle, should not Loki be recognizable by his mutilated
mouth? while there is no real literary evidence that Loki was imagined
to have been marked and known by his damaged mouth, Hans Jörgen
Madsen asserts that “the cross-lines on the small mouth of the Snaptun
[hearth-stone] face show the scars which were left” after Loki tore “his
mouth open.”

There is also the fact to consider that no other of the sig-

nificant injuries or losses suffered by æsir has less than permanent results.
These injuries are consistently treated in a realistic mode: hands or eyes
do not grow back, and even shrapnel resists removal. As for the phrase
that describes the damage done to Loki’s lips, “reif ór æsunum,” it allows
for several readings. The subject of the verb rífa (to tear) could be the
awl (Alr) used to pierce or the thong (Vartari) used to stitch Loki’s lips,
or, less likely but still possibly, the dwarf brokkr or even Loki himself; the
noun aes refers either to the outer edge of something, in this case lips, or
to a row of holes along a thing’s edge, such as those through which shoe-
strings are laced; and ór could here be either a preposition or adverb.

27. Hyndluljóð, st. 29, ed. Neckel, p. 293; Skáldskaparmál, chap. 16, ed. Faulkes, I, 20.

28. Lokasenna, st. 28, ed. Neckel, p. 102: “Enn vill þú, Frigg, at ec fleiri telia mína meinstafi:

ec því ræð, er þú ríða sérat síðan baldr at sölom.”

29. Madsen, “Loke fra Snaptun,” p. 180.

30. In his Edda translation, Faulkes translates this phrase simply as “it tore the edges off”

(p. 97), with “it” seemingly referring to the awl/Alr, while in the glossary to his edition of

Skáldskaparmál, he suggests either “‘it tore (the lips) away from the holes’? or ‘it tore out the

holes’” (II, 377). byock has “He [brokkr?] then stitched the lips together before ripping

away the outer edges.” Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda, trans. Jesse L. byock (New York:

Penguin, 2005), p. 94. The translations of brodeur, “Loki ripped the thong out of the edges”

(Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda, trans. Arthur Gilchrist brodeur [New York: The American-

Scandinavian Foundation, 1916], p. 147); and Young, “[Loki] tore the thong out through

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Thus, the phrase could be read as “the awl/thong/dwarf/Loki tore off/
from/through the edges/edge-holes.” Yet however this phrase is read, it
encourages us to imagine Loki’s lips left much like the ragged edge of a
sheet of notebook paper that has been torn from its spiral binder. Such
damage to the lips of a human being would certainly prove disfiguring
and might even result in speech impediment.
Thus, I think it reasonable to suggest that the damage done to Loki be
interpreted in ways similar to that suffered by other æsir, as a disfiguring
injury to a mythical agent’s body part or extension thereof that signals
that agent’s possession of especially potent abilities of a congruent sort. In
applying, however, to Loki’s mutilated mouth the logic that governs the
meanings and consequences of Óðinn’s lost eye, Heimdallr’s lost ear, and
Þórr’s stunted handle, its difference from these must also be recognized.
Loki’s case does not involve a straightforward exchange of physical integ-
rity for increased power or benefit, but rather a treatment imposed with
punitive, and perhaps preventative, intent. This is true whether or not we
agree with Rooth that Loki’s sewn lips were originally a punishment re-
ceived for his castigation of the other gods and/or other verbal misdeeds.
Thus, Loki’s oral talents, if they are to be connected to his damaged lips,
must be thought of as unhampered by, or as an unintended result of,
the rough treatment received by his mouth. In other words, the attempt
to incapacitate Loki’s mouth was either ineffective, or it backfired. That
some such logic is at work here can be supported, I think, by its further
extension to stories and motifs involving Loki’s sons.
As is the case with their father, the Fenrisúlfr’s and Miðgarðsormr’s
mouths are treated in ways that seem mainly to be intended by other
mythical actors to hinder their ability to do harm. To consider the wolf
first, Gylfaginning relates how Fenrir is brought up by the æsir, and par-
ticularly by Týr, until he grows large enough that they begin to worry
about prophecies foretelling the damage he will do to them. The text
then relates that Fenrir is persuaded to allow the gods to fasten on him
the delicate seeming but magically fortified fetter Gleipnir by Týr, who
places his right hand in the wolf’s mouth as a pledge that the æsir are up
to no tricks. Once Fenrir realizes he is caught, he bites off and presum-
ably swallows Týr’s hand and snaps angrily at the other gods. After further
securing the wolf with a complicated series of connected rope and rocks,
the æsir “shoved into his mouth a certain sword; the hilt pushes against

the holes” (Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology, trans. Jean I. Young

[berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1964], p. 110), suggest less damage to Loki’s lips, but

neither the subject nor direct object of the verb that these translators supply are explicit in

the original.

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the lower gums, and the point the upper gums. That is his gum-prop. He
howls horribly and saliva runs from his mouth. That is the river which
is called Ván. There he will lie until ragnarøkr.”

Although, as with the

myth involving Loki’s lips, only Snorri’s Edda supplies most of this story’s
details, the method used to keep the wolf’s jaws apart is also attested by
Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson’s use of Fenris varra sparri, “Fenrir’s lips’
prop,” as a kenning for “sword” in the tenth century, and its apparent
echo by Einarr Skúlason in Geisli (Sunbeam) in the mid-twelfth.

Certain

motifs from the myth of Fenrir also appear or at least are paralleled on
monuments from the british Isles.

These carvings, however, appear to

focus less on the binding and more on what happens once the wolf gets
loose, a matter to which I will return shortly.
As for the Miðgarðsormr and the treatment that his mouth receives,
Gylfaginning reports that at the same time when the æsir adopted Fenrir,
Óðinn cast his brother into the sea, “and that worm grew so that he lies in
the midst of the ocean around all lands and bites his own tail.”

The worm

apparently rests in this way until Þórr undertakes a fishing expedition,
the subject of an exceedingly popular myth that is attested in multiple
literary and material sources.

In Gylfaginning, Þórr is described as row-

ing out far to sea with the jötunn Hymir. Upon reaching regions where
the Miðgarðsormr lies, Þórr “got ready a rather strong fishing-line, and
the hook was no smaller or less mighty-looking.”

He baits the hook with

an ox-head and casts it overboard, and his quarry soon takes the bait:

31. Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, p. 29: “Þeir skutu í munn honum sverði nokkvoru;

nema hjöltin við neðra gómi, en efra gómi blóðrefill. Þat er gómsparri hans. Hann grenjar

illiliga ok slefa renn ór munni hans. Þat er á sú er Ván heitir. Þar liggr hann til ragnarøkrs.”

