“Þorr’s Fishing Expedition” [Hymiskviða]
Preben Meulengracht Sørensen
Translated by Kirsten Williams
Hymiskviða
Hymiskviða is a fusion of at least two narratives that were probably separate originally: the fetching of the brewing cauldron from the giant Hymir, and Þόrr’s fishing expedition during which he hooks the Miðgarðsormr or World-Serpent. Towards the end of the poem, reference is made to a third story: the laming of Þόrr’s goat and his acquiring of Egill’s two children as compensation. The poem is not well preserved in the manuscript; skaldic verse, Northern picture stones, and Snorri’s account in Gylfaginning help to fill in some of the gaps. Possibly composed as a prequel to Lokasenna (the poem which follows it in the Codex Regius), its composite nature has led a number of scholars to assign it a relatively late date.
Comparatively little has been written on Hymiskviða. In the essay that follows, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen outlines the main areas of critical discussion. Comparative mythologists (Dumézil 1952, Schröder 1955) have traced connections with tales of monster-fights in other mythological systems. In such tales the hero always overcomes and kills the monster, suggesting that perhaps the original Old Norse myth was also a monster-slaying story. However, since the Miðgarðsormr must survive until Ragnarǫk, at least in the version of the mythological cycle known from Vǫluspå and Snorri’s Gylfaginning, the outcome of Þόrr’s contest with the monster would have to have been modified before its incorporation into Hymiskviða in its present form. Other scholars (Gschwantler 1968; Kabell 1976), working in part from picture stones where pagan and Christian images are often juxtaposed, note the parallel between the World-Serpent and Leviathan, the Biblical sea-monster who in Christian typology represents the devil. Patristic exegetes sometimes interpreted the crucifixion as Christ fishing to catch the devil using the cross as a hook. Satan is tempted to swallow the sinless son of God and thus to forfeit the souls in his keeping. A parallel can be drawn between Christ as savior from the devil and Þόrr as defender of gods and men from giant-kind (such comparisons are implied in a number of contemporary sources; see DuBois, ch. 7).
Harris (1985: 83–4) suggests a context for the poem as a whole within a sub-group of Old Norse myths concerned with journeys to giantland to gain or recover some culturally valuable good. Thus Hymiskviða can be read alongside Þrymskviða, some of Snorri’s narratives, and the skaldic poem Húsdrápa as a re-enactment of the gods’ continuing subjugation of the giants and the transfer or appropriation of cultural goods from the world of nature to the world of culture, as represented by the worlds of the giants and the gods (Clunies Ross 1989; 1994: 127–8). What remains puzzling in the poem is the relationship of Týr to the giants. Óðinn and his brothers are descended from giants, while Þόrr’s mother and possibly Loki’s father are giants, but it is rare in Old Norse tales of an other-world journey to acknowledge this kinship as explicitly as Hymir’s wife (Týr’s mother?) does. That the female kin of giants are friendly towards non-giant intruders is a well-known folktale motif, however, as evidenced in many versions of the folktale “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
Carolyne Larrington
Further Reading
Clunies Ross, Margaret. Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse myths in medieval Northern society. I: The myths. The Viking Collection: Studies in Northern civilization, 7. Odense: Odense University Press, 1994.
——. “Two of Þόrr’s Great Fights according to Hymiskviða.” Studies in Honour of H.L. Rogers. Ed. G. Barnes and D.A. Lawton. Leeds Studies in English 20 (1989): 7–27.
DuBois, Thomas A. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
Dumézil, Georges. Les dieux des Indo-Européens. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952.
Gschwantler, Otto. “Christus, Thor und die Midgardschlange.” Festgabe für Otto Höfler zum 65. Geburtstag. Ed. Helmut Birkhan, et al. Vienna: Notring, 1968. 145–68.
Harris, Joseph. “Eddic Poetry.” Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. Ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow. Islandica, 45. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. 68–156.
Kabell, Aage. “Der Fischfang Þόrs.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 91 (1976): 123–9.
Schröder, Franz Rolf. “Das Hymirlied: Zur Frage verblasster Mythen in den Götterliedern der Edda.” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 70 (1955): 1–40.
