Seiðr Loom

giant

Bölþorn

A giant, father of Bestla and so grandfather of Odin. His unnamed son taught Odin nine mighty songs.

Bölþorn is Odin's grandfather on his mother's side, and he is named only twice. Snorri's Gylfaginning calls him "Bölthorn the giant", father of Bestla, who married Borr and bore Odin, Vili and Vé Gylfaginning 6.

In Hávamál, after hanging nine nights on the windy tree, Odin says: "Nine mighty songs I got from the son of Bolthorn, Bestla's father" Hávamál 141. Bölþorn himself does nothing in the stanza; he is named to identify his son, the giant who passes on wisdom to his sister's child. The son is not named. Some scholars have proposed that he is Mímir; this is a guess.

Nothing else survives about Bölþorn: no deeds, no dwelling, no death. His importance lies in what his line contributes. Odin's knowledge, in this stanza at least, comes partly from his giant kin.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

the woman named Bestla, daughter of Bölthorn the giant
Gylfaginning 6 Snorri names Bölþorn as Bestla's father.
Nine mighty songs I got from the son Of Bolthorn, Bestla's father
Hávamál 141 Odin learns nine songs from Bölþorn's son, his own uncle.

Myths with Bölþorn

Odin on the tree: how the runes were won In Hávamál Odin tells how he hung for nine nights on a windswept tree, wounded with a spear and given to himself, without food or drink, until he seized the runes and fell back. It is the most famous passage in Old Norse poetry, and one of the most mysterious. The making of the world Before anything existed there was only a yawning gap. Fire and ice met in it, the giant Ymir woke out of the melting rime, and Odin and his brothers killed him and built the world from his body.

Related

Bestla A giantess, daughter of Bölþorn, wife of Borr and mother of Odin, Vili and Vé. Through her the chief god is half giant by birth. Borr Son of Búri and father of Odin, Vili and Vé by the giantess Bestla. His sons killed Ymir and raised the earth, and the poems often call them simply 'Bur's sons'. Odin Óðinn Chief of the Æsir: a one-eyed god of wisdom, poetry, magic, war and the dead, who gave an eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, and who dies at Ragnarök. Vili and Vé Vili ok Vé Odin's two brothers, sons of Borr and Bestla. With Odin they killed Ymir, built the world from his body and gave life to the first humans, then all but vanish from the myths. Mímir The wise guardian of the well beneath Yggdrasil, where Odin pledged an eye for a drink. In the poems only his head survives, and Odin consults it for secret knowledge. The giants (jötnar) jötnar The giants of Norse myth: the oldest race in the world, descended from Ymir, wise and often wealthy, enemies of the gods yet their kin, their wives and their mothers.