Snorri’s Edda names the end-time ragnarøkr rather than ragnarök, thus “twilight” rather than

“doom” of the gods.

32. For Eyvindr’s verse, see lausavísa 6, in Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. bI: Rettet tekst,

ed. Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og bagger, 1912–15), p. 63. For Einarr’s,

see Geisli, st. 48, in Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli: A Critical Edition, ed. and trans. Martin Chase,

Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic Studies, 1 (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2005), p. 98.

Lokasenna, st. 41, ed. Neckel, p. 104, also describes Fenrir as lying at a river’s mouth, though

it is not clear that his mouth is its source.

33. For convenient reproductions and discussions of these images, see Richard N. bailey,

Viking Age Sculpture in Northern England (London: Collins, 1980), pp. 125–31, 133–37; and

wilhelm Heizmann, “Fenriswolf,” in Dämonen, Monster, Fabelwesen, ed. Ulrich Müller and

werner wunderlich, Mittelalter Mythen, 2 (St. Gallen: UVK-Fachverlag für wissenschaft

und Studium, 1999), pp. 235–41.

34. Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, p. 27: “ok óx sá ormr svá at hann liggr í miðju

hafinu of öll lönd ok bítr í sporð sér.”

35. For a summary account and comparison of sources for this myth, see wilhelm Heiz-

mann, “Midgardschlange,” in Dämonen, Monster, Fabelwesen, ed. Ulrich Müller and werner

wunderlich, Mittelalter Mythen, 2 (St. Gallen: UVK-Fachverlag für wissenschaft und Studium,

1999), pp. 416–21.

36. Gylfaginning, chap. 48, ed. Faulkes, p. 45: “greiddi hann til vað heldr sterkjan ok eigi

var öngullinn minni eða óramligri.”

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the “Miðgarðsormr yawned over the ox-head and the hook sank into the
gums of the worm.”

Þórr then hauls Jörmungandr’s head up to the sea’s

surface, and the two foes glare at one another; in Gylfaginning and in Úlfr
Uggason’s tenth-century Húsdrápa (House-poem), the serpent is said also
to spit poison.

At this point, Þórr goes to strike the worm, but Hymir

cuts the line, and Jörmungandr sinks back beneath the water. Þórr flings
Mjöllnir after him, but, as Gylfaginning acknowledges, testimony differs
as to whether or not he actually strikes or kills him. It has been suggested
that while the older story may have been a variant of a cosmogonic water-
dragon slaying myth, Snorri and some of his poetic sources wished to keep
the worm alive for his and Þórr’s rematch at ragnarök.

Two commonalities emerge from these accounts of the treatments that
Loki’s and his two sons’ mouths receive. First, each has his mouth pierced
with a pointed and probably metal implement, and second, in each case
the wounding is paired with the use of what is described as a slender but
unusually strong thread or line. while Snorri’s Edda is the only source to
assign both details to all three episodes, there is sufficient attestation of
most of these elements elsewhere to suggest that we are here dealing with
a mythic pattern of some significance, one which bore not only repeating
but also replicating. There are also differences in the treatments these
mouths receive: whereas Loki’s is fixed shut, Fenrir’s is propped open,
and Jörmungandr’s is stuffed full. These differences form, however, a set
of complementary methods for incapa citating mouths, and thus have
a functional equivalence. Each method also serves to prevent passage
through the mouths, though unequally. That is, while the blockages of
Loki’s and Jörmungandr’s mouths are, so long as they hold, total, the
sword propped between the wolf’s jaw, although it creates a barrier, also
keeps them open. Things could still enter Fenrir’s mouth, and something
is described as exiting it, namely his saliva. These are facts to which I will
return later.
At this point, I wish to pose the same question about Fenrir and Jörmun-
gandr as I did above in reference to Loki: what can we understand, from an
intramythic perspective, the intended as well as unintended outcomes of
the treatments of their mouths to be? In the case of the Miðgarðsormr, the

37. Gylfaginning, chap. 48, ed. Faulkes, p. 45: “Miðgarðsormr gein yfir oxahöfuðit en

öngullinn vá í góminn orminum.”

38. For Úlfr’s verse, see Skáldskaparmál, chaps. 47 and 57 (it is given twice), ed. Faulkes,

I, 64–65, 86–87. The Miðgarðsormr is also described as poisonous in bragi boddason’s

ninth-century Ragnarsdrápa; quoted in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 42, ed. Faulkes, I, 50.

39. See, for example, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, “Thor’s Fishing Expedition,” in

Words and Objects: Towards a Dialogue Between Archaeology and History of Religion, ed. Gro Steins-

land, Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, Serie b, Skrifter 71 (Oslo:

Norwegian Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 270–71.

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intention can be read as both punitive and preventative. Óðinn is said in
Gylfaginning to banish the worm to the outer sea because he and the other
æsir fear him, and it has been suggested that while “the serpent is described
by Snorri as voluntarily connected to it self, . . . it is treated as though it is
involuntarily bound.”

Scholars have also observed, however, that Jörmun-

gandr plays a positive cosmic role through his placement around the world’s
edge. He is, in effect, the boundary that gives the world, or a significant
portion of it, its shape.

when the worm is considered in this light, Þórr’s

attempt to fish him up and kill him can be (and has been) read not as a
cosmogonic but rather as a potentially eschatological act, in which case
Hymir emerges as the unlikely, and largely unsung, hero of the myth.

whether or not Hymir is credited with keeping Þórr from upsetting the
order of the cosmos, the hooking of the serpent can be understood as an
attempt at neutralization on the god’s part that backfires, making its victim
more rather than less powerful or perilous. For one thing, there is no indi-
cation in sources in which the worm is assumed to survive this encounter
whether he afterward goes back to resting in his circular position, with his
tail filling his mouth. Indeed, if the hook is imagined to have remained
in his mouth, he might have been impeded from doing so. There is also
no record that Jörmungandr ever spewed poison before the hook entered
his mouth, though he certainly continues to do so after. Gylfaginning states
that at ragnarök, the “Miðgarðsormr will spew so much poison that he will
bespatter all the sky and sea, and he will be very terrible.”

This text also

reports that at their final meeting, “Þórr will kill the Miðgarðsormr . . . .
Then he will fall dead to the ground on account of the poison which the
worm will spew at him.”

The hook, then, in Jörmungandr’s mouth may

be compared to the whetstone in Þórr’s head, as foreign objects that make
those in whose bodies they lodge more dangerous.

40. william F. Hansen, “Prometheus and Loki: The Myth of the Fettered God and his

Kin,” Classica et Mediaevalia, 58 (2007), 107. See also Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes:

Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society, vol. 1: The Myths, Viking Collection, 7 (Odense:

Odense Univ. Press, 1994), p. 275.

