Heiðr (also rendered Heid, Hed, Heith, Hetha etc, from the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

adjective meaning "bright" or the noun meaning "honour") is a Norse female personal name. Several individuals by the name appear 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 as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

and history.

A seeress

A seeress and witch (''

völva In Germanic paganism, a seeress is a woman said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They are also referred to with many other names meaning "prophetess", "staff bearer" and "sorceress", and they are frequently calle ...

'') named Heiðr is mentioned in one stanza of ''

Völuspá ''Völuspá'' (also ''Vǫluspá'', ''Vǫlospá'', or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress') is the best known poem of the ''Poetic Edda''. It dates back to the tenth century and tells the story from Norse Mythology of ...

'', related to the story of the Æsir-Vanir war: :Heith they named her :who sought their home, :The wide-seeing witch, :in magic wise; :Minds she bewitched :that were moved by her magic, :To evil women :a joy she was. : ::—''Völuspá'' (22)
Bellows’ translation
The general assumption is that here, "Heiðr" is an alternate name for the witch Gullveig, mentioned in the previous stanza, who, in turn, is often thought to be a hypostasis of

Freyja In Norse mythology, 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 Brísingamen, rides a char ...

. But it is sometimes argued that the ''völva'' who recites the poem refers to herself. Heiðr is also a seeress in several works such as ''

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and ov ...

'' ( S 179 / H 45), '' Hrólfs saga kraka'' (3) and '' Örvar-Odds saga'' (2), where she predicts Örvar's death.

A jotun

Heiðr is also the name of a child of the

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

Hrímnir Hrímnir (Old Norse: ) is a jǫtunn in Norse mythology. He is the father of Hljód. Name The Old Norse name ''Hrímnir'' has been translated as 'frosty', 'the one covered with hoarfrost', or 'the sooty one.' Probably intended to evoke the fro ...

according to ''

Völuspá hin skamma ''Völuspá hin skamma'' (Old Norse: 'The Short Völuspá) is an Old Norse poem which survives as a handful of stanzas in ''Hyndluljóð'', in the ''Poetic Edda'', and as one stanza in the ''Gylfaginning'' section of Snorri Sturluson's ''Prose Edda' ...

'' (''

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 ...

'', 32).

A shield maiden

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author ...

reported a

shield-maiden A shield-maiden ( ) was a female warrior from Scandinavian folklore and Norse mythology, mythology. The term most often shows up in fornaldarsögur such as ''Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks''. However, female warriors are also mentioned in the Latin ...

bearing this name as captain of the contingent from Sle fighting for the Danes at the Battle of Brávellir in the year 750. She was said to be the daughter of King Harald Hildetand. This may draw on the tale from the earlier '' Chronicon Lethrense'', in which a woman named Hethae, who had fought with Harald, became queen of Denmark after Harald's defeat in that battle. In this version, she founded the city of

Hedeby Hedeby (, Old Norse: ''Heiðabýr'', German: ''Haithabu'') was an important Danish Viking Age (8th to the 11th centuries) trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig ...

("Hethæby"), which was named after her.Chronicon Lethrense
with translation and commentary by Mischa Hooker of Augustana College Heiðr also appears as a shield-maiden under Harald at the Battle of Brávellir in ''

Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum ''Sögubrot af nokkurum fornkonungum í Dana- ok Svíaveldi'' ("Fragment of a Saga about Certain Ancient Kings in Denmark and Sweden", often abbreviated to ''Sögubrot'' or ''Sögubrot af fornkonungum'') is a fragmentary Old Icelandic text dealing ...

''. No relationship to Harald is indicated in this version (a separate shieldmaiden named Visma carried Harald's banner; Visma is defeated by Starkad the Old). Heiðr is positioned on the wing of Harald's forces with her own standard, perhaps in command of the wing, with a hundred of her own champions and accompanied by other commanders. Her

berserker In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers () were Scandinavian warriors who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English adjective ''wikt:berserk#Adjective, berserk'' . Berserkers ...

s are named: Grim, Geir, Holmstein, Eysodul, Hedinn the Slim, Dag of Lifland and Harald Olafsson. Before the battle, Heiðr accompanies Harald's commander Bruni to scout the enemy forces of Sigurd Hring.Sögubrot af nokkurum fornkonungum í Dana ok Svíaveldi
Old Norse text

References

Legendary Norsemen Witchcraft in folklore and mythology Characters in Norse mythology Germanic seeresses {{norse-myth-stub