Þόrr’s Fishing Expedition
Our knowledge of Scandinavian myths and legends in the Viking Age is largely based on five types of sources, all of which had their roots in oral tales about the pre-Christian ideas of life and the cosmos. From the Viking Age itself we have a number of pictorial representations on stones, as well as some runic inscriptions which refer to the tales—mostly indirectly, but occasionally also directly.1 From the Middle Ages we have the written records of the Eddic and skaldic poems as well as the prose versions of the tales. The stone pictures are our most important and most certainly authentic material, but they are, on the other hand, often difficult to interpret. The picture is a primitive medium compared to the written word, and it is in reality not intelligible if we do not know the story which it illustrates. This relationship between picture and story is demonstrated by the difficulties we encounter when we attempt to interpret the rock carvings, where the linguistic form is lost; but it is also the case with Viking Age iconography that pictures are incomprehensible when no corresponding later stories survive. The Viking Age pictures thus have to be interpreted in conjunction with the medieval written versions. Hereby the picture gains life and coherence, and, conversely, the historical dimension of the written myth is confirmed. We may see that the myth was current at the time when the stone was carved, and the picture tells us which elements the stone carver thought necessary for conveying the meaning of the story. It was the very limitations of a picture’s expressive powers, as opposed to those of a tale, that made it vital that exactly the most important and decisive situations and details were selected, and this is where the pictures help us make the correct interpretation of the written versions.
Skaldic poetry is the source closest to the accounts of the Viking Age itself. Because of the transmission of authors’ names and the strictly preserved meters, we may assume that the mythological poems in Snorri’s Edda are, on the whole, fairly close to the originals. The anonymous Eddic poems are probably another matter. The variations within each theme are here so great that considerable changes must be presumed to have taken place in the course of the tradition. In a couple of cases, one being Hymiskviða, we must even assume that new versions were created from older material.2 The material furthest away from the Viking Age versions is probably the medieval prose tales, of which Snorri Sturluson’s Edda is the most important. These are interpretations from or into a situation that is essentially different from the pre-Christian situation in which the pictures were produced. The prose tales are, however, also the versions which are most intelligible to our modern understandings, and we are therefore often obliged to accept these later, medieval interpretations, or at least to use them as our starting point. Snorri’s Edda, with its comprehensive view of the cosmic chain of events, has, as a result, become the predominant basis for the post-medieval conception of ‘Nordic mythology’.
The different source types were spread over a geographical area which included the Scandinavian countries and the parts of the British Isles in which there were Scandinavian settlements. Their time span covers three to four centuries and includes the introduction of Christianity. From our modern perspective, the material appears comparatively continuous, and it is generally assumed that it pertains to one culture. But considering the span in time and place, we must expect variations, and this is indeed borne out by the surviving material.
The subject under discussion in the rest of this paper is the myth of Þόrr’s attempt to fish the Miðgarðsormr, or World Serpent, out of the ocean. The tale is known from all the above-mentioned source types, except the runic inscriptions, and it is one of the best substantiated of the pagan Nordic myths. At the same time, it does have its obscure points, the most important of these being whether or not Þόrr kills the serpent at the end of the story. In Gylfaginning, Snorri gave a brief and coherent interpretation of the material to which he had access, while in our day the myth has been subjected to comprehensive and ingenious analyses. These have mostly circumvented Snorri and the other surviving versions by attempting to demonstrate influence from, or connections with, religions other than Scandinavian paganism. The myth has by some been interpreted historically and comparatively as part of Indo-European religious history.3 Others have seen it as a product of the time when the pagan religion was replaced by Christianity, and several scholars have here pointed to the parallel between this myth and the Christian myth of Leviathan, which was already recognized by learned men in the Middle Ages.4 I shall not discuss any of these aspects here. My intention is to survey the Scandinavian source material in its transmitted forms: first to establish the constants of the myth prior to Snorri; second to see how Snorri understood the myth and how he incorporated it into the unity of Gylfaginning.
In the main, Snorri includes all the elements that occur in the earlier sources, which is not surprising, since he did after all build on the skaldic poems. He also has elements not known to us from skaldic poetry, such as Þόrr travelling without his goats and chariot and his feet going through the bottom of the boat. Snorri must therefore have had other sources beside the skaldic poems. Only the Eddic poem Hymiskviða has a more extensive account than Snorri’s. Its framework is the story of how Þόrr and Týr fetched the great beer cauldron from the giant Hymir and the fight between Þόrr and the World Serpent is here one of the trials Þόrr must undergo before he can bring the cauldron home to the Æsir.5
Before the different versions are compared, it is necessary to consider their age and transmission. I will only refer here to generally accepted research results. The dating of Snorri’s Edda poses no difficulties; it is agreed that it was written around 1220–25. Hymiskviða in its present form is probably later. These two texts thus differ from the others in that they were epic and were created in the Middle Ages. This does not of course preclude their containing older material not found elsewhere. As already mentioned, this is the case with the motif of Þόrr’s goats, and it is highly likely that both texts build on older poems of the Eddic type. The stone pictures are difficult to date. Only the Altuna stone can be dated with any degree of certainty to the beginning of the eleventh century (von Friesen, 425). The Hørdum stone has been broadly dated by Johannes Brøndsted (102) to between the eighth and the eleventh century; its pagan-mythic motif, however, would most likely place it in the first half of this period, in pagan or early Christian times. The Gosforth stone is from the tenth century (Bailey, 131), and Ardre VIII is thought to be from the eighth (Brøndsted, 95; Lindqvist, 119). The skaldic poems can be dated with some certainty. Bragi’s poem, which is presumed to form a part of Ragnarsdrápa, must be from the first half of the ninth century and is therefore our earliest certain account of the myth of Þόrr.6 As Úlfr Uggason’s Húsdrápa is mentioned in Laxdœla saga it may, if one so wishes, be dated to c. 978 (Sveinsson 1934, lix). Finally, the poems of Ǫlvir hnúfa, Gamli gnœfaðarskáld and Eysteinn Valdason are traditionally dated to the ninth and the tenth century and around A.D. 1000 respectively (Jόnsson ed. 1912).
