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Æsir

Váli

Odin's son by Rindr, born to avenge Baldr: at one night old, unwashed and uncombed, he killed Baldr's slayer Höðr. He survives Ragnarök.

Vidar och Vale
Vidar och Vale, Axel Kulle and Gunnar Forssell as described above. Photograph by User:Haukurth. (1892). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Váli exists to avenge Baldr. When Odin rode to the underworld in Baldrs draumar to ask who would avenge his son, the dead seeress answered: "Rind bears Vali in Vestrsalir, and one night old fights Othin's son". He would not wash his hands or comb his hair "till the slayer of Baldr he brings to the flames" Baldrs draumar 11. Völuspá repeats the image, calling him only "the brother of Baldr" Völuspá 33 Völuspá 34, and Hyndluljóð says that Váli "was swift, when his brother's slayer soon he slew" Hyndluljóð 30.

The slayer was the blind god Höðr, also Odin's son. Váli is thus a son born to kill a brother for the death of a brother, which shows the duty of blood-vengeance working even inside the gods' own family. Snorri's kennings call him "Baldr's Avenger, Foe and Slayer of Hödr" and "Stepson of Frigg" Skáldskaparmál 12. His mother is Rindr Gylfaginning 30.

Snorri's own description is brief: Váli, also called Áli, is "daring in fights, and a most fortunate marksman" Gylfaginning 30. He is among the twelve gods who sit as judges when Ægir visits Ásgard Skáldskaparmál 1.

Váli is one of the few gods who outlive Ragnarök. "In the gods' home Vithar and Vali shall dwell, when the fires of Surt have sunk" Vafþrúðnismál 51; Snorri adds that neither sea nor fire harmed them Gylfaginning 53.

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.

Rind bears Vali in Vestrsalir, And one night old fights Othin's son; His hands he shall wash not, his hair he shall comb not, Till the slayer of Baldr he brings to the flames.
Baldrs draumar 11 A dead seeress foretells Váli's birth and his single purpose.
But the brother of Baldr was born ere long, And one night old fought Othin's son.
Völuspá 33 Völuspá tells the same, without naming him.
One is called Áli or Váli, son of Odin and Rindr: he is daring in fights, and a most fortunate marksman.
Gylfaginning 30 Snorri's entry for Váli among the Æsir.
In the gods' home Vithar and Vali shall dwell, When the fires of Surt have sunk
Vafþrúðnismál 51 Váli and Víðarr survive Ragnarök to live in the renewed world.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Snorri says the gods turned Loki's son Váli into a wolf, which tore apart his brother Narfi, whose guts were used to bind Loki (Gylfaginning 50). The prose at the end of Lokasenna says the reverse: Loki was bound with the bowels of his son Vali, and Narfi became the wolf (Lokasenna, prose 7). This Váli, son of Loki, is a different figure from Odin's son.

Myths with Váli

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. 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 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 world reborn After Ragnarök a green earth rises from the sea. Surviving gods meet on Iðavöllr, Baldr returns from Hel, two humans come out of hiding, and a new sun rides the sky. The sources do not agree on who survives.

Related

Rindr The mother of Váli, the son Odin fathered to avenge Baldr. The Eddas say almost nothing about her; a skaldic line says Odin won her by magic. 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. 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. Höðr The blind god who killed his brother Baldr with a shaft of mistletoe, guided, in Snorri's telling, by Loki. He is killed in revenge by Váli and returns with Baldr after Ragnarök. Víðarr The silent son of Odin and the giantess Gríðr, nearly as strong as Thor. At Ragnarök he avenges his father by tearing apart the wolf Fenrir, and he survives into the new world. 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.