41. See, for example, the comments of Meulengracht Sørensen, “Thor’s Fishing Expe-

dition,” p. 271; and Gottfried Lorenz in Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning: Texte, Übersetzung,

Kommentar, ed. and trans. Gottfried Lorenz, Texte zur Forschung, 48 (Darmstadt: wissen-

schaftliche buchgesellschaft, 1984), pp. 420–21.

42. See Meulengracht Sørensen, “Thor’s Fishing Expedition,” pp. 269–72. For a contrary

opinion, see Edith Marold, “Der gotländische bildstein von Ardre VIII und die Hymiskviða,”

in Studien zur Archäologie des Ostseeraumes von der Eisenzeit zum Mittelalter: Festschrift für Michael

Müller-Wille, ed. Anke wesse (Neumünster: wachholtz, 1998), pp. 41–42.

43. Gylfaginning, chap. 51, ed. Faulkes, p. 50: “Miðgarðsormr blæss svá eitrinu at hann

dreifir lopt öll ok lög, ok er hann all ógurligr.” Translation slightly adapted from Snorri

Sturluson, Edda, trans. Faulkes, p. 53.

44. Gylfaginning, chap. 51, ed. Faulkes, p. 50: “Þórr berr banaorð af Miðgarðsormi . . . .

Þá fellr hann dauðr til jarðar fyrir eitri því er ormrinn blæss á hann.”

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Similar points can be made about Fenrir and the metal in his mouth.
For while the wolf is said to break free of his fetter at ragnarök, there is
no certainty about whether he gets the sword out from between his jaws.
In fact, depictions of him at ragnarök can be taken to indicate that it is
still there. Gylfaginning reports that once he is loose, the “Fenrisúlfr will
go with gaping mouth and the upper jaw will be against the sky and the
lower one against the earth. He would gape wider if there was room . . . .
[Then t]he wolf will swallow Óðinn. That will be his death.”

A focus on

Fenrir’s mouth is lacking in the Codex Regius (ca. 1275) version of Völuspá,
but in the version in Hauksbók (the pages on which it is found date to
ca. 1330–50), there is a unique stanza that begins: “Across the sky gapes
the girdle of earth, the jaws of the fearful wolf [MS. serpent] yawn in the
heights.”

while these lines can be taken to describe only the Miðgarðs-

ormr, Ursula Dronke writes that “[s]ince kiaptar [jaws] is used of the wolf
(cf. Vafþrúðnismál 53), but never of the serpent, I have emended orms (by
no means clear in the MS.) to úlfs (cf. the reverse confusion of úlf for orm
[that occurs in Codex Regius] in 53/4).”

Fenrir also, according to the

eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál (Vafþrúðnir’s Speech), swallows the sun, while
Völuspá has one of his offspring swallow either the sun or moon, and Snorri,
based on an eschatological reading of stanza 39 of Grímnismál (Grímnir’s
Speech), assigns these deeds to wolves named Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson
(that is, son of Fenrir; see p. 20 below).

At any rate, it is clear that the

damage caused by Fenrir and/or his proxies at ragnarök is accomplished
by gaping and swallowing rather than biting or tearing. As Loki predicts
ominously of Fenrir in Lokasenna, “he will swallow Victory-father whole.”

Thus, whether or not the sword remains in place, Fenrir’s mouth stays as
if fixed open until he dies, and this punishment or impediment too can
be argued to have ultimately augmented rather than lessened its victim’s
oral destructive capabilities.

45. Gylfaginning, chap. 51, ed. Faulkes, p. 50: “En Fenrisúlfr ferr með gapanda munn ok

er hinn efri kjöptr við himni en hinn neðri við jörðu. Gapa mundi hann meira ef rúm væri

til . . . . Úlfrinn gleypir Óðin. Verðr þat hans bani.”

46. “Ginn lopt yfir lindi iarðar, gapa ýgs kiaptar úlfs [MS. orms] í hæðum.” Translation

and original quoted from The Poetic Edda, vol. 2: Mythological Poems, ed. and trans. Ursula

Dronke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 77.

47. The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Dronke, p. 77. Dronke also observes here that

this stanza likely in some form predates Snorri since he “seems to have used it for his prose

picture of the advance of the wolf and serpent side by side” (p. 77). Stanza 45 of Völuspá

in Hauksbók, given on p. 87 of Dronke’s edition, also seems to refer, if obliquely, to Fenrir’s

swallowing of Óðinn.

48. Vafþrúðnismál, stt. 46–47, ed. Neckel, pp. 53–54; Völuspá, st. 40, ed. Neckel, p. 9; Grím-

nismál, st. 39, ed. Neckel, p. 65; Gylfaginning, chap. 12, ed. Faulkes, pp. 14–15. For another

possible reference to Fenrir as swallower of the sun, see the first verse by bragi boddason

quoted in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 54, ed. Faulkes, I, 83.

49. Lokasenna, st. 58, ed. Neckel, p. 108: “svelgr hann allan Sigföður.”

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Also relevant here is the manner (or manners) in which Fenrir is killed.
Gylfaginning reports that after Fenrir has gulped down Óðinn, “immedi-
ately after Víðarr comes forward and steps with one foot on the lower jaw
of the wolf . . . . [w]ith one hand he grasps the upper jaw of the wolf and
rips asunder his mouth and that is the wolf’s death.”

This agrees with

stanza 53 of Vafþrúðnismál: “The wolf will swallow the Father of Men, Víðarr
will avenge this; the cold jaws of the wolf he will sunder in battle.”

while

in Völuspá Víðarr is said rather to kill Fenrir by stabbing him in the heart
with a sword, Vafþrúðnismál’s reading seems likely to be the older one.

Incidentally, if we take Snorri at his word that Fenrir’s mouth already
spanned the vertical height of the cosmos and thus the wolf could not
have gaped any wider if he wanted to, what should Víðarr’s tearing of his
jaws still further and finally apart be imagined to have done to the cosmos?
Considered in this light, Fenrir’s destruction perhaps ought to be taken as,
in concert with Surtr’s consuming fire, the definitively cataclysmic event
of ragnarök.
Having followed the stories of Loki, his sons, and their mouths to their
ends, I turn now to a second set of Norse mythological figures who are
linked together both by close kinship and a pattern having to do with their
mouths. The focal point of this set is Óðinn, who, in addition to much
else he has in common with his blood brother Loki, is adept at using his
mouth, being a master of po etry, runes, spells and chants, a champion in
riddle-games, and a collector and sometimes dispenser of arcane knowl-
edge and prophecies. Unlike Loki, however, Óðinn is surrounded by a
number of kin who, although there appears to be nothing physically wrong
with their mouths, either do not use them or are unable or unwilling to
make effective use of them.
The most obviously orally challenged of these relations of Óðinn is Víðarr.
In addition to a thick shoe and great strength, both of which connect to
his victory over Fenrir, Gylfaginning’s summary description of Víðarr pro-
vides him with one other defining quality: he is inn þögli áss (the silent
áss).