The skaldic poems in their original forms were, like the pictures, products of the Viking Age and as Hallvard Lie has pointed out the two modes of expression are closely related, not only in choice of motifs, but also stylistically. On the basis of this theory, Lie has analyzed Bragi’s stanzas about Þόrr and the World Serpent and concluded that the poet attempts “a linguistic recreation of the shield’s symbolic-emotional total effect” (44). The aim is thus not the narrative myth, but the non-narrative picture. The poem is intended to create a word-picture as opposed to a narrative, and Lie sees in this art form an attempt to express the myth’s numinous element (44). Like the picture, the poem presents the myth in a situation, and we may therefore regard the elements of the poem as constituents of the myth. The medieval narrative versions thus contrast with the Viking Age’s dramatic portrayals of situations. The story in Gylfaginning is one of the most important examples of the former, Bragi’s poem of the latter. Both methods of manifesting the myth must build on the oral narrative form.
When we compare different variants, a fundamental problem is whether we are in fact dealing with variants of the same thing. As already mentioned, it is often difficult to understand stone pictures, and one or two features may not be sufficient to establish that just this or that myth or person is depicted on the stone. An example is the upper picture on the Altuna stone (fig. 1). Otto von Friesen (480) has interpreted this as a representation of Heimdallr with the Gjallarhorn; Oskar Lundberg (130 ff.) sees it as St. Óláfr on Jacob’s Ladder. Gerd Wolfgang Weber (325 ff.) has subse quently, and far more plausibly, interpreted the picture as Óðinn in Hliðskjálf, particularly on the basis of the raven on the shoulder of the male figure. Verification of the myth depends on ‘diagnostic features’ such as this, and the question is which and how many are necessary in order to identify the myth. If we can resolve this, we will also be better able to understand its meaning.7
In the myth of Þόrr’s fishing expedition, the two opponents, the god and the monster are integral features, and when we find that the Gosforth stone (fig. 2), in its surviving form, possibly does not depict the World Serpent, and that the Ardre stone (fig. 3) only has an indistinct figure which may possibly be interpreted as a sea monster, then these two representations must be regarded with a certain amount of skepticism. A third recurring element in the myth is the boat in which Þόrr sits; it is not his usual means of transport and is therefore distinctive in this myth. The boat is absent only in the short fragments of Gamli gnœfaðarskáld’s and Ǫlvir hnúfa’s poems, but all we can conclude from these is that they tell of a fight between Þόrr and the monster. An instrument of apparently equal importance to the boat is the ox head which Þόrr uses as his bait, for without it the World Serpent would not have swallowed the hook. Only the two medieval narrative versions tell how Þόrr obtained the head. In the pictures it is depicted as already placed on the hook, and this must presuppose the story about the head’s provenance. The head is not represented on the Hordum stone (fig. 4) in its present condition, but the explanation may be that the stone is eroded where the head should have been (Brøndsted, 102). The skaldic poems, except perhaps Bragi’s, make no mention of the ox head, which may seem surprising. But we must assume that it was taken for granted, when the boat, the fishing line and the fight between Þόrr and the serpent are all mentioned. These other features were sufficient to make the myth recognizable.8
In addition to Þόrr and the serpent, a giant also appears in the myth. Snorri calls him Hymir or Ymir and in Hymiskviða he is called Hymir. In the other sources he is anonymous. He is mentioned in the skaldic poems, apart from the two brief fragments, and is shown on all the picture stones except Altuna. Thus he is also integral to the myth, and his absence from the Altuna stone requires an explanation. It is clear that here, too, Þόrr tries to fish the World Serpent from the sea, but to account for the giant’s absence, Otto von Friesen’s explanation (482), that there was no room for him on the stone, will not suffice.9 The explanation must be that he was not required; otherwise the stone carver could have selected another stone, or used different dimensions. As it is, he has depicted Þόrr on the center of the stone, larger than the other figures, so that he fills its entire width. The reference to the giant, and consequently to his function in the myth, is thus omitted. We must conclude that here the myth occurs in a different and probably reduced form, where only the opposition of god and monster itself interested the sculptor. If we look at the stone’s surface as a whole, we may possibly see that the Þόrr-scene is also placed in another context, beyond that of the myth as we know it from the other versions. In conjunction with the other pictures, Þόrr illustrates the world and its chief components. Uppermost towards the heavens stands Óðinn with the raven, who belongs to the element of air, and above him an unexplained figure continues the upward movement. In the middle is the horseman on the horse of the earth. At the bottom stands Þόrr with his line going down to the monster of the ocean’s depths. If the artist intended to show this tripartite world of man and gods, he chose well in the myth of Þόrr and the Miðgarðsormr.10
If we turn to the plot of the story, we see that both the skalds and the sculptors concentrated on the situation in which the serpent bites the hook. The stones show Þόrr in the boat above the serpent and the taut line between them. Both the Hørdum and the Altuna stones depict Þόrr’s foot penetrating the bottom of the boat and this detail is also found in Snorri, who relates that both feet went through the boat. Snorri did not have this from his skaldic poems,11 but the foot through the boat motif does seem to have been a stable element in the myth. It gives a visual impression of the violent pull on the line, the vertical upward and downward movement during the struggle.
