Heimdall

Heimdall returns Brisingamen to Freyja

Heimdall (Old Norse Heimdallr, the prefix Heim- means home, the affix -dallr is of uncertain origin but it means valley) is one of the Æsir in Norse mythology.

Heimdall in a Norse Context

As a Norse deity, Heimdall belonged to a complex religious, mythological and cosmological belief system shared by the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples. This mythological tradition, of which the Scandinavian (and particularly Icelandic) sub-groups are best preserved, developed in the period from the first manifestations of religious and material culture in approximately 1000 B.C.E. until the Christianization of the area, a process that occurred primarily from 900-1200 C.E. The tales recorded within this mythological corpus tend to exemplify a unified cultural focus on physical prowess and military might.

Within this framework, Norse cosmology postulates three separate "clans" of deities: the Aesir, the Vanir, and the Jotun. The distinction between Aesir and Vanir is relative, for the two are said to have made peace, exchanged hostages, intermarried and reigned together after a prolonged war, which the Aesir had finally won. In fact, the most major divergence between the two groups is in their respective areas of influence, with the Aesir representing war and conquest, and the Vanir representing exploration, fertility and wealth. The Jotun, on the other hand, are seen as a generally malefic (though wise) race of giants who represented the primary adversaries of the Aesir and Vanir.

Heimdall is described as the sentry of the Aesir, guarding Asgard against the depredations of the Jotun (giants).

Characteristics

Heimdall is the guardian of the gods who will blow the Gjallarhorn if danger approaches Asgard. His senses are so acute that he can hear the grass grow and he can see to the end of the world; he also requires no sleep at all. He is moreover the guardian of the Bifrost Bridge.

He was the son of nine different mothers (possibly the nine daughters of Ægir, called billow maidens) and was called the White God. His hall was called Himinbjörg (Sky Mountain) and his horse was Gulltoppr (Gold-top). Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda relates that a kenning for sword is head of Heimdall because Heimdall was struck by a man's head and that this is treated in the poem Heimdalargaldr, a poem unfortunately no longer extant. Similarly, a kenning for head is sword of Heimdall. The meaning may lie in Heimdall also being called "ram", the weapon of a ram being its head, including the horns. Georges Dumézil (1959) suggested that this might also be why Heimdall is called White-god.

Heimdall's nickname Hallinskíði ("Bent Stick") also appears as a kenning for "ram", perhaps referring to the bent horns on a ram's head. Heimdall's nickname Gullintanni ("Golden-Toothed") would refer to the yellow coloring found in the teeth of old rams. A third name for Heimdall is Vindhlér ("Wind Shelter"). Dumézil cites Welsh folklore sources which tell how ocean waves come in sets of nine with the ninth one being the ram:

We understand that whatever his mythical value and functions were, the scene of his birth made him, in the sea's white frothing, the ram produced by the ninth wave. If this is the case, then it is correct to say that he has nine mothers, since one alone does not suffice, nor two, nor three.

Old Welsh practice, modern French practice and modern Basque practice is to refer to white-capped waves as sheep.

Surviving representations

Snorri also calls Heimdall a son of Odin, perhaps a foster son.

In this illustration from a 17th century Icelandic manuscript Heimdallr is shown guarding the gate of Valhalla.

Heimdall was destined to be the last of the gods to perish at Ragnarök when he and Loki would slay one another.

The first stanza of eddic poem Völuspá proclaims:

I ask for a hearing       of all the holy races
Greater and lesser,       kinsman of Heimdall.

The eddic poem Rígsthula explains in what way these races are kinsmen of Heimdall, explaining who the god Ríg, identified with Heimdall in a short prose introduction, apparently fathered the three classes of humankind as understood by the poet, the youngest of which fathered in turn Kon the Young (Old Norse Kon ungr) understood as the first immortal king (Old Norse konungr). See Ríg for details.

Hilda R. Ellis Davidson in Gods and Myths of Northern Europe sees a link between Heimdall and the Vanir as do some others, partly based on stanza 15 of the eddic poem Þrymskviða:

Then Heimdall spoke,       whitest of the Æsir,
Like the other Vanir he knew       the future well.