Scholars have not been very confident about or satisfied with the

50. Gylfaginning, chap. 51, ed. Faulkes, p. 50: “En þegar eptir snýsk fram Viðarr ok stígr

öðrum fœti í neðra keypt úlfsins . . . . Annarri hendi tekr hann inn efra keypt úlfsins ok rífr

sundr gin hans ok verðr þat úlfsins bani.”

51. Vafþrúðnismál, st. 53, ed. Neckel, p. 55: “Úlfr gleypa mun Aldaföðr, þess mun Víðarr

vreka; kalda kiapta hann klyfia mun vitnis vígi at.” Translation modified slightly from The

Poetic Edda, trans. Larrington, p. 48.

52. Völuspá, st. 55 (sometimes numbered 54 in translations and other editions), ed. Neckel,

p. 13. On the relationship between Víðarr’s methods of killing Fenrir, see de Jan Vries,

Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2d ed., 2 vols., Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 12

(berlin: walter de Gruyter, 1957), 275–76; and Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide, pp. 313–14.

53. Gylfaginning, chap. 29, ed. Faulkes, p. 26. See also Skáldskaparmál, chap. 18, ed. Faulkes,

I, 24.

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explanations that have been proposed for this quality of Víðarr, and there
is uncertainty over whether it should be taken to mean that he is mute, or
merely taciturn. Some characterize Víðarr’s silence as an “act of abstention”
or choice not to “speak until he has carried out his vengeance,” similar to
how Váli, another of Óðinn’s sons, refuses to groom himself until he has
slain Höðr, baldr’s killer.

It may also be noted that Víðarr’s silence seems

to be linked in eddic poetry with his asociability. As Dronke observes, the
brushwood and tall grass that Grímnismál describes as growing about Víðarr’s
home can be taken to suggest, particularly when set alongside a verse with
similar language from the eddic poem Hávamal (Hár’s [The High One’s,
i.e., Óðinn’s] Speech), Víðarr’s social isolation.

but whatever the cause

or reason of Víðarr’s silence, it seems that he never uses his mouth before
the world’s end.
Another son of Óðinn whose mouth is challenged is baldr. This may
seem an odd claim, given that Gylfaginning calls him the “wisest of the æsir
and fairest spoken and most gracious.”

Three facts sit uneasily beside

this description, however. First, like Víðarr, baldr’s name is paired with the
nickname þögli (the silent), in his case in a verse from Bjarkamál in fornu
(The Old Lay of bjarki), from probably the tenth century. while creating
an intriguing parallel between the two brothers, this datum is, however,
isolated and obscure as to its referent.

Of potentially greater import is

the fact that baldr, like Víðarr, has no dialogue in any source, poetic or
prose, of the west Norse tradition. while this is true of gods besides these
two, including Óðinn’s son Váli and Þórr’s son Móði, these and others
like them are minor figures compared to baldr, and even Víðarr. The only
speech of baldr that is reported, though not quoted, is when Gylfaginning
has him tell the other æsir of his troubling dreams.

Many scholars have

emphasized how passive a figure baldr is—his only real role in the one
myth in which he figures is to die, and stay dead—but it has been little

54. Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide, p. 311; and John Lindow, Murder and Vengeance among

the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology, Folklore Fellows Communications, 262 (Helsinki:

Soumalainen tiedeakatemia, 1997), p. 35. See also de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte,

II, 276.

55. The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Dronke, p. 149. “Hrísi vex oc há grasi” in Grím-

nismál, st. 17, ed. Neckel, p. 60, echoes “hrísi vex oc hávo grasi” in Hávamal, st. 119, ed.

Neckel, p. 36. A similar observation was earlier made by Sophus bugge, The Home of the Eddic

Poems, with especial reference to the Helgi-Lays, trans. william Henry Schofield, rev. ed. (London:

David Nutt, 1899), p. lxviii.

56. Gylfaginning, chap. 22, ed. Faulkes, p. 23: “Hann er vitrastr Ásanna ok fegrst talaðr ok

líknsamastr.”

57. quoted as v. 190 in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 45, ed. Faulkes, I, 61. Faulkes comments in

his edition of Skáldskaparmál that “baldr þögli is not known and baldr may be [used here

as] part of a kenning for warrior” (note to v. 190/8, I, 189).

58. Gylfaginning, chap. 49, ed. Faulkes, p. 45: “hann sagði Ásunum draumana.” That baldr

informed others of his bad dreams is also, of course, the premise of Baldrs draumar.

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noted that his passivity extends to use of his mouth.

The third and most

significant fact is that Gylfaginning adds to its description of baldr another
detail about his speech: “en sú náttúra fylgir honum at engi má haldask
dómr hans” (but that nature belongs to him, that none of his decrees is
capable of fulfillment).

In other words, no matter how wise, eloquent,

and merciful his pronouncements are, they fail to have practical effect.
This characteristic of baldr is somewhat reminiscent of one ascribed to his
mother, about whom Freyja says in Lokasenna, “I think that Frigg knows
all fates, though she herself does not tell them.”

Mother and son both,

then, have mental talents that fail to manifest or take effect verbally.
This trait of baldr has long exercised scholars since, like Víðarr’s silence,
it lacks clear motivation in the myths as we have them. Some have tried to
remove the puzzle by appealing to a manuscript variant: of the four major
Edda manuscripts, one, Wormsbók or Codex Wormianus (mid-1300s), has
hallaz instead of halldaz in the sentence quoted above (there normalized
as haldask), in which case the sentence may be read to say not that baldr’s
judgments have no effect, but rather that they never turn or twist sideways,
that is, are never false or unjust.

Anne Holtsmark suggests that while this

latter reading has less to recommend it from a text-critical standpoint,
it may be preferred in terms of sense.

Some who have sought to retain

the more usual manuscript reading have taken their cue from Georges
Dumézil, who argued that baldr “is not attached to the warrior aspect of
Odin, but to his sovereign aspect of which he offers a purer conception,
presently unrealizable, which is reserved for the future.”