In the skaldic poems the same situation is expressed by other means. Bragi tells how the line is stretched and the serpent is dragged along the ocean floor (st. 16).12 The monster is hauled right up to the gunwale (st. 17), as in Hymiskviða (st. 23). Eysteinn evokes the same picture by having Þόrr’s fists strike against the gunwale as the boat shoots forward (st.3). The poets further describe the confrontation of god and monster by having them stare into each other’s eyes. Bragi has the serpent staring from below (“neðan”) at Þόrr (st. 17). Eysteinn relates that Þόrr looks at the serpent with piercing eyes while the sea rages against the boat (st. 2) and Húsdrápa says that Þόrr’s eyes shoot rays of terror (“skaut œgisgeislum,” st. 4) at the monster, while it in return stares with flashing eyes (“fránleitr”) over the gunwale and spews venom. Snorri combined all these elements as follows (Gylfaginning, ch. 48):
Miðgarðsormr gein yfir oxahǫfuðit en ǫngullinn vá í gόminn orminum. En er ormrinn kendi þess, brá hann við svá hart at báðir hnefar Þόrs skullu út á borðinu. Þá varð Þόrr reiðr ok fœrðisk í ásmegin, spyrndi við svá fast at hann hljόp báðum fόtum gǫgnum skipit ok spyrndi við grunni, drό þá orminn upp at borði. En þat má segja at engi hefir sá sét όgurligar sjόnir er eigi mátti þat sjá er Þόrr hvesti augun á orminn, en ormrinn starði neðan í mόt ok blés eitrinu.
[The Midgard serpent stretched its mouth round the ox-head and the hook stuck into the roof of the serpent’s mouth. And when the serpent felt this, it jerked away so hard that both Thor’s fists banged down on the gunwale. Then Thor got angry and summoned up his As-strength, pushed down so hard that he forced both feet through the boat and braced them against the sea-bed, and then hauled the serpent up to the gunwale. And one can claim that a person does not know what a horrible sight is who did not get to see how Thor fixed his eyes on the serpent, and the serpent stared back up at him spitting poison.]13
It is precisely this terrible sight that the sculptors and skalds wanted to show, and it is precisely in this terrifying opposition of god and monster that the central element of the myth lies. We have here a representation of the universal opposition between the powers of the cosmos and the powers of chaos, similar to a number of other Nordic Viking Age motifs, but this battle is distinctive in that the god is placed on the sea, outside his natural element, and in the strong emphasis on the situation’s vertical dimension: Þόrr seeks to haul the serpent up from its element, while it on the contrary pulls downwards and tries to overturn the fragile vessel. It is a picture of a dramatic balance.
