In
Norse Mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
, Óttar, also known as Óttar the Simple, is a protégé of the goddess
Freyja
In Norse paganism, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace BrÃsingamen, rides a chario ...
. He appeared in
Hyndluljóð
''Hyndluljóð'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Hyndla') is an Old Norse poem often considered a part of the ''Poetic Edda''. It is preserved in its entirety only in ''Flateyjarbók'', but some stanzas are also quoted in the ''Prose Edda'', where they ...
(the Lay of Hyndla), a poem in the
Poetic Edda
The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic me ...
. In this tale, Óttar is said to be very pious to the goddesses. He built a shrine of stones, a
hörgr
A hörgr (Old Norse, plural ''hörgar'') or hearg (Old English) was a type of altar or cult site, possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse religion, as opposed to a roofed hall used as a ''hof'' (temple).
The Old Norse term is attes ...
, and on it made many offerings to Freyja. The goddess answered his prayers and went on a journey to help him find his pedigree. Freyja disguised Óttar as her
boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...
Hildisvini (the Battle-Swine) and brought him to the
gýgr Hyndla, a seeress. There, Freyja forced Hyndla to tell Óttar about his ancestors, as well as to give him a memory potion so that he would remember all that he was told.
It has been theorized that the framework of the poem was created for the 12th-century poet to produce a list of mythical heroes' names. The poem does not connect much to other poems in the Edda, and is often viewed as a semi-historical work.
[''The Poetic Edda'', Henry A. Bellows, transl. Princeton University Press (1936).]
References and notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ottar (Mythology)
Characters in Norse mythology