The Jotnar: Giants of Norse Mythology
Explore the Jotnar, the ancient giants of Norse mythology: Ymir, Surtr, Þrymr, Skadi, Angrboda, and the role of giants in Norse cosmology and Ragnarok.
The Jotnar (singular jötunn, often translated “giants”) are the oldest of the beings in the Norse cosmos, predating even the gods themselves. They are the descendants of the primeval giant Ymir, born from the meeting of the cold of Niflheim and the fire of Muspelheim in the yawning chasm of Ginnungagap. From Ymir, the first of the giants, descend all the host of giants who inhabit Jotunheim, and from the giant Bergelmir — who alone survived the flood of Ymir’s blood — descend the post-creation giants, including Þrymr, Geirröðr, Hymir, Skaði, and Angrboða.
The Jotnar are the enemies of the gods, and at Ragnarok they march on Asgard with the sons of Muspell, the wolf Fenrir, and the World Serpent. But the Jotnar are also the lovers of the gods — Skaði marries Njörðr, Gerðr marries Freyr, Járnsaxa is the lover of Thor — and the parents of some of the most important figures of the mythology: Hel, Fenrir, and the World Serpent are all children of Loki and the giantess Angrboða. The Jotnar are, in this sense, not the simple “evil” of Christian cosmology, but the opposite and complement of the gods.
The Sub-Classes of Giants
The Norse tradition divides the Jotnar into several sub-classes, distinguished by their strength, their location, and their character. The principal sub-classes are:
- Risar (rissi) — the great giants proper, the most powerful and most often named
- Þursar (thurs) — often associated with stupidity and brute force
- Hrimpursar (“frost giants”) — the giants of the cold north
- Jötnar — the generic term for the entire class
- Bergrisar (“mountain giants”) — the giants of the highlands
- Sjógöflugar (“sea giants”) — the giants of the sea
The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson organizes the giants in the Skáldskaparmál under several headings, including the frost giants (the most ancient and the most powerful), the mountain giants, the fire giants (the sons of Muspell), and the sea giants. The Þursar are described in the Gylfaginning as the lowest class of giants, often with multiple heads (three or six in some readings) and a particular association with stupidity and brute force.
The Primeval Giant Ymir
The primeval giant Ymir (also called Aurgelmir) is the first of the Jotnar and the ancestor of all of them. According to the Völuspá and the Prose Edda, Ymir was born in the Ginnungagap (“gaping abyss”) from the meeting of the cold of Niflheim and the fire of Muspelheim. He was sustained by the milk of the primeval cow Auðumbla, who licked the salty ice-blocks and revealed the first of the gods, Búri. Ymir, finding himself in the company of beings he had not created, produced the first of the giants by sweating under his arms; his legs, in some readings, begat a son. From him all the Jotnar descend.
The death of Ymir is the foundational act of the Norse cosmos. The sons of Borr (Odin, Vili, and Vé) turned against Ymir and slew him, and out of his body they made the world: his blood became the seas, his bones the mountains, his skull the dome of the sky, his brain the clouds, his teeth the rocks, his hair the trees. The skull is held up by four pillars, the four dwarfs (or four giants) named Nordri, Sudri, Austri, and Vestri (North, South, East, West). The flood of Ymir’s blood drowned all the Jotnar except one — Bergelmir, who escaped with his wife on a hollowed-out tree-trunk (lúðr) and became the ancestor of the new race of giants.
The Origin of the Giants
The Norse account of the origin of the giants is one of the most interesting in the Eddas. The giants are not created by the gods, and they are not fallen angels or rebellious creations. They are simply the first beings of the cosmos, the ones that emerge from the meeting of ice and fire in the primeval chasm. The gods come later, and they make the world out of the body of the first giant. The giants are, in this sense, the older order, and the gods are the newer order. The relationship between the two is not creation-and-fall but ancient-and-recent, with the ancient order being structurally present in the new order as the constant outside of it.
The genealogy of the giants, as it appears in the Prose Edda, is as follows:
- Ymir (the first giant)
- Bergelmir (Ymir’s grandson, who survives the flood)
- The post-flood giants, including Þrymr, Geirröðr, Hymir, Hrungnir, Skaði, Angrboða, Gerðr, and others.