The course of events in the myth before and after this central scene is less intelligible, but it is nonetheless clear that the battle is part of a longer story. This can be deduced from the presence of the giant. He is with Þόrr in the boat and that must presuppose an explanation of how he came to be there. In Gylfaginning and Hymiskviða Þόrr visits Hymir before he goes fishing, and it is Hymir who takes him onto the sea. It is also from Hymir that Þόrr obtains the ox head. The giant is thus the prerequisite for Þόrr getting to the serpent and for hooking it. He effects Þόrr’s journey from the civilized world, Ásgarðr and Miðgarðr, to wild nature where the serpent lives. In Gylfaginning and Hymiskviða the giant is a cattle-farmer and fisherman, since he owns the oxen and the fishing boat, and we must assume that the same functions were presupposed in the non-epic versions. As a fishing farmer the giant represents the transition from civilization to nature in a way that was immediately comprehensible to the medieval Icelanders, and no doubt also to the Viking Age Scandinavians (cf. Hastrup 1983, 44 ff.). There is a dichotomy between cattle farming and fishing, which describes this transition, for while farming submits nature to the mastery of civilization, fishing is an extension of culturally determined potentials vis-à-vis wild nature, which may be temporarily mastered, but still remains the same. The giant functions in the myth as an involuntary helper, as a mediator between the world of Þόrr and the world of the monster. The distance between the two poles is made plain by his presence. Through several stages Þόrr moves away from the cosmos, of which he is the master and to which he belongs, finally to fight the monster in its own element, the ocean depths, which is the opposite of the heavens of the god. The whole of this movement is an essential prerequisite for our understanding the outcome of the struggle. In Hymiskviða there is yet another transitional stage, at which Snorri also hints. Here Þόrr’s journey includes a visit to a farmer, who in Hymiskviða is called “hraunbúi” (he who lives in the lava; st. 38), or at the point of transition between pasture and mountain, at the edge of the habitable area. Þόrr leaves his chariot and team of goats with the farmer; in the context of the myth this means that in order to reach the serpent he must relinquish the ride across the vault of heaven, the freedom of movement and the element which are his own. Þόrr’s journey thus takes the form of a series of transitions from the heavens to the earth and from land to sea. Furthermore, he rows farther out to sea than even the fisherman-giant cares for and throws his bait into the depths. Not only Snorri and Hymiskviða have this detail, but also Úlfr Uggason, who describes the giant’s terror (st. 3), and Bragi, when he relates that the giant will not permit the serpent to be lifted from the sea (st. 19). The movement from the one pole of the dichotomy to the other finds further expression in the skalds’ kennings. Bragi’s poem incorporates the picture of the heavens in the scene on the ocean when Þόrr is called he who ‘threw the sky-goddess’s father’s eyes up onto the winds’ wide basin’ (st. 20). Eysteinn’s poem presents the dichotomy’s other dimension—from civilization to wild nature— by describing Þόrr with kennings for family ties, the innermost core of civilization. He is called “Sifjar rόni” (Sif’s friend), “faðir Þrúðar” (Þrúðr’s father) and “Ullsmágr” (Ullr’s kinsman) in the three stanzas.
Among the picture stones, Ardre VIII (Fig. 3) is of great interest when we attempt to interpret the myth’s first section. It shows a series of pictures which appear to be scenes in a narrative. We see a man entering a house in which an ox is standing, and then two men coming out of the same house, one of whom carries something which may be an ox head on his shoulder. In addition there are two pictures of the same two men in a boat. In one a man is harpooning a fish. The other apparently shows Þόrr with the Miðgarðsormr on the hook and the giant by his side (Lindqvist, 22 ff.). If these pictures do in fact represent our myth, then we have it in a stable form for over 500 years.
The stone pictures show that as Þόrr pulls up the serpent, the giant cuts the line; the same is told by Bragi and Snorri. This is likewise a stable element from the earliest to the latest sources. As in the earlier part of the myth, the giant acts here as a mediating figure, but in the opposite way. Whereas before he made Þόrr’s cataclysmic action possible, he now prevents its completion and thereby saves the cosmic balance just as it is at the point of being upset.
On the events after the central scene, where the serpent swallows the hook, the sources are not in agreement. The consequences of Þόrr’s venture are expressed in Hymiskviða st. 24 in the following way:
Hreingálcn hlumðo, enn hǫlcn þuto,
fόr in forna fold ǫll saman:
Søcþiz síðan sá fiscr í mar.
[The sea-wolf shrieked and the underwater rocks re-echoed, all the ancient earth was collapsing: then that fish sank into the sea.]14
The world is about to founder, but as the fish sinks back into the sea, creation settles down again.
The divergence between the sources is in the tale of the Miðgarðsormr’s fate. In Húsdrápa, Þόrr strikes off its head and in Hymiskviða he strikes at the top of its head, although it is not told whether this results in the monster’s death. In Bragi’s version and in the pictures, except for Altuna, the serpent escapes with the aid of the giant. Snorri combines the two versions by first having Hymir cut the line and then telling how Þόrr threw his hammer after the serpent. Hár says, referring to Ú;lfr, that it is said that Þόrr struck off its head, but Hár himself thinks it more true that it survived and lies where it has always lain, around the earth (Gylfaginning, ch. 48; ed Faulkes, 45; tr. Faulkes, 47).
