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 ...

, Svafrþorinn is the father of Menglöð by an unnamed mother, and is attested solely in a stanza of ''

Fjölsvinnsmál ''Fjölsvinnsmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Fjölsvinn') is the second of two Old Norse poems commonly published under the title ''Svipdagsmál'' "The Lay of Svipdagr". These poems are found together in several 17th-century paper manuscripts with ' ...

''. As this is the only mention of the figure, further information has been theorized from the potential

etymologies Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the name ''Svafrþorinn'' and his relation to Menglöð.

Attestation

Svafrþorinn is attested in a stanza of the poem ''Fjölsvinnsmál'', where Fjölsviðr tells

Svipdagr Svipdagr (Old Norse: "sudden day"Orchard (1997:157).) is the hero of the two Old Norse Poetic Edda, Eddaic poems Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, which are contained within the body of one work; Svipdagsmál. Plot Svipdagr is set a task by his ...

that:

Theories

Menglöð has often been theorized as 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 Brísingamen, rides a char ...

, and according to this theory, Svafrþorinn would therefore be the god

Njörðr In Norse mythology, Njörðr (Old Norse: ) is a god among the Vanir. Njörðr, father of the deities Freyr and Freyja by Sister-wife of Njörðr, his unnamed sister, was in an ill-fated marriage with the goddess Skaði, lives in Nóatún (myth ...

. The theory is complicated the etymology of the name ''Svafrþorinn'' (''þorinn'' meaning "brave" and ''svafr'' means "gossip" (or possibly connects to ''sofa'' "sleep"), which

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 ...

says makes little sense when attempting to connect it to Njörðr. Simek says that "a more daring, but more meaningful" theory is that the poet took the notion of the ''Svefnþorn'' (Old Norse "sleeping thorn"), which appears as an element of some

Legendary saga A legendary saga or ''fornaldarsaga'' (literally, "story/history of the ancient era") is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the settlement of Iceland.The article ''Fornaldarsagor'' in ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (1991 ...

s, and the wall of fire that appears later in ''Fjölsvinnsmál'' from myths relating to

Brynhildr Brunhild, also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild ( , , or ), is a female character from Germanic heroic legend. She may have her origins in the Visigothic princess and queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. In the Norse tradition, Brunhild is a shiel ...

found in ''

Sigrdrífumál (also known as ) is the conventional title given to a section of the ''Poetic Edda'' text in . It follows without interruption, and it relates the meeting of Sigurðr with the valkyrie Brynhildr, here identified as ("driver to victory"). ...

'', the ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

'', and ''

Völsunga saga The ''Völsunga saga'' (often referred to in English as the ''Volsunga Saga'' or ''Saga of the Völsungs'') is a legendary saga, a late 13th-century prose rendition in Old Norse of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan (including the story ...

'', yet personifying the sleeping thorn due to the context.Simek (2007:305).

Notes

References

* Bellows, Henry Adams (1936). ''The Poetic Edda: Translated from the Icelandic with an Introduction and Notes''.

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

. American Scandinavian Foundation. * Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. ''Dictionary of Northern Mythology''. D.S. Brewer. * Thorpe, Benjamin (Trans.) (1907). ''The Elder Edda of Saemund Sigfusson''.

Norrœna Society The Norrœna Society was an early 20th-century publishing house dedicated to Northern European culture. It published expensively produced reprints of classic 19th-century editions, mostly translations, of Old Norse literary and historical works, No ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Svafrthorinn Characters in Norse mythology Freyja