In Dumézil’s

view, the overdeveloped bellicosity of the Germanic branch of the Indo-
European peoples resulted in a downgrading and marginalization of their
gods of justice and mercy such as Týr and baldr at the expense of Óðinn,
a god of war and ecstasy who has usurped and largely monopolized the
function of sovereignty. baldr, who “unites in himself the ideal of true
justice and goodness without subterfuge and the thirst for ‘something
else’,” can therefore play no active role in “the present age [which] has
become irremediable . . . . [but a]t least he existed and this existence was

59. Among the many who have described baldr as passive or in similar terms are René

L. M. Derolez, Götter und Mythen der Germanen (Einsiedeln: benziger Verlag, 1963), p. 153;

de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 215; Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 51; and

Marie-Louise Kjølbye, “Nyt syn på baldermyten,” Danske studier, 84 (1989), 61–62.

60. Gylfaginning, chap. 22, ed. Faulkes, p. 23.

61. Lokasenna, st. 29, ed. Neckel, p. 102: “ørlög Frigg hugg ec at öll viti, þótt hon siálfgi

segi.”

62. See discussion in Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. and trans. Lorenz, p. 321.

63. Anne Holtsmark, Studier i Snorres mytologi, Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-

Akademi i Oslo II, Hist.-Filos. Kl., Ny Serie No. 4 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1964), pp.

72–74.

64. Dumézil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, p. 83.

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a protest and a consolation.”

Dumézil’s arguments have been echoed

and affirmed by, among others, Jan de Vries, who posits that we owe the
notion of baldr’s ineffective decrees to the fact that this god’s peaceable
nature found few sympathizers among “den kämpferischen Nordleuten,”
and Gottfried Lorenz, who suggests that “baldr’s judgments could . . . not
be carried out, because baldr belongs to the supernatural sphere, [and
thus] his judgments are unreal; in ‘everyday life’ gods such as Óðinn and
Þórr get their way.”

while I decline to follow the line of reasoning posed by Dumézil, de
Vries, and Lorenz in a number of respects—including Dumézil’s and de
Vries’s stereotyping of ancient Germans as uniquely war-obsessed, Du-
mézil’s Tillichian definition of baldr as symbol of the desire for the “ganz
andere,” and Lorenz’s Platonic opposition between, on the one hand,
Óðinn, Þórr, and a transitory world of becoming, and, on the other, baldr
and a transcendent and eternal realm of being—it nevertheless seems to
me on the right track to try to understand the failure of baldr’s decrees
to take or to have effect as an indication that he exercises no sovereignty
function as yet, in, that is, the present mythic world. Further, I think that
the patterns I have identified having to do with mythic mouths can be un-
derstood, at least in part, as reflections from a particular social perspective
on problems related to sovereignty, to, in other words, the maintenance
and exercise of power. To recap briefly these patterns, Norse myth presents
two sets of figures who form something of a binary opposition: on the
one side are Loki, Fenrir, and Jörmungandr, three related figures whose
mouths undergo mutilation and incapacitation but which remain potent
despite these treatments, or even become more so because of them; on
the other side are close relations of Óðinn whose mouths are physically
unharmed or unhampered but who, in the present cosmos at least, either
lack the power or will to use their mouths or have mental powers and abili-
ties which fail to attain verbal effect. In short, we have on the one hand
ineffective attempts to inhibit mouths, and on the other uninhibited but
ineffective mouths. both patterns, I will now argue, might be explained
(intramythically) as results of or (extramythically) as symbols of the futility
of attempts to extend sovereignty indefinitely or to arrest its transfer.
Margaret Clunies Ross and Judith Jesch are among those in recent years
to have suggested that the extant literary sources for Norse myth largely
reflect the outlook, interests, and values of an elite and male sector of

65. Dumézil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, pp. 58–60.

66. de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, II, 214; Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed.

and trans. Lorenz, p. 321: “baldrs Urteile können . . . nicht durchgesetzt werden, weil baldr

der überirdischen Sphäre angehört, seine Urteile irreal sind; im ‘täglichen Leben’ setzen

sich Götter wie Óðinn und Þórr durch.”

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medieval Scandinavian society.

As Jesch puts it, “This is indeed a society

(or at least a literary tradition) which interprets everything in terms of the
warrior ideal.”

In my view, we can be yet more specific about the social

perspective from and to which these texts spoke. It is a well-known though
sometimes underappreciated fact that, archaeological evidence aside, we
owe the vast majority of our data on Norse myth to poets, or to texts that
depend on poetry. This poetry, as well as many of the derivative prose
sources, originated and circulated above all in a courtly or, in Iceland,
a chieftainly milieu. In my opinion, this is true whether we are talking
about skaldic or eddic verse. while the simpler meter, more traditional
subject matters, and anonymity of eddic poetry have led many to postulate
for it a more popular origin and/or circulation than for skaldic poetry,
I consider it likely, as John Lindow argued several decades ago, that “the
same persons may well have composed and enjoyed both verse forms,”
and that in light of “later Icelandic transmission it is difficult to postulate
different social levels for the two genres.”

The strategy of grounding interpretation in the perspective of court poets
seems especially warranted in respect to our specific theme. Poets make
their living with their mouths, and so it stands to reason that Norse skalds,
who we already know to have been integrally involved in producing and
circulating our sources, would have taken a special interest in myths about
the use, misuse, and abuse of mouths. working with this premise will, I
hope now to show, open up a number of possibilities for interpretation of
the mythic motifs and patterns that I have isolated. Let us return first to a
consideration of Loki and his pair of offspring. while it would go too far
and be too simplistic to argue that these three, as Norse myth’s most ef-
fective mouth-users, function as proxies of poets or instantiations of their
interests and desires, I do think that some elements of their depictions can
be better understood by considering them from a poet’s-eye-view. because
many aspects of Loki and his mythos have recently been interpreted from
this vantage point, and because most of what I have to say about the serpent
in this respect would apply as well to the wolf, I will focus in what follows
mainly on Fenrir.

67. Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, I, 50; Judith Jesch, Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age:

The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse (woodbridge, Suffolk: The boydell Press,

2001), pp. 7–8; and Jesch, “Eagles, Ravens and wolves: beasts of battle, Symbols of Victory

and Death,” in The Scandinavians from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic

Perspective, ed. Judith Jesch (woodbridge, Suffolk: The boydell Press, 2002), pp. 251–80.

See also comment in Kjølbye, “Nyt syn på baldermyten,” pp. 48–49.

68. Jesch, “Eagles, Ravens and wolves,” p. 262.

69. John Lindow, “Mythology and Mythography,” in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Criti-

cal Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica, 45 (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press,

1985), p. 33.

70. For Loki, see Kevin J. wanner, “Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn,

and the Limits of Sovereignty,” History of Religions, 48.3 (2009), 211–46.