The ending is of decisive importance for the meaning of the myth and its position in the mythic sequence as a whole. We cannot establish which is the primary version. Students of comparative mythology consider that the earlier ending is that in which the serpent is killed, because it displays certain similarities with other and earlier Indo-European myths.15 As mentioned at the outset, the present aim is not to evaluate the comparative approach, but if the transmitted Nordic myth is viewed in its internal context, it does seem that the ending found in Bragi and Snorri is in greater harmony with the rest of the story. There is here a symmetry between the role of the giant in the beginning and at the end, and the whole course of events expresses a cosmic balance. In Snorri’s tale it is also necessary for the World Serpent to survive until the final battle in Ragnarǫk, but since this does not appear to be presupposed in the other versions, it may therefore be regarded as secondary.16 We may perhaps permit ourselves to discern a development in the history of the Nordic myth, from an original version found in Bragi, where the outcome of the battle is undecided, to a later version in Húsdrápa, where the motif is confined to the battle itself, which, like other dragon fights, must end with the death of the monster. In this last version the giant is effectively superfluous, and indeed Úlfr Uggason only speaks of him humorously, as for example a “þjokkvaxinn þiklingr” (a stocky dumpling), who is frightened (st. 3). The natural consequence of the direct confrontation of hero and monster is the Altuna stone, where the giant is omitted. Snorri thus preferred the version in which the serpent remained as before; I shall now turn to how he integrated the myth into Gylfaginning.
The story comes in chapter 48 [Faulkes ed.], immediately after Þόrr’s journey to Útgarðaloki and before the tale of Loki’s treachery and Baldr’s death, which leads into the description of Ragnarǫk. In Snorri’s composition the myth of Þόrr’s fishing expedition is thus a part of the middle section, in which the gods are presented, but where the mythic chain of events described at the beginning and the end of Gylfaginning is not developed. In the preceding tale of Þόrr at Útgarðaloki’s there is a similar movement from Ásgarðr to Jǫtunheimar and back, and this story can in some respects be regarded as a variant of the fishing-trip myth. In both tales Þόrr travels to the giants without his goats and chariot; in both a giant helps him on his way; in both he tries and fails to extract the World Serpent from the sea. Snorri links the two stories in an epic succession, but in the mythical sequence they occupy the same place, as manifestations of the equilibrium which existed after the gods created the world.
If the myth of the fishing expedition is seen as a part of the whole sequence of events in Gylfaginning, it belongs to a time after this creation and after the birth and relegation to the sea of the World Serpent, but it is still before Ragnarǫk. At the same time the myth takes place in the horizontal world picture, where Ásgarðr and Miðgarðr lie in the center encircled by the ocean. Here the Miðgarðsormr has its function as the boundary of the circular world, and it is inherent in this meaning of boundary that the monster is a part of the cosmic order which will be destroyed if the monster does not stay in place. This function as a boundary of the world and consequently an indispensable part of the cosmos is indicated in the skalds’ kennings for the World Serpent: Bragi has “jarðar reistr” [earth-twister] (st. 14) and “endiseiðr allra landa” [surrounding saithe (a kind of fish) of all lands] (st. 15). Ǫlvir hnúfa has the expression “allra landa umbgjǫrð” [girdler of all lands]. Eysteinn uses “seiðr jarðar” [saithe-fish of earth] (st. 3) and Úlfr “storðar men”[necklace of earth] (st. 4) and “stirðþinull storðar” [earth’s stiff net-string] (st. 5). Finally, Gamli employs the circumlocution “grundar fiskr” [fish of the sea-bottom]. None of these kennings expresses any dichotomy between the monster and the earth; on the contrary, it is a case of connection. Þόrr’s fishing is an attempt to dissolve the cosmic order, and in the attempt itself, and especially in its failure, lies a confirmation of that order. This is the fundamental meaning of the myth, as it is presented in our sources. Þόrr, the protector of gods and men, travels to the furthest limits of the world to meet the monster and the undecided battle between them demonstrates the cosmic balance. Seen in this way, the myth expresses a world picture in which time is reversible and where the confirmation of the cosmic order can be repeated, as also happens elsewhere in Nordic mythology in Þόrr’s repeated controversies with the giants.17
But this is, of course, not the fundamental conception in Gylfaginning. Here time is not reversible. The mythic sequence of events leads on to the destruction of the gods and the world, and the World Serpent is one of the Ragnarǫk monsters. Its function here changes from being a part of the cosmos to being a destroyer of the world. It moves from the sea to the land and it is not eternal; it has a life span from birth to death. Snorri relates that the Miðgarðsormr, Fenrir the wolf, and Hel are the progeny of Loki and the giantess Angrboða, who in her very name (distress-bringer) encapsulates what is to follow. This paternity is confirmed in the first stanza of Eilífr Goðrúnarson’s Þόrsdrápa, where Loki is called “lǫgseims faðir” (the sea-band’s [i.e. the World Serpent’s] father). In Gylfaginning, Óðinn has the three monsters brought to Ásgarðr, and he takes the serpent and throws it into the sea, where it grows until it encircles the world.