The giants are sometimes described as the children of Ymir directly, in which case they are the children of the body of the cosmos itself, and the slaying of Ymir is a kind of cosmic cleaving of the first being into the structured cosmos. The relationship between the gods and the giants is, in this sense, the relationship between the makers of the world and the substance of the world out of which it is made.
Surtr the Fire Giant
Surtr (“the black one”) is the great fire giant who leads the sons of Muspell at Ragnarok and sets the world on fire. According to the Gylfaginning, Surtr stands at the border of Muspelheim, bearing a flaming sword brighter than the sun, and at the end of the world he will lead the sons of Muspell across the bridge Bifrost to the great battle. After the gods have fallen, Surtr will fling fire over all the earth, burning the world.
Surtr is one of the most ancient of the giants, named in the Völuspá as standing at the border of Muspelheim from the very beginning. He is the rival of the gods, the fire that opposes the order of the world, and the end of the cosmos. The image of Surtr bearing a sword brighter than the sun is one of the most striking in Old Norse poetry, and the image of Surtr setting the world on fire is the basis for the modern conception of the Norse apocalypse as a cosmic fire.
Þrymr the Lord of the Wedding
Þrymr is the great giant of the Þrymskviða (“The Lay of Þrymr”), the most famous of the Poetic Edda’s heroic-comic poems. According to the poem, Þrymr steals Thor’s hammer Mjölnir and demands Freyja in marriage in exchange for its return. The gods, unable to recover the hammer by force, devise a ruse: Thor dresses as Freyja, Loki as the handmaid, and the two travel to Jotunheim. At the wedding feast, the giant Loki recounts the “great deeds” of “Freyja” (which are actually Thor’s), and Þrymr is so taken with the bride that he places the hammer in “her” lap to bless the marriage. Thor immediately seizes the hammer, slays Þrymr and all the giants of the hall, and returns to Asgard with the hammer.
The Þrymskviða is a comic poem, and its humor is broad: Thor dressed as a woman, Loki as the handmaid, the giant’s astonishment at the bride’s “great deeds,” the ruse of the hammer in the bride’s lap. But the poem is also a serious treatment of the gods-vs-giants theme: the giants are the excessive beings, the ones who challenge the gods, and the gods must use cunning to defeat them. The image of Thor dressed as Freyja is a striking one, and the image of the hammer being recovered by the ruse is a mythic technology in the form of a comic narrative.
Skaði the Giantess of Winter
Skaði is the great giantess of the Eddas, daughter of the giant Þjazi (who, in some versions, is the giant who stole Idunn and her apples of youth). Skaði comes to Asgard to demand compensation for her father’s death, and the gods offer her a husband from among the gods — but she may choose only by looking at their feet. She chooses the cleanest pair of feet, hoping they belong to Baldr, but they turn out to belong to Njörðr, the god of the sea. The marriage is unhappy: Skaði cannot stand the cry of the gulls at Njörðr’s hall by the sea, and Njörðr cannot stand the howling of the wolves in Skaði’s hall in the mountains. They separate.
The image of Skaði is one of the most complex in the Eddas. She is the winter giantess, the goddess of the snow-shoes, the skier, the hunter. She is associated with the cold of the north and with the mountains in particular. The myth of her marriage to Njörðr is a myth of the incompatibility of two ways of life — the sea and the mountains, the warmth and the cold. The image of Skaði choosing the wrong feet is a comic moment in a serious poem, and the marriage that follows is a myth of the difficulty of union between two opposed elements.
Angrboða the Mother of Monsters
Angrboða (“the one who brings grief” or “she who offers sorrow”) is the giantess who, with Loki, is the mother of three of the most fearsome beings in the Norse cosmos: the World Serpent, the wolf Fenrir, and the goddess of the underworld, Hel. The Gylfaginning says that the gods of Asgard, recognizing the threat of the three siblings, took them and sent them to the appropriate realms: the serpent was cast into the encircling sea, the wolf was bound on the island of Lyngvi, and Hel was cast into the underworld.
The image of Angrboða as the mother of monsters is one of the most striking in Norse mythology. She is a figure of the primeval who gives birth to the three great threats of the world order. The image of Loki and Angrboða as the parents of the three monsters is the structural image of the relationship between the trickster and the giants: the trickster, who is already the brother of Odin (or at least the sworn brother), crosses over to the giants and produces with them the great threats of the world.