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while scholars have partly come around to the view that Jörmungandr
cannot be regarded simply as a monstrous power or mythological symbol of
evil, chaos, and destruction, the Fenrisúlfr is still often defined in this way.
For example, John Stanley Martin writes of Fenrir that “he belonged to the
race of giants and monsters opposed to the order of the universe,” and that
“he had no meaning outside the eschatological conflict”; Lorenz makes
the similar but more extravagant claim that the “Fenrisúlfr is one of the
central figures—perhaps even the central figure—of northern Germanic
mythology, the real demon of ragnarök . . . ; he exists only for his function
in ragnarök”; and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen has recently described Fenrir
as one of the “purely destructive forces of chaos.”

Diabolization of Fenrir

has been especially common among those who perceive behind elements
and even the whole of his mythos influence from ancient and medieval
Christian conceptions of Satan, Hell, and related entities.

Though I do

not discount such influences, it is worth noting that a focus on them tends
to lead scholars away from more nuanced interpretations of what Fenrir
represents, interpretations which have the potential to illuminate some
of his more obscure traits.
For example, those who characterize Fenrir as thoroughly demonic
tend to ignore or minimize the fact that prior to his binding in Gylfaginn-
ing, he comes across as rather urbane and introspective, and with an un-
monsterlike fixation on the state of his reputation. when the æsir seek
to place a first fetter on him, “it seemed to the wolf not to be beyond his
strength and he let them do with it as they wanted.”

After he breaks this

fetter, the æsir make a second and stronger one, and they assure Fenrir
that “he would become very renowned for his strength if such a mighty
piece of work could not hold him. but the wolf thought to himself that

71. John Stanley Martin, Ragnarök: An Investigation into Old Norse Concepts of the Fate of the

Gods, Melbourne Monographs in Germanic Studies, 3 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1972), pp. 84, 83;

Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. and trans. Lorenz, p. 418: “Fenrisúlfr ist eine der zentralen

Gestalten—vielleicht sogar die zentrale Gestalt—der nordgermanischen Mythologie, der

eigentliche Dämon der ragnarök . . . ; er existiert allein für seine Funktion in den ragnarök”;

Rasmus Tranum Kristensen, “why was Óðinn Killed by Fenrir? A Structural Analysis of Kin-

ship Structures in Old Norse Myths of Creation and Eschatology,” in Reflections on Old Norse

Myths, ed. Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt, and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen, Studies in

Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 1 (Turnhout: brepols, 2007), p. 165.

72. See, for example, Elard Hugo Meyer, Völuspá. Eine Untersuchung (berlin: Mayer and

Müller, 1889), pp. 150–52, and Mythologie der Germanen (Straussburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1903),

pp. 346–47; bugge, Home of the Eddic Poems, pp. lvii–lxviii; Hjalmar Falk, “Til Fenresmyten,”

in Sproglige og historiske Afhandlingar viede Sophus Bugges Minde (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1908), pp.

139–44; Kaarle Krohn, “Der gefangene Unhold,” Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen, 17 (1907),

pp.129–84, and Skandinavisk mytologi (Helsinki: Holger Schmidt, 1922), pp. 154–56. For

brief summaries and reactions to this tradition of interpretation, see de Vries, Altgermanische

Religionsgeschichte, I, 266–67; Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. and trans. Lorenz, p. 419;

and Heizmann, “Fenriswolf,” pp. 242–43.

73. Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, p. 27: “En úlfinum þótti sér þat ekki ofrefli ok lét

þá fara með sem þeir vildu.”

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this fetter was very strong . . . . [Yet] it came into his mind that he would
have to take some risk if he was going to get famous.”

Finally, when the

æsir present Gleipnir to Fenrir, he says, this time in direct dialogue, “So
it looks to me . . . as though I will gain no fame by tearing apart such a
slender band, and if that is made with art and cunning . . . , then that
band is not going on my legs . . . . but rather than you question my cour-
age, let some one lay his hand in my mouth as a pledge that this is done
without guile.”

Although it might appear that Fenrir’s thirst for fame is

his undoing, it is worth observing that he finds no possibility for improv-
ing his reputation in this final feat, and it is really the conscious duplicity
of the æsir that is credited with achieving the wolf’s binding.
Also worth recalling in this context is that one of the by-names of Fenrir
is Hróðvitnir or Hróðsvitnir.

Vitnir is a word used by skalds for “wolf,”

and is often simply translated as such, but its literal meaning is “‘watcher’
or ‘aware one, observant, keen-scented one’,” or “one with acute wits,
senses.”

Hróðr means “fame,” “praise,” “renown,” etc. Therefore, while

many take Hróðvitnir to mean simply “the famous wolf” or “fame-wolf,”
and others try to make it more sinister by translating it as the “infamous”
or even “murderous wolf,” it may also be understood as “one who is on
the lookout for fame.”

This last sense accords well with the depiction of

Fenrir as reputation-obsessed in Gylfaginning.

Lois bragg has observed that despite his monstrous size and shape,
Fenrir articulates in his speech in Gylfaginning a “patently normative ethi-
cal system,” that he “uses his mouth to discourse on the elite warrior-class
concerns of honor and reputation.”

I agree on these points, but again

think that they can be made more specific: the values, or symbolic goods,

74. Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, p. 27: “hann verða mundu ágætan mjök at afli ef

slík stórsmíði mætti eigi halda honum. En úlfrinn hugsaði at þessi fjöturr var sterkr mjök

. . . . Kom þat í hug at hann mundi verða at leggja sik í hættu ef hann skyldi frægr verða.”

75. Gylfaginning, chap. 34, ed. Faulkes, p. 28: “Svá lízk mér . . . sem ønga frægð munak af

hljóta þótt ek slíta í sundr svá mjótt band, en ef þat er gört með list ok væl . . . , þá kemr þat

band eigi á mína fœtr . . . . En heldr en þér frýið mér hugar þá leggi einnhverr hönd sína í

munn mér at veði at þetta sé falslaust gert.”

76. For the first form of the name, see Grímnismál, st. 39, ed. Neckel, p. 65; Gylfaginning,

chap. 12, ed. Faulkes, p. 14; and Skáldskaparmál, chap. 75, ed. Faulkes, I, 132. For the second,

see Lokasenna, st. 39, ed. Neckel, p. 104.

77. quotations from glossary entry in Skáldskaparmál, II, ed. Faulkes, 430; and note to

stanza 39/2 of Lokasenna, in The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Dronke, p. 365. See also

Lorenz’s comments in Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. and trans. Lorenz, p. 196.

