Grímnismál — The God Between Two Flames

Two Boys, a Storm and a Fateful Voyage

It began with two boys and a bad fishing trip.

King Hrauðungr had two sons: Prince Agnarr and Prince Geirröðr. Agnarr was ten years old, Geirröðr eight. One day they rowed out alone to catch small fish. It seemed like a fine idea until the wind decided to have other plans.

The storm drove the boat far out to sea, and in the darkness they ran aground on an unknown shore. There they found a small cottage with an elderly couple. The boys stayed with them through the whole winter.

The old woman took a particular liking to Agnarr. The old man looked after Geirröðr and taught him various counsel and tricks. He seemed very interested in the younger boy. A little too interested, really.

When spring came, the boys were given a ship so they could sail home. But before they left, the old man drew Geirröðr aside and whispered something to him.

That was not a good sign.

As they drew near their homeland, Geirröðr stood at the prow. He leapt ashore first. Then he shoved the boat back out and shouted to his brother:

"Off with you — sail where the trolls take you!"

And he let Agnarr drift out to sea alone.

It was a cold thing to do. But it worked.

When Geirröðr reached home, his father was dead. Geirröðr became king and grew to be both powerful and renowned. Agnarr vanished from the story for a while, while his younger brother took the throne.

But there was one thing Geirröðr never understood:

The old man in the cottage had been the god Odin in disguise. And the old woman had been the goddess Frigg.

Odin and Frigg Argue Over Their Foster Children

Many years later Odin and Frigg sat in Hliðskjálf, the seat from which they could look out over all the worlds. There they caught sight of their foster children once again.

And matters quickly turned into something resembling a divine marital argument.

Odin pointed at Agnarr and said:

"Look at your foster son. He sits in a cave fathering children with a giantess."

Frigg answered coolly:

"Is that so? But your foster son, King Geirröðr, is so mean and ungracious to guests that he can hardly bear to see people arrive at his hall."

Odin scoffed. He said it was untrue.

Frigg's reply was essentially: "Then test him."

Odin did.

And so the whole disaster began.

King Geirröðr Captures the Disguised God

Frigg sent her handmaiden Fulla to Geirröðr with a warning. She told him a dangerous sorcerer had come to the land. He would be easy to identify, she said, because no dog would attack him.

That perhaps should have given Geirröðr pause.

If even the dogs can see this is a bad idea, it might be wise to slow down.

But Geirröðr did the opposite.

He had his men seize the stranger. The man wore a blue cloak and called himself Grímnir. That was just one of the many names Odin used when he wandered about in disguise making trouble for people.

Geirröðr interrogated him.

"Who are you?"

No answer.

"Where do you come from?"

Silence.

"What do you want here?"

Not a word.

All Geirröðr achieved was to become more irritated.

In the end he decided to torture the stranger. He had Grímnir bound between two great fires, where the flames burned close against his body.

There sat Odin.

For eight nights.

Without food.

Without help.

With nothing but fire on both sides and a king who had evidently skipped everything that could be called basic hospitality.

The Boy Who Brought Odin a Drinking Horn

King Geirröðr had a son named Prince Agnarr, named after the uncle his father had betrayed as a child. The boy was ten years old.

Unlike his father, he had actual sense.

After eight nights, Agnarr felt sorry for the strange man sitting between the flames. He walked over to Grímnir with a full drinking horn and said:

"Father does wrong to torment an innocent man."

It was the first act of kindness Odin had experienced in over a week.

Odin drank.

Meanwhile the flames had drawn so close that his cloak was beginning to smoulder.

Then Grímnir began to speak.

And when Odin starts holding forth about himself, the gods and the universe, it does not tend to be brief.

Valhöll: the Hall with Five Hundred Doors

While Geirröðr sat and stared, Grímnir began to tell of the worlds, the halls and the gods.

He described Þrúðheimr, the land where the god Þórr dwells. He told of Ýdalir, where the god Ullr lives, and of Álfheimr, which was given to the god Freyr.

Then he came to the most impressive of all:

Valhöll.

Grímnir described Odin's vast hall with its gold, spears, shields and coats of mail. There Odin gathered all the warriors who fell in battle. Each day they rode out to fight. Each evening they returned to eat, drink and do it all again the next day.

It is hard to say whether Valhöll is paradise or the world's most aggressive training camp.

Grímnir told that the hall had hundreds of doors, wide enough for hundreds of warriors to pour out at once when Ragnarök came.

Above the doors hung wolves and eagles.

It all sounded both magnificent and faintly threatening.

Exactly as Odin likes it.

Yggdrasil, Ratatoskr and the Dragon That Never Sleeps

Then Grímnir began to speak of Yggdrasil, the world tree that holds all the worlds together.

He told of the three roots stretching down toward different worlds: one toward Hel, one toward the frost giants, and one toward the world of men.

He described the creatures that live around the tree.

The squirrel Ratatoskr runs up and down the trunk carrying gossip between the eagle at the crown and the dragon Níðhöggr down among the roots. His entire job is really to relay insults back and forth and make the atmosphere worse.

Ratatoskr is, in short, the world's first comment section.

Stags gnaw at the branches. Serpents coil around the roots. Níðhöggr gnaws at the wood from below.

Even the world's most important tree never gets any peace.

The Gods' Dwellings and a World Built from a Dead Giant

Grímnir continued to enumerate the gods' dwellings and their secrets.

He told how the god Heimdallr lives in Himinbjörg and drinks fine mead. How the goddess Freyja receives half of those slain in battle. How the god Forseti resolves conflicts in his hall Glitnir.

He told of the goat Heiðrún, who stands atop Valhöll and produces endless quantities of mead. Of the stag Eikþyrnir, who drips water down into all the rivers.

He described Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who fly over the world each day. Odin actually admitted that he feared they might not return.

That says something.

When even Odin goes around with catastrophic thoughts about his birds, it is perhaps not so strange that the rest of the universe seems anxious.

Then he told how the world was made from the body of the giant Ymir: the earth from his flesh, the sea from his blood, the mountains from his bones and the sky from his skull.

It is a rather violent creation story.

But in Norse mythology, one apparently does not build a world with careful craftsmanship and fine detail.

One builds it from a dead giant.

Grímnir Recites His Many Names

In time Grímnir began to recite his own names.

And there were many.

He was Grímnir. Gangleri. Herjann. Hár. Sannr. Fjölnir. Sigföðr. Valfǫðr. Bölverkr. Hárbarðr and several others besides.

It was beginning to sound rather like a man trying to fill in every field on a form at the same time.

But there was a reason for it.

Grímnir wanted Geirröðr to understand who he had truly been torturing.

This was no random wanderer.

This was Odin.

The king had let the Allfather himself sit between the flames for eight nights.

And Odin was done being patient.

The Sword Falls — the King Understands Too Late

Finally Odin looked straight at King Geirröðr and said that he had lost Odin's favour. He said that death was near.

That was approximately when Geirröðr understood how enormously bad the situation actually was.

The king leapt up to help Odin away from the flames. But he had his sword lying across his knees, halfway out of its scabbard. In his panic he lost his grip.

The sword fell.

Geirröðr stumbled forward.

And ran straight onto his own weapon.

That was the end of the king.

Odin vanished immediately afterwards, as he so often does when things end dramatically. Left behind stood young Agnarr, the boy who had shown kindness when no one else had.

He became king after Geirröðr.

And no one could later say that Odin had not given fair warning.