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 ...
, Óttar, also known as Óttar the Simple, is a protégé and human lover of the goddess
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 BrÃsingamen, rides a char ...
. 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 in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...
. In this tale, Óttar is said to be very pious to the goddesses. He built a shrine of stones, a
hörgr, 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 Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...
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
2. Cotterell, Arthur. ''Norse Mythology: The Myths and Legends of the Nordic Gods''. Lorenz, 2001.
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Characters in Norse mythology