Nine Mothers of Heimdallr

• 1. Introduction

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  The Nine Mothers of Heimdallr are nine sisters who gave birth to the god Heimdallr, with the god Odin as his father. Few figures in Norse mythology can claim a family tree this strange. Heimdallr himself is given a line of verse that states it outright. "Offspring of nine mothers am I and of nine sisters am I the son." Who were these nine women? Where do the old texts mention them, and do those texts agree? And what could it mean for one god to be born of nine mothers at once?

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• 2. Surviving Evidence

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  Chapter 27 of Gylfaginning gives the first and clearest account. There, an enthroned figure called High speaks to Gangleri, a mythical king who has come in disguise. High describes Heimdallr as the son of nine sisters. As proof, he cites two lines from Heimdalargaldr, a poem that survives nowhere else. Gylfaginning belongs to the Prose Edda, which Snorri Sturluson wrote in the 13th century.

  A second witness turns up in chapter 16 of Skáldskaparmál, another book of the Prose Edda. It quotes the 10th-century skald Úlfr Uggason, whose poem calls Heimdallr the "son of eight mothers plus one." The prose that follows spells out the arithmetic and says the poet means nine mothers. Only one other poem goes further than these, and it goes as far as naming the women.

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• 3. Nine Giant Maidens

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  Völuspá hin skamma sits inside Hyndluljóð, a poem often counted as part of the Poetic Edda. That book of poetry was compiled in the 13th century from older traditional material. Three of its stanzas are frequently read by scholars as describing Heimdallr and his mothers.

  The stanzas tell of a mighty god born long ago, at the edge of the world, to nine jötnar maidens. The boy grew strong on the strength of the earth, the ice-cold sea, and a third ingredient that translators render differently. Benjamin Thorpe, in 1866, wrote of Sôn's blood. Henry Adams Bellows, in 1923, wrote of the blood of swine. Jeramy Dodds, in 2014, wrote of boar's blood and called the child a "spear-splendid man."

  The stanzas also list the mothers by name: Gjálp, Greip, Eistla, Eyrgjafa, Ulfrún, Angeyja, Imðr, Atla and Járnsaxa. Those names are where the puzzle really begins.

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• 4. Borrowed Names

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  Every one of the nine names carries a meaning, and most of the meanings sound dangerous. Gjálp means "Roar" and Greip means "Grip." Eistla means "Glowing," and Eyrgjafa means "The Earth Giver One." Ulfrún is "She Wolf," and the name also turns up as an ordinary Old Norse woman's name. Angeyja is "The Stalker One," and she also appears under the names Augeia and Sangridr. Imðr, called "The Dusky One," goes by Imd or Sindur. Atla is "The Furious One," and Járnsaxa means "Iron Sword."

  The scholar Orchard points out that this only adds confusion. All nine names appear elsewhere for female jötnar, mostly in the lists called þulur. Gjálp and Greip appear in Skáldskaparmál as daughters of the jötunn Geirröðr. Each tried to stop Thor from reaching their father. Gjálp made a river swell against him, while Greip knocked down the stones of a mountain. Atla and Járnsaxa both appear in the Nafnaþulur lists of jötnar.

  Járnsaxa has another role as well. She bore Magni to Thor, and she is possibly the mother of Móði too. With names this widely shared, scholars began looking outside the giant maidens for an answer.

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• 5. Born of the Waves

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  Nine daughters of the sea giant Ægir and the goddess Rán offer one such answer. These nine goddesses personify the waves. Some scholars have linked them to Heimdallr's mothers, which would make Heimdallr a child of the sea itself. Others have tried instead to connect the idea of being born of nine mothers to folk motifs found elsewhere in Europe. Scholars have never settled what the number implies.

  The wave theory meets a clear objection. The names given for Ægir and Rán's daughters do not match the names in Völuspá hin skamma.

  John Lindow answers that the two groups still match in one respect. Both are sisters. He suggests that two separate traditions about Heimdallr's mothers may account for the difference in names. If he is right, the Norse told the story of Heimdallr's birth in two ways, and the surviving texts keep both.

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