78. For example, Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, p. 160, gives “fame-wolf”; Lindow,

Norse Mythology: A Guide, p. 184, translates it as “something like ‘famous wolf’”; Hugo Gering

and b. Sijmons, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, 2 vols. (Halle: buchhandlung des waisen-

hauses, 1927), I, 207, give “der berüchtigte wolf” (the notorious wolf); and Richard Cleasby

and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 2d ed., with a supplement by wil-

liam A. Craigie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874), p. 287, suggest “fatal, murderous wolf.”

79. See comments in Heizmann, “Fenriswolf,” p. 232, n. 17.

80. bragg, Oedipus borealis, pp. 88, 126.

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of honor and reputation were especially of concern to court poets. Praise
and commemoration is what skalds offered to patrons in expectation of
receiving material and social/symbolic rewards. The incongruity of finding
such values being extolled by a mythical wolf may be lessened by consider-
ing the part that regular wolves, along with other carrion beasts, generally
play in Norse poetry. In a paper by Judith Jesch on this topic, she finds
that “Norse poetry hardly ever uses the beasts to create an atmosphere
. . . of impending doom, or the elegiac mood that we so often find in the
Old English examples. If anything, the tone is quite the opposite: upbeat
and positive. The Old Norse convention can be summarized as ‘the war-
rior feeds the beasts of battle, the beasts of battle enjoy their food.’”

Two

verses by obscure poets of, respectively, the later twelfth and early eleventh
centuries can serve to substantiate Jesch’s claim: “The heath-dweller’s
hunger was sated, the grey howler fed on wounds, the prince reddened
Fenrir’s chops, the wolf went to drink from wounds”; “Gialp’s stud waded
in blood, and the dusky one’s troop got plenty of Freki’s meal [carrion].
The howler enjoyed Geri’s ales [blood].”

Printed along with Jesch’s paper is a transcript of the discussion that
followed its presentation, in which she had an interesting exchange with
the late Preben Meulengracht Sørensen:

meulengracht: . . . but . . . a wolf . . . means death, destruction,

anything opposite to humanity, anything outside the human world
and culture and ultimately the wolf is the symbol of Ragnarök. So,
isn’t that the basis of these images of the wolf and its companions
on the battlefield?

JESCH: It may be the basis, but why? If the wolf is death, destruction,

disaster, why are all these warriors going out of their way to feed it?

MEULENGRACHT: I can’t answer that question but in skaldic poetry

battle is connected to this horrible non-humanity that is definitely
realized in Ragnarök . . . all this darkness and horror of death and
destruction . . . It’s always there.

JESCH: It seems to me that what we might perhaps call an elegiac

mood, might be a later view. And that, at least in the praise poetry
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, you weren’t allowed to think
of war and death as a bad thing.

81. Jesch, “Eagles, Ravens and wolves,” p. 254.

82. The verses, by Hallr Snorrason and Þórðr Kolbeinsson respectively, are quoted in Skáld-

skaparmál, chap. 58, ed. Faulkes, I, 88: “Heiðingja sleit hungri, hárr gylðir naut sára, granar

rauð gramr á Fenri, gekk úlfr í ben drekka”; “Óð—en œrnu náði íms sveit Freka hveiti, Gera

ölðra naut gylðir—Gjálpar stóð í blóði.” The second is quoted by Jesch, “Eagles, Ravens and

wolves,” p. 255. Translations are from Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans. Faulkes, p. 136.

83. Jesch, “Eagles, Ravens and wolves,” pp. 278–79.

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I am more in sympathy with Jesch’s view in this exchange. Rather than
use, then, notions of a dread, apocalyptic wolf to color perceptions of
what real-life wolves signify in praise-poetry, I think it more fitting to allow
the positive use to which this verse puts everyday wolves to influence our
understanding of Fenrir. After all, if Jesch is right that there is no more
cheerful image to a court skald than wolves gorging themselves on corpses
provided by princes, then what for them could be more depressing than
a wolf who never gets to eat? To incapacitate the archetypal wolf’s mouth
is to negate symbolically the subject matter of a substantial portion of
their compositions.
Another obscure datum from Fenrir’s mythos that a poet’s-eye-view might
help to illuminate is the river of saliva that flows continuously from his
propped open mouth. This stream is called Ván or “Hope,” a name that
echoes in another of the wolf’s nicknames, Vánargandr, which means “Hope-
wand” (cf. Jörmungandr, or “Mighty-wand”).

Thus, “hope” in liquid form

streams from Fenrir’s lips in much the way that praise or honor is often
said to do from the lips of skalds. As the tenth-century skald Úlfr (that is,
“wolf”) Uggason puts it, “from my jaws flow words of praise,” and “a river
reaches the sea . . . I have again handed over an encomium for the sword-
rain-deliverer.”

Scholars have reacted to this river called Hope with puzzle-

ment, by looking for its explanation in Christian prototypes, above all the
monster behemoth (described in Job 40.23 as “confident though Jordan
rushes against its mouth”) by way of Icelandic translations of exegeses of
Pope Gregory I, or by suggesting that the hope in question is simply that of
Fenrir who has assurance that his torment will not last beyond this world.

Could this hope, however, be thought of as more general? I will propose
three ways in which it could be thought to be so. First, could the hope in
question refer not just to the wolf’s expectation of freedom but to what
this will mean for the world, that is, its end? while it may seem perverse to

84. The name appears only in Skáldskaparmál, chap. 16, ed. Faulkes, I, 19, though Snorri

presents it as part of a kenning.

85. quoted in Skáldskaparmál, chaps. 2 and 54, ed. Faulkes, I, 8, 84: “mér líða . . . of hvapta

hróðrmál”; “kømr á, en æri endr bar ek mærð af hendi . . . til sævar, sverðregns.” Transla-

tions from Snorri Sturluson, Edda, trans. Faulkes, pp. 67, 133. Similar statements are made

by skalds such as Völu-Steinn and Eilífr Guðrúnarson, quoted in Skáldskaparmál, chaps. 3

and 17, ed. Faulkes, I, 13, 26.

86. For the posited connections with behemoth and/or Gregory I’s exegesis, see Meyer,

Völuspá. Eine Untersuchung, pp. 150—52, and Mythologie der Germanen, pp. 346–47; Falk, “Til

Fenresmyten,” pp. 142–43; bugge, Home of the Eddic Poems, pp. lvii–lix; for the last sugges-

tion, see Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. and trans. Lorenz, p. 431. The translation from

Job is that of the New Revised Standard Version. It should be noted that the connection to

Gregory I’s exegesis depends on a verse preserved in different forms in two of the minor

Edda manuscripts, in which two rivers, the names of which are usually translated along the

lines of “hope” and “despair” (van and víl in AM 748 I 4to, vôn and vil in AM 757 4to), flow

from Fenrir’s mouth. For a convenient discussion, see Heizmann, “Fenriswolf,” p. 231.

