Seiðr Loom

giant

Gunnlöð

Suttungr's daughter, set to guard the mead of poetry inside a mountain. Odin spends three nights with her and leaves with all the mead; Hávamál remembers her as a woman he wronged.

Odin and Gunnlöð by Frølich
Odin and Gunnlöð by Frølich, Lorenz Frølich (1895). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Gunnlöð is the giantess who guards the mead of poetry for her father Suttungr, inside the mountain Hnitbjörg Skáldskaparmál 1. The two main sources treat her very differently.

In Snorri's prose she is part of the plot. Odin, as Bölverkr, gets into the mountain in serpent form, "lay with her three nights", and is then allowed three draughts. He empties all three vessels and flies off as an eagle Skáldskaparmál 1. Snorri says nothing about what she thought.

Hávamál gives her a voice and some dignity. Odin remembers that she gave him the mead "on a golden stool" and that he left her a "harsh reward … for her heroic heart" Hávamál 106. He would not have escaped "had not Gunnloth helped me, the maiden good" Hávamál 108. The stanzas end in reproach: "Who now his troth shall trust? … And Gunnloth to grief he left" Hávamál 110. An earlier stanza has Odin "in Gunnloth's house" while "dead-drunk" Hávamál 13-14.

Hardly, methinks, would I home have come,And left the giants' land,Had not Gunnloth helped me, the maiden good,Hávamál 108

Snorri lists her among Odin's partners: Frigg can be called "Co-Wife of Jörd and Rindr and Gunnlöd and Grídr" Skáldskaparmál 19. Skalds called poetry "Gunnlöd's Liquor" Skáldskaparmál 3.

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.

Bölverkr proceeded to the place where Gunnlöd was, and lay with her three nights; and then she gave him leave to drink three draughts of the mead.
Skáldskaparmál 1 Snorri's version is brief and businesslike.
Gunnloth gave on a golden stool A drink of the marvelous mead; A harsh reward did I let her have
Hávamál 106 Odin admits he repaid her badly.
Had not Gunnloth helped me, the maiden good, Whose arms about me had been.
Hávamál 108 Hávamál credits her with Odin's escape.
Suttung's betrayal he sought with drink, And Gunnloth to grief he left.
Hávamál 110 The poem's last word on her is grief.

Myths with Gunnlöð

The mead of poetry From the spittle of the gods' peace comes Kvasir, wisest of beings; from his blood two dwarfs brew a mead that makes poets. It passes to the giant Suttungr, and Odin wins it by labour, seduction and theft, flying home as an eagle.

Related

Suttungr The giant who takes the mead of poetry from the dwarves as compensation for his father's murder, hides it inside a mountain with his daughter Gunnlöð, and loses it to Odin. 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. The mead of poetry skáldskapar mjaðar The mead brewed from the blood of the wise Kvasir: whoever drinks it becomes a poet or a scholar. Odin steals it from the giant Suttungr and gives it to the gods and to poets. Baugi Suttungr's brother, who hires the disguised Odin to replace nine dead farmhands, then bores into the mountain where the mead of poetry is hidden and tries to cheat him. Óðrerir In Snorri, the kettle into which the dwarves drained Kvasir's blood to brew the mead of poetry; in Hávamál, apparently the name of the mead itself. Frigg Odin's wife and the foremost of the goddesses: she knows the fates of all but never speaks them, and her failed attempt to protect her son Baldr is the hinge of Norse myth.