Seiðr Loom

giant

Hyrrokkin

The giantess who rode a wolf with vipers for reins to Baldr's funeral and launched his ship, which the gods could not move, with a single push.

Hyrrokkin and Thor by Doepler
Hyrrokkin and Thor by Doepler, Emil Doepler (1905). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Hyrrokkin is a giantess who appears in one scene, at the funeral of Baldr (see Baldr's dreams and death). The gods meant to burn Baldr on his ship Hringhorni, the greatest of all ships, but could not push it into the water. They sent to Jötunheim for Hyrrokkin. She came riding a wolf, with a viper for a bridle; when she dismounted, Odin set four berserks to hold the beast, and they could not manage it until they had knocked it down. Then she went to the prow and launched the ship with one push, so hard that fire sprang from the rollers and the earth shook. Thor, angry, gripped his hammer to break her head, and the gods had to beg peace for her Gylfaginning 49.

That is all Gylfaginning says. A verse by the poet Þorbjörn dísarskáld, which Snorri quotes in a list of Thor's giant-killings, includes the line "Hyrrokkin died before" Skáldskaparmál 4. So in at least one tradition Thor did kill her, whatever happened at the funeral.

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.

When she had come, riding a wolf and having a viper for bridle, then she leaped off the steed; and Odin called to four berserks to tend the steed
Gylfaginning 49 Hyrrokkin's arrival at Baldr's funeral.
Then Hyrrokkin went to the prow of the boat and thrust it out at the first push, so that fire burst from the rollers, and all lands trembled.
Gylfaginning 49 She launches the ship the gods could not shift.
Hyrrokkin died before
Skáldskaparmál 4 A skaldic verse counts her among the giantesses Thor killed.

Myths with Hyrrokkin

Baldr's dreams and death Baldr dreams of his own death; Odin rides to Hel to question a dead seeress; and, in Snorri's telling, Loki puts a sprig of mistletoe into blind Höðr's hand. The gods lose their brightest member and the slide toward Ragnarök begins.

Related

Baldr Odin and Frigg's son, the brightest and best-loved of the gods. His death by a mistletoe dart, thrown by his blind brother Höðr, is the first great loss on the road to Ragnarök. Thor Þórr The thunder god, strongest of the Æsir: son of Odin and Earth, husband of Sif, and with his hammer Mjöllnir the gods' defender against the giants, until he dies killing the World Serpent. 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. Litr The dwarf who ran in front of Thor at Baldr's funeral and was kicked into the burning pyre; also a name in the Völuspá list of dwarves. Jötunheimr The land of the giants, at the edge of the world beyond rivers and sea, usually to the east of the gods and men. Thor goes there to fight, and gods go there to court and steal.