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god or goddess

Kvasir

The wisest of beings, made from the spittle of the Æsir and Vanir at their peace-making. Two dwarves killed him and brewed his blood with honey into the mead of poetry.

Kvasir is wisdom given a body. In Snorri's Skáldskaparmál, Bragi tells how the war between the Æsir and the Vanir ended: both sides spat into a vat as a sign of peace, and the gods made the spittle into a man. "This man is called Kvasir, and he was so wise that none could question him concerning anything but that he knew the solution" Skáldskaparmál 1. He travelled the world teaching people, until two dwarves, Fjalar and Galarr, invited him in, killed him, and drained his blood into the kettle Óðrerir and the vats Són and Boðn. Mixed with honey, it became the mead that makes whoever drinks it a poet or a scholar. The dwarves told the gods that Kvasir had "choked on his own shrewdness" Skáldskaparmál 1. The mead then passed to the giant Suttungr and finally to Odin (see The mead of poetry).

The poets' names for poetry keep him in memory: "Kvasir's Gore", "Kvasir's Blood" Skáldskaparmál 3. Strangely, Snorri's Gylfaginning has Kvasir alive much later, as the wisest of the Æsir: when the gods hunt Loki after Baldr's death, it is Kvasir who reads the ashes of Loki's burnt net and works out how to catch him Gylfaginning 50. Snorri never reconciles the two accounts, and the poems of the Poetic Edda do not name Kvasir at all.

In the sources

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they each went to a vat and spat their spittle therein. Then at parting the gods took that peace-token and would not let it perish, but shaped thereof a man. This man is called Kvasir
Skáldskaparmál 1 Kvasir's origin, as Bragi tells it to Ægir.
The dwarves reported to the Æsir that Kvasir had choked on his own shrewdness
Skáldskaparmál 1 The dwarves' cover story for his murder.
Poesy is called Sea, or Liquid of the Dwarves, because Kvasir's blood was liquid in Ódrerir before the mead was made
Skáldskaparmál 3 Why poets call poetry 'Kvasir's blood'.
he went in first who was wisest of all, who is called Kvasir
Gylfaginning 50 Kvasir, apparently alive, helps the gods catch Loki.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Snorri's two Kvasirs do not fit together: killed by dwarves in Skáldskaparmál (Skáldskaparmál 1), but alive and helping to catch Loki after Baldr's death in Gylfaginning (Gylfaginning 50).
  • In Snorri's Ynglinga saga, outside the Eddas, Kvasir is instead a wise man of the Vanir handed over as a hostage; the Eddas do not say this.

Myths with Kvasir

The binding of Loki After Baldr's death Loki hides as a salmon in a waterfall. The gods catch him in a net, bind him on three stones with his own son's entrails, and hang a serpent over his face. Sigyn catches the venom in a bowl until Ragnarök. 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. The war of the Æsir and the Vanir The first war in the world, fought between the two families of gods. The surviving texts give only fragments — a witch burned three times, Odin's spear, a broken wall, a truce sealed with spittle and hostages — but they add up to the story of how the Vanir came to live among the Æsir.

Related

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. 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. Fjalar and Galarr Fjalarr ok Galarr Two murderous dwarf brothers who kill Kvasir and brew the mead of poetry from his blood, then kill the giant Gillingr and his wife, and give up the mead to save their own lives. The Vanir Vanir The second family of gods, associated with wealth, fertility, the sea and foresight. After a war with the Æsir they exchanged hostages, and Njörðr, Freyr and Freyja came to live among the Æsir. The Æsir Æsir The main family of Norse gods, led by Odin and living in Asgard: Thor, Baldr, Týr, Heimdall and others, with the goddesses called Ásynjur. They fought and made peace with the Vanir. 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. Bragi The god of poetry and eloquence, husband of Iðunn. In Snorri's Skáldskaparmál he is the storyteller who explains the art of poetry to the sea-giant Ægir.