Alvíssmál (

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 ...

: 'The Song of All-wise' or 'The Words of All-wise') is a poem collected 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 ...

'', probably dating to the 12th century, that describes how the god

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 ...

outwits a

dwarf Dwarf, dwarfs or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a supernatural being from Germanic folklore * Dwarf, a human or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a sh ...

called Alvíss ("All-Wise") who seeks to marry his daughter.

Plot

Alvíss comes to Thor to claim Thor's daughter as his bride, saying that she had been promised to him earlier. Thor refuses as he had not been at home at the time, then tells Alvíss that he may take the young woman if he can correctly answer all of Thor's questions. The dwarf's replies act as an exhaustive list of the sentient mythological entities among men,

Æsir Æsir (Old Norse; singular: ) or ēse (Old English; singular: ) are deities, gods in Germanic paganism. In Old Nordic religion and Nordic mythology, mythology, the precise meaning of the term "" is debated, as it can refer either to the gods i ...

Vanir In Norse mythology, the Vanir (; Old Norse:, singular Vanr) are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the other being the Æsir) and are the namesake of the ...

, jötnar, dwarfs, and

elves An elf (: elves) is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology, being mentioned in the Icelandic ''Poetic Edda'' and the ''Prose Edda''. In medieval Germanic-speakin ...

. For example, the heavens have the following names, according to Alvíss: Ultimately, Thor confesses he was asking the questions to gain some time for the sun to rise and turn the dwarf into stone.

Dating

It is not known when Alvíssmál was created; analysis of its contents can point to multiple periods depending on which elements are focused upon. One theory is that the use of

and references to mythical beings can be assumed to reflect the culture's religious beliefs, so it would have been created no later than the 10th century before Iceland was Christianized. Another points to the presence of words found only in late skaldic poetry, which would indicate that it came from the 12th-century skaldic poetry revival."Alvíssmál",

Rudolf Simek Rudolf Simek (born 21 February 1954) is an Austrian philologist and religious studies scholar who is Professor and Chair of Ancient German and Nordic Studies at the University of Bonn. Simek specializes in Germanic studies, and is the author ...

and Hermann Pálsson, ''Lexikon der altnordischen Literatur'', Kröners Taschenausgabe 490 , Stuttgart: Kröner, 1987, , p. 9

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

English translation

Alvíssmál
Translation by

Benjamin Thorpe Benjamin Thorpe (1782 – 19 July 1870) was an English scholar of Old English language, Anglo-Saxon literature. Biography In the early 1820s he worked as a banker in the House of Rothschild, in Paris. There he met Thomas Hodgkin, who treated hi ...

Alvissmol
Translation and commentary by Henry Adams Bellows

English translation with Old Norse

Alvissmal
The poem in the 12th Poetic Edda in the Codex Regius, broken down into 5 stanza segments so that the Old Norse can match the English translations

Old Norse editions

Sophus Bugge's edition of the manuscript text
Alvíssmál
Guðni Jónsson's edition with normalized spelling

Images

MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository)
Illustrations of Alvíssmál from manuscripts and early print books. {{DEFAULTSORT:Alvissmal Eddic poetry