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characterize a view of the world’s end as hopeful, such an attitude is well
attested in religions with an eschatological focus. It also bears remembering
that ragnarök is not really the end in any absolute sense. The things swal-
lowed by wolves will be replaced in the world that emerges after ragnarök,
the sun with a daughter, “no less fair than she is,” and Óðinn with baldr
and other members of the younger generation of æsir.

Second, Óðinn’s death taken by itself could constitute a hopeful sym-
bol from a poetic point of view, since his efforts to forestall ragnarök and
thereby extend his reign indefinitely also pose a symbolic problem for
skalds. For just as the skalds’ function of praise depends on the fact of kings
feeding wolves, so their function of commemoration depends on the fact
that kings will die and need remembering. An immortal king is no more
positive a symbol for a court-skald than is a starved wolf; both threaten to
render the poet’s paradigmatic services of praise and commemoration
useless. Ultimately, then, Óðinn simply does what any praiseworthy patron
of skalds ought to do—he provides food to wolves not only while he lives,
but also as he dies, with his own body.

Third, a king’s death fulfills the hope of those to whom his authority
passes. Among those who will take over after Óðinn’s death are his sons
whom I have discussed earlier. According to Völuspá, after ragnarök, “baldr
will come; Höðr and baldr, gods of the slain [valtívar], will dwell happily
in Hroptr’s [Óðinn’s] battle-places.”

According to Vafþrúðnismál, “Víðarr

and Váli inhabit the sanctuaries of the gods, when Surtr’s fire is slaked;
Móði and Magni will have Mjöllnir and will take over at battle’s end [or,
alternatively, when Vingnir, that is, Þórr, is done fighting].”

Gylfaginning

combines these two poetic reports and thus has all six junior æsir make the
transition to the new world.

These verses describe not merely survival,

but succession: Óðinn’s sons are described as reinhabiting their father’s
old haunts, and an obscure kenning given by Snorri for Víðarr, byggvi-Áss

87. Gylfaginning, chap. 53, ed. Faulkes, p. 54: “eigi ófegri en hon er.” Translation from Snorri

Sturluson, Edda, trans. Faulkes, p. 57. See also Vafþrúðnismál, st. 47, ed. Neckel, p. 54.

88. As Aleksander Pluwskowski aptly puts it, “Óðinn . . . is the ultimate provider of food for

the wolves, not only as feeder of the emblematic Geri and Freki and as the overseer of the

carnage of battle but also literally, as the meal of Fenrir at Ragnarök.” Wolves and Wilderness

in the Middle Ages (woodbridge, Suffolk: The boydell Press, 2006), pp. 139–40. For Geri

and Freki, see Grímnismál, st. 19, ed. Neckel, p. 61; for Óðinn’s responsibility for deaths

that occur and corpses that lie on battlefields, see, for example, the eddic poem Helgakviða

Hundingsbana önnur, st. 34, ed. Neckel, p. 158.

89. Völuspá, st. 62, ed. Neckel, p. 14: “baldr mun koma; búa þeir Höðr oc baldr Hroptz

sigtóptir, vel, valtívar.”

90. Vafþrúðnismál, st. 51, ed. Neckel, p. 54: “Víðarr oc Váli byggia vé goða, þá er slocnar

Surtar logi; Móði oc Magni scolo Miollni hafa oc vinna at vígþroti.” The last line appears as

“Vingnis at vígþroti” in manuscripts of Snorri’s Edda (see Gylfaginning, chap. 53, ed. Faulkes,

p. 54), and is thus translated variously, but either sense given here supports my point.

91. Gylfaginning, chap. 53, ed. Faulkes, pp. 53–55.

Doing Things with Mouths in Norse Myth

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föðurtopta, “father’s homestead-inhabiting As” or “the dwelling-god [áss] of
paternal properties,” might also be taken to emphasize his role as heir.

As for baldr and Höðr, the valtívar (gods of the slain) who replace the
Valföðr, they may be being positioned as new lords of Valhöll, and Þórr’s
sons are said to inherit their father’s weapon.
All of these junior gods had, while the old world lasted, little to do. The
two to whom I have paid most attention, baldr and Víðarr, were especially
impotent around the mouths, with Víðarr remaining silent and baldr issu-
ing ineffectual decrees. They come into their own, however, after ragnarök.
Völuspá’s description of a new world in which “all wrongs will be set aright”
suggests that baldr’s wise and gracious decrees will now begin to bear
fruit.

Víðarr, of course, springs into action and relevance immediately

upon Óðinn’s death, the silent áss annihilating the none-too-silent mouth
that had swallowed his father. Having accomplished this deed and having
made the transition to the new world, Víðarr then appears to do what he
had never done before, namely speak. while no direct dialogue is reported
from after ragnarök, Víðarr is among those who, in Gylfaginning’s words,
“all sit down together and talk.”

It is worth noting, however, what the surviving gods are actually said to talk
about. To complete the quotation from Gylfaginning just given: “Then they
will all sit down together and talk with each other and remind themselves
of their rúnar [mysteries or runes] and discuss those happenings which
once had occurred, about the Miðgarðsormr and about Fenrisúlfr.”

This

sentence echoes stanza 60 of Völuspá: “The æsir meet on Iðavellir and talk
about the mighty earth-encircler, and there remind themselves about great
events, and about Fimbultýr’s [Óðinn’s] old rúnar.”

The main thing, then,

that the rulers of the new world talk about are the two entities whose mouths
had destroyed the old one. The most pressing concern for them seems to
be to commemorate the past rather than plan for the future. Once again,
the perspective seems to me to be that of poets, for whom, even when a
new order has just begun, it remains a matter of importance and even some
urgency to recall the one that has passed.

92. Skáldskaparmál, chap. 11, ed. Faulkes, I, 19. Translations from Snorri Sturluson, Edda,

trans. Faulkes, p. 76; Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide, p. 313.

93. Völuspá, st. 62, ed. Neckel, p. 14: “böls mun allz batna.”

94. Gylfaginning, chap. 53, ed. Faulkes, p. 53: “Setjask þá allir samt ok talask.”

95. Gylfaginning, chap. 53, ed. Faulkes, pp. 53–54: “Setjask þá allir samt ok talask við ok

minnask á rúnar sínar ok rœða of tíðindi þau er fyrrum höfðu verit, of Miðgarðsorm ok

um Fenrisúlf.”

96. Völuspá, st. 60, ed. Neckel, p. 14: “Finnaz æsir á Iðavelli oc um moldþinur, mátcan,

dœma, oc minnaz þar á megindóma oc á Fimbultýs fornar rúnar.”

Wanner

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