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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.

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

Vafþrúðnir is the giant sage of Vafþrúðnismál, the poem in which Odin goes to test him (see Odin's contest of wisdom with Vafþrúðnir). Frigg tries to stop him: among all the giants she knows no one "an equal in might" to Vafþrúðnir Vafþrúðnismál 2. Odin goes anyway, calling himself Gagnráðr.

The contest

The giant first quizzes his guest on the horses of day and night, the river between gods and giants, and the battlefield of the last fight. Satisfied, he invites him to the bench and proposes the stakes: "our heads … shall we wager our wisdom upon" Vafþrúðnismál 19. Then Odin asks the questions, and the giant's answers make a short history of the world. Earth was made from Ymir's flesh Vafþrúðnismál 21. The giants came from venom dripping out of Élivágar Vafþrúðnismál 31. Bergelmir is his earliest memory Vafþrúðnismál 35. At the end, Odin will be swallowed by the wolf and avenged by Víðarr, and Thor's sons will inherit Mjölnir Vafþrúðnismál 51 Vafþrúðnismál 53. He says he learned all this by travelling through the nine worlds, down to Niflhel Vafþrúðnismál 43.

The last question cannot be answered by anyone but the questioner: what did Odin whisper into his son's ear before the son was burned Vafþrúðnismál 54? The son is unnamed, though readers take him to be Baldr. The giant realises who his guest is and gives up.

No man can tell what in olden timeThou spak'st in the ears of thy son;Vafþrúðnismál 55

As a source

Snorri drew heavily on the poem for his creation story and quotes it under Vafþrúðnir's name Gylfaginning 5. The giant is one of the clearest cases of the giants as keepers of the oldest knowledge: he lost only because his opponent was the god himself.

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.

Amid all the giants an equal in might To Vafthruthnir know I none.
Vafþrúðnismál 2 Frigg tries to keep Odin at home.
Here in the hall our heads, O guest, Shall we wager our wisdom upon.
Vafþrúðnismál 19 The giant raises the stakes: the loser forfeits his head.
Down from Elivagar did venom drop, And waxed till a giant it was
Vafþrúðnismál 31 Vafþrúðnir tells the origin of his own race.
To nine worlds came I, to Niflhel beneath, The home where dead men dwell.
Vafþrúðnismál 43 He claims to have learned his lore by travelling through every world.
With Othin in knowledge now have I striven, And ever the wiser thou art.
Vafþrúðnismál 55 Faced with the unanswerable last question, he recognises Odin and concedes.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • The poem stops when Vafþrúðnir concedes; it never says whether Odin took his head.
  • Odin finds 'the hall of the father of Im' (Vafþrúðnismál 5), so the giant seems to have a son Im, of whom nothing else is known.

Myths with Vafþrúðnir

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. Sun, Moon, Night and Day How the Norse sources explain the sky's clock: Night and Day ride round the world on two horses, the children of Mundilfari drive the sun and moon, and two wolves chase them until the end of the world. 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

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. 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. 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. Élivágar The icy, venomous rivers of the earliest world: the first giant grew from the venom that dripped from them, and later they mark the far border of the giants' land. Mjölnir Mjöllnir Thor's short-handled hammer, forged by the dwarf brothers Brokkr and Sindri: it never misses, always returns to his hand, kills giants, and hallows brides, pyres and the dead goats it brings back to life. 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.