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giant

Hyndla

A cave-dwelling giantess whom Freyja wakes and rides with to recite the ancestry of her favourite, Óttarr. She names his forebears, foretells the end of the world, and parts from Freyja with insults.

Freyja awakes Hyndla
Freyja awakes Hyndla, W.G. Collingwood (1908). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Hyndla is the giantess of Hyndluljóð, a poem that survives only in the late medieval Icelandic manuscript Flateyjarbók. She lives in a "hollow cave" and keeps wolves. Freyja wakes her at nightfall, calling her "my sister", and asks her to ride to Valhalla Hyndluljóð 1 Hyndluljóð 5.

Freyja's real errand is for her favourite, the young man Óttarr. He has bet his inheritance on a dispute over ancestry with Angantýr, and Freyja wants Hyndla to recite his lineage Hyndluljóð 9. Freyja rides a boar, which she says is Hildisvíni, made by dwarves. Hyndla is not fooled: the boar is Óttarr himself, "thy lover", in disguise Hyndluljóð 6-7.

Hyndla then recites Óttarr's ancestry through the great families of legend: Skjöldungs, Ynglings, Völsungs and Gjúkungs, with the refrain "And all are thy kinsmen, Ottar, thou fool!" Hyndluljóð 16. She goes on to the gods: Baldr's death, the giant-born wives of the gods, the god born of nine giantesses, Loki's monstrous children. She ends with a glimpse of the end of the world, when "Othin shall meet the wolf" Hyndluljóð 45.

When Freyja asks for "memory-beer" so that Óttarr will remember all this, Hyndla turns on her. She compares her to the she-goat Heiðrún leaping among the bucks at night and taunts her with her lovers Hyndluljóð 47-48. Freyja threatens to ring her with fire, and Hyndla answers by wishing Óttarr a drink "of venom full" Hyndluljóð 49-50. Freyja has the last word: the gods' favour will turn the curse aside Hyndluljóð 51.

Hyndla spake:"Hence shalt thou fare, for fain would I sleep,From me thou gettest few favors good;Hyndluljóð 47

Hyndla belongs with the other wise giantesses of the poems, like the seeress of Völuspá, who know the past and can be forced to tell it.

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.

Maiden, awake! wake thee, my friend, My sister Hyndla, in thy hollow cave!
Hyndluljóð 1 Freyja wakes the giantess and calls her 'sister'.
From the stall now one of thy wolves lead forth, And along with my boar shalt thou let him run
Hyndluljóð 5 Hyndla rides a wolf, Freyja a boar.
On the way of the slain thy lover goes with thee, Ottar the young, the son of Instein.
Hyndluljóð 6 Hyndla sees through the boar: it is Freyja's human lover.
To Oth didst thou run, who loved thee ever, And many under thy apron have crawled
Hyndluljóð 48 Hyndla's parting insults to Freyja.
Around the giantess flames shall I raise, So that forth unburned thou mayst not fare.
Hyndluljóð 49 Freyja threatens her with fire to get the 'memory-beer' for Óttarr.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Whether Freyja's 'sister' is meant literally or as a friendly form of address is not clear.
  • The mythological stanzas in the middle of the poem (roughly hyndluljod 29-45) may once have been a separate poem; Snorri quotes one of them as from 'Völuspá the Less' (Gylfaginning 5).

Related

Freyja The Vanir goddess of love, wealth and the slain: daughter of Njörðr, owner of the necklace Brísingamen, who takes half of those who fall in battle to her hall Fólkvangr. Hildisvíni Freyja's golden-bristled boar in Hyndluljóð, made by the dwarves Dáinn and Nabbi. The giantess Hyndla claims it is really Freyja's human lover Óttarr in disguise. 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. Heimdall Heimdallr The watchman of the gods, born of nine mothers, who guards Bifröst from his hall Himinbjörg and will blow the Gjallarhorn when Ragnarök begins. Ragnarök The foretold end of the gods' world: wolves swallow sun and moon, Loki and the monsters break loose, the gods fall in battle, Surtr burns the earth, and a new world rises. 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.