This explanation of the origin of the World Serpent is typical of Snorri’s conception of history. He sees in life a balance between opposite forces and explains the dynamics of history dialectically, as a result of the confrontation and interaction of these forces (Meulengracht Sørensen 1977b and 1977a, 159 ff.). In his story of the creation, the fathers of the gods are themselves gods, but their mothers are giants. Conversely, Loki’s father, Fárbauti, is a giant, while his mother, Laufey, must be presumed to be a kinswoman of the Æsir (Meulengracht Sørensen 1977a, 763 ff.). Their son, Loki, incorporates this dual inheritance and is predestined to bring the gods to grief. Óðinn attempts to prevent this coming about by adopting Loki among the Æsir, his maternal kindred. According to Lokasenna, the two blend their blood together; they become sworn brothers. This genealogical model is then repeated in the succeeding generations when Loki, the kinsman of the Æsir, has children by a giantess and thereby fathers monsters. This time there is no possibility of adopting the progeny, but because of the kinship neither can it be destroyed. The explanation is at its clearest in Gylfaginning’s story of Fenrir. The gods let the wolf grow up in their home and thus rear a monster in Ásgarðr itself, but when it grows to a great size they have to bind it and thereafter it must be chained until Ragnarǫk, when it tears itself loose and swallows Óðinn. To the question why the gods did not kill the wolf, Snorri lets Hár reply that this they could not do in their own sanctuary. We might venture to add, without direct support in the sources and merely as speculation, that the danger of Fenrir and the Miðgarðsormr lay in their kinship with the Æsir themselves.
Snorri explains the sequence of events leading to Ragnarǫk as a transgression of the boundary between cosmos and chaos, and he has a similar explanation for the origins of the gods (Meulengracht Sørensen 1977b, 762 ff.). The explanatory pattern is in both cases genealogical and in correspondence with the existing social norms in medieval Scandinavia.18 In this sequence the myth of Þόrr’s fishing does not appear to have any particular function, nor does Snorri attempt to link it with the sequence. One detail, however, reveals that behind this account in Gylfaginning lay a myth in which Þόrr’s battle with the serpent took place in early mythic times. Snorri writes that Þόrr goes off fishing as a young man or ‘in the shape of a young man’. The expression is “svá sem ungr drengr.” In Hymiskviða he is correspondingly described as “sveinn” [lad, st. 18,]. Vogt and most other scholars have taken Snorri’s expression to mean that Þόrr assumed the shape of a young man in order to trick the giant.19 It is not, however, quite clear whether “svá sem ungr drengr” should be understood in this way, and it is certainly not one of Þόrr’s customary activities to assume shapes other than his own. In any event, Snorri here seems to build on Bragi’s poem, which in st. 14 says that Þόrr “snimma” would try his strength against the serpent. Vogt interprets “snimma” as ‘eilig’, (quickly, hastily, 212 ff.). Finnur Jόnsson translates the word with ‘fordums’ (in old times) and characterizes Vogt’s interpretation as ‘less correct’ (1966, 523). The most common meaning of “snimma” is ‘early’, often in relation to a person’s age, but whether we choose to understand Bragi’s expression as meaning early in the mythic sequence or early in Þόrr’s life, the import is much the same. Bragi has seen Þόrr as a young man when the fight takes place. Snorri probably took Bragi’s expression in this sense; since he places the myth late in his composition of Gylfaginning, just before the events leading to Ragnarǫk, he may have interpreted Þόrr’s youthfulness as being assumed. On the basis of Bragi we may take it that Þόrr’s attempt to pull the serpent from the sea belongs to the beginning of the mythic sequence, as a confirmation of the cosmic order and perhaps as an introduction to Þόrr’s role of protector of the world of gods and men.
Finally, I shall outline some of the main points in the preceding discussion. In the Viking Age versions, as in the medieval, the myth tells of a journey undertaken by Þόrr, the god of the heavens, from Ásgarðr to the end, or the boundary, of the world, where the Miðgarðsormr lies in the ocean, placed there by the gods. The dichotomy between cosmos and chaos is strongly marked by a series of transitions, and for Þόrr to get from his own element to that of the monster he must enlist the help of the giant who lives by the sea; the giant prevents the completion of the struggle and thereby saves the world order. What would have happened had Þόrr extracted the serpent from the sea, the myth does not tell. Its point is that it does not happen and that the universal dichotomy is thereby both marked and confirmed.
