Seiðr Loom

frost-giant

Þrúðgelmir

A primeval frost-giant named once in Vafþrúðnismál: son of Aurgelmir and father of Bergelmir, in the generation between the first giant and the survivor of the flood.

Þrúðgelmir appears in a single line. When Odin, disguised in Vafþrúðnismál, asks the giant Vafþrúðnir which giant was "first fashioned of old, and the eldest of Ymir's kin" Vafþrúðnismál 28, the answer is a three-generation pedigree: Bergelmir was born countless winters before the earth was made, "Thruthgelmir's son" and "Aurgelmir's grandson" Vafþrúðnismál 29.

That is everything the sources state. Snorri does not mention Þrúðgelmir in Gylfaginning, although he quotes the neighbouring stanzas and identifies Aurgelmir with Ymir Gylfaginning 5. On that reading Þrúðgelmir is Ymir's son, the generation between the first being and Bergelmir.

A few stanzas later the poem tells how the first giant, who had no mate, produced children from his own body: a man and a maid under his arms, and from his feet "a son that six heads bore" Vafþrúðnismál 33. Many commentators identify this six-headed son with Þrúðgelmir, since he is the only son of Aurgelmir the poem names. The text never makes the link, so it remains a reasonable guess rather than a fact.

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.

Winters unmeasured ere earth was made Was the birth of Bergelmir; Thruthgelmir's son was the giant strong, And Aurgelmir's grandson of old.
Vafþrúðnismál 29 The only mention of Þrúðgelmir in either Edda: a link in the oldest giant pedigree.
And foot with foot did the wise one fashion A son that six heads bore.
Vafþrúðnismál 33 The six-headed son begotten by the first giant's feet; many readers take him to be Þrúðgelmir, though the poem gives no name.

Myths with Þrúðgelmir

Odin's contest of wisdom with Vafþrúðnir Against Frigg's advice, Odin goes in disguise to the wisest of the giants and stakes his head on a contest of questions about the creation, the gods and the end of the world. He wins with a question only he can answer. 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

Ymir The first being, a giant who woke in the melting rime of the primeval void. Odin and his brothers killed him and built the world from his body. Bergelmir A primeval frost-giant. Vafþrúðnismál remembers him laid in a boat before the earth was made; Snorri makes him the one giant who escaped the flood of Ymir's blood. Vafþrúðnir The all-knowing giant whom Odin, disguised as Gagnráðr, challenges to a contest of wisdom with their heads at stake. He loses to a question only Odin could answer. 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.