However other can be also translated even, which would mean instead that Heimdall had foresight "even" as do the Vanir.

The lost Heimdallargaldr may have contained the following adventure which was also referenced in Úlfr Uggason's skaldic poem Húsdrápa of which only fragments are preserved:

Once, Freyja woke up and found that someone had stolen Brisingamen. Heimdall helped her search for it and eventually found the thief, who turned out to be Loki and they fought in the form of seals at Vágasker 'Wave-skerry' and Singasteinn, wherever they may be. Heimdall won and returned Brisingamen to Freyja.

In Sörla þáttr, the story is changed and instead Loki hands the jewelry to Odin, who won't give it back to Freyja until she has promised to start the battle of Hedin and Högni.

In the Old English epic, Beowulf, Brosingamen, is brought back to the shining citadel (perhaps Valhalla or Asgard) by Hama (Heimdall). But Hama flees from the "cunning hostility" of Eormenric indicating extreme euhemerism, for Eormenric almost certainly would have had no part in the tale known to the Norsemen.

File:Manuscript Heimdallr.jpg

Heimdallr blows into Gjallarhorn in this illustration from an 18th century Icelandic manuscript.

Heimdall could hear a leaf fall.

Homologues in related Indo-European religions

Georges Dumézil considers Heimdall an old Indo-European god, a type of god he calls first god which is different from being the highest god. The Thessalian god of Romans Janus would be the Roman reflex to this concept. But there are other first gods. Heimdall is also a frame god, one who appears at the beginning and remains until the end.

Dumézil suggested that the Hindu counterpart was the god Dyaus, one of the eight Vasus, who reincarnated as the frame hero Bhishma in the epic Mahabharata, he and his seven brothers being born to a mortal king by the River Ganges who herself had taken on mortal form. But the seven other brothers are returned to their immortal forms by being drowned by their mother immediately after birth. Only Dyaus was compelled to live a full life on earth in the form of Bhishma. Bhishma is destined to never hold power himself or have any direct descendants but acts as an ageless uncle on behalf of the line of lords that tortuously descend from his half-brothers, including finally the five Pandava brothers who represent four classes of society: royalty, noble warrior, lower class club-bearing warrior, and herdsmen. Bhishma is the last to die in the great battle of Kurukshetra.

However Branston (1980) considers the character Heimdall to be cognate with the Vedic Agni god of fire, who is in many Vedic texts is born from the waters or hides within the waters and who is born from two, seven, nine, and ten mothers in various sources, the ten mothers being sometimes explained as the ten fingers which can manipulate a bore-stick to produce fire. This accords with Viktor Rydberg's theories on Heimdall.

Modern popular culture

References and representations of Heimdall infrequently appear in modern popular culture, usually as a horn sounding guard of some kind.

Bibliography

• Branston, Brian. Gods of the North. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980. (Revised from an earlier hardback edition of 1955). ISBN 0-500-27177-1.
• Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964.
• DuBois, Thomas A. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8122-1714-4.
• Dumézil, Georges. "Comparative Remarks on the Scandinavian God Heimdall" in Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Edited by Einar Haugen; Introduction by C. Scott Littleton and Udo Strutynski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. ISBN 0-520-02044-8.
• Lindow, John. Handbook of Norse mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001. ISBN 1-57607-217-7.
• Munch, P. A. Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes. In the revision of Magnus Olsen; translated from the Norwegian by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt. New York: The American-Scandinavian foundation; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1926.
• Orchard, Andy. Cassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. London: Cassell; New York: Distributed in the United States by Sterling Pub. Co., 2002. ISBN 0-304-36385-5.
• Sturlson, Snorri. The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology. Introduced by Sigurdur Nordal; Selected and translated by Jean I. Young. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1954. ISBN 0-520-01231-3.
• Snorri Sturluson. The Prose Edda. Translated from the Icelandic and with an introduction by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. New York: American-Scandinavian foundation, 1916.
• Turville-Petre, Gabriel. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.

External links

• Sayers, William (1993). "Irish Perspectives on Heimdallr". (PDF) Alvíssmál 2. Freie Universität Berlin. ISBN 3-86135-601-5.

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