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 ...

, Þrívaldi (anglicized as Thrívaldi or Thrivaldi), whose name means "thrice mighty", is a

jötunn A (also jotun; plural ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; or, in Old English, , plural ) is a type of being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir) and with other no ...

killed by

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

. This fact is mentioned by

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

in the ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

'' (4), according to which "killer of Þrívaldi" (''"vegandi Þrívalda"'') is a ''

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

'' for Thor. Snorri quotes one stanza by

Bragi Boddason Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old (Old Norse language, Old Norse: ''Bragi hinn gamli'') was a Norwegian skald active in the first half of the 9th century in poetry, 9th century, the earliest known skald from whom verses have survived. Portio ...

, who calls Thor "cleaver apart of Þrívaldi's nine heads"Anthony Faulkes, translation of: Snorri Sturluson. ''Edda''. London: Everyman, 1995. . (''"sundrkljúfr níu höfða Þrívalda"''), and another stanza by

Vetrliði Sumarliðason Vetrliði Sumarliðason (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ) was a 10th-century Icelandic skald. He was the great-grandson of Ketill hængr ("salmon"), one of the settlers of Iceland. He lived in Fljótshlíð, in the south of the island. Vetrli ...

who praises Thor for having battered (''"lemja"'') Þrívaldi. Þrívaldi is also listed in the þulur.

References

Jötnar Thor {{norse-myth-stub