In the accounts of Úlfr Uggason and the Altuna stone, both from the decades around A.D. 1000, the story concentrates on the confrontation itself, between the god and the monster, and when Úlfr has Þόrr kill the serpent, the myth has acquired a different meaning. It no longer expresses the balance between the cosmic forces but a triumph over the negative forces. Snorri places the myth apparently at random in Gylfaginning. It has no function in his presentation of an irreversible mythic sequence of events, and here it may, incidentally, be noted that neither does Vǫluspá use the myth in its corresponding sequence. Snorri, on the other hand, has a genealogical explanation for the nature of the Miðgarðsormr which is otherwise found only in Þόrsdrápa. Here the serpent and Fenrir function, already at the time of their birth, as portents of Ragnarǫk, and it is possible to read Gylfaginning’s story of the fishing expedition as Þόrr’s attempt to avert Ragnarǫk. This reading is, however, not directly supported by Snorri’s text, whereas Þόrr’s journey is only explained as a revenge for the ignominious visit to Útgarðaloki.
In the Viking Age sources there is nothing to indicate an association between the myth of the fishing expedition and the concept of Ragnarǫk. We must assume that Snorri incorporated a myth that expressed the conception of a static cosmos and reversible time into the eschatological world view which he found in Vǫluspá and other Eddic poems. Snorri recounts all the essential features of the Viking Age sources, even the “foot through the boat” motif, which is otherwise known to us only from the pictures. As far as we can see, he does not make any radical changes to the earlier myth. In this respect we may consider him to be a reliable mythologist. On the other hand, he places the myth in a context where its original meaning, as a confirmation of the cosmic order, does not become clear. This meaning is only revealed when Snorri’s version is compared with the stone pictures and the skaldic poems.
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1. See e.g. Moltke, 180 ff. and on the Rök stone, Jansson, 32ff.
2. Konstantin Reichardt dates Hymiskviða to the third decade of the thirteenth century (152 ff.). F. R.Schröder thinks that the poem may be older, or rather that there were earlier variants (6 ff.). Einar Ól. Sveinnson suggests the eleventh century (1962, 347 ff.).
3. See e.g. Dumézil, 23 ff.; Schröder, especially 29 ff.
4. See Gschwantler and references there; cf. Kabell.
5. Cf. Neckel, 72 ff.
6. See Jόnsson 1895; cf. Lie, 5ff.
7. The term “diagnostic feature” is from Margeson, whose essay also discusses the problem of verification. Cf. Weber, 324ff. and Schier.
8. With reference to the Snorra-Edda’s Þulur, Kabell interprets Litr in Bragi’s kenning “ëngull fangboð a forns Litar flotna” [hook of the combat-offerer of the men of old Litr (a giant), i.e. hook of Þόrr] (st. 18) as a heiti for “ox”, which would mean that the ox is mentioned there.
9. Cf. Jansson in Upplands Runskrifter, 616.
10. An interpretation of the Altuna stone’s pictures in conjunction with the inscription is given in Weber.
11. Wolf (13) thinks that Snorri took this detail over from the pictures. This is possible, but it cannot be proven.
12. Numbering according to Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning.
13. Ed. Faulkes, 44–5; tr, Faulkes, 47. Wolf’s suggestion (13) that Snorri was the first to combine Þόrr looking at the serpent with the serpent looking at Þόrr is incorrect. The combination is found in Húsdrápa sts. 4 and 5.
14. Cited from Neckel & Kuhn; translation supplied from Larrington.
15. Schier (433 ff.) thinks that the earliest form of the myth is preserved in Húsdrápa, where Þόrr kills the World Serpent.
16. de Boor does not consider Þόrr’s fight with the Miðgarðsormr to have been an original element in the Ragnarǫk myth (141). Cf. de Vries, 2:143 and Schier, 435.
17. The concepts of reversibility and irreversibility, the horizontal and the vertical in the world picture of Nordic mythology are discussed by Melitinskij and Hastrup (1981a; 1985). In Meltinskij’s opinion: “The name itself ‘The Serpent of Midgard’ indicates perhaps that it was earlier thought of as a positive element of the cosmic system, but that in the strongly ‘eschatologically’ structured Scandinavian mythology, Jǫrmungandr became only one of the chaotic forces which had been brought temporarily under control by the gods” (47). Hastrup writes that “in the horizontal model the serpent of Miðgarðr, Miðgarðsormr forms a kind of negative boundary between earth and the world-ocean” (1985, 150).
18. A description of the Icelandic kinship system is given in Meulengracht Sǫrensen 1977a, 30 ff.; and in Hastrup 1981b and 1985, 72 ff.
19. Vogt 211; cf. Reichardt, 147 ff. and Wolf, 10. In Schröder’s opinion, however, Hymiskviða’s “sveinn” means only that Þόrr is a young god (4).