The Other Named Giants
The Norse tradition names a long list of giants, including:
- Hrungnir — the great giant who fights Thor in single combat outside Asgard
- Geirröðr — the giant king visited by Thor in the Skáldskaparmál
- Hymir — the giant with whom Thor fishes for the World Serpent
- Þjazi — the giant who stole Idunn
- Belgr — a giant of the Eddic poems
- Gilling — a giant killed by the dwarves Fjalar and Galar
- The giants of the wedding of Freyja — the giants who build the walls of Asgard
The Norse tradition also names a long list of giantesses, including Gerðr (the bride of Freyr, of the Skírnismál), Hyrrokkin (the giantess who launches the ship of Baldr’s funeral pyre), Göndul and Skögul (Valkyries whose names are given in the Grímnismál and who may have giant associations), and Fenja and Menja (the giantesses of the Grottasöngr).
The Giants in the Eddas and Sagas
The giants are central to the structure of the Eddas. The Þrymskviða is the most famous of the Eddic poems to feature a giant, but giants appear as central figures in many others:
- The Völuspá — the great prophecy poem, with its account of the world ash, the primeval giant Ymir, and the giants at Ragnarok
- The Vafþrúðnismál — the great cosmographic poem in which the god Odin trades questions with the giant Vafþrúðnir
- The Skírnismál — the great poem in which the god Freyr courts the giantess Gerðr
- The Hymiskviða — the fishing trip of Thor and Hymir
- The Hávamál — the great wisdom poem, with its references to giants
- The Þórs ríma (or Gylfaginning ch. 44–47) — the journey of Thor to Útgarðr
The giants are also central to many of the heroic sagas of the Old Norse tradition, including the Völsunga saga, the Hrólfs saga kraka, and the Hervarar saga. In the heroic sagas, the giants are sometimes the enemies of the hero, sometimes the lovers of the hero, and sometimes the ancestors of the hero. The image of the giantess as the ancestor of a great hero is a recurring one, and the genealogies of the Norse kings often include giants among the ancestors.
The Giants in the Cult of the Norse
The giants are not simply figures of the Eddas; they are also figures of the cult. The Norse cult of the giantess is attested in several Scandinavian runestones and place-names, and the disir (the female divine beings of the family cult) are sometimes understood to be of giant origin. The figure of the landvættir (the spirits of a particular place) is also often associated with giants, and the troll of the later folk tradition is in part a descendant of the older giant.
The giants of the cult are not always the great cosmic figures of the Eddas. They are the local giants, the giants of a particular mountain or forest or river, the giants of a particular place-name. The cult of the local giant is attested in the place-names of Norway and Sweden: the Risberg (“giant-mountain”), the Jätteslätt (“giant-plain”), the Jättegrytor (“giant-pots,” the geological features that are explained by the action of a giant), and the Troldborg (“troll-castle,” the prehistoric fortification that is explained as the work of giants). The giant of the local cult is a being who inhabits the landscape and who is propitiated by the local cult.
The Giants in Comparative Perspective
The Norse giants have been extensively compared to the Titans of the Greek tradition and to the Fomorians of the Irish tradition. The pattern is similar: an older order of beings, who are the enemies of the gods, who are partially defeated by the gods in a great battle, and who are the ancestors of some of the gods (and the parents of some of the most fearsome beings in the cosmos). The Norse version is distinctive in its cyclical structure: the giants are not simply defeated once and for all; they continue to threaten the world order, and they finally return at Ragnarok to destroy the gods and the world.
The Norse giants have also been extensively compared to the Jotunheim of the folk tradition, in which the giants of the older mythology become the trolls of the later Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish folk tradition. The transformation is a complex one, and it involves the Christianization of the older giant-figures, the assimilation of the older giant-figures to the Christian Devil, and the domestication of the older giant-figures as the enemies of the hero in the folk tale. The troll of the later folk tradition is in some sense a descendant of the older giant, but the two are not the same figure.
The Giants in the Heroic Genealogies
A distinctive feature of the Norse tradition is the incorporation of giants into heroic genealogies. The kings and great heroes of the Norse world are often descended, on one side or the other, from giants. The Skjöldungs of the Danish royal tradition are descended from the giantess Skjaldun; the Ynglings of the Swedish royal tradition are descended from the god Freyr, who married the giantess Gerðr; the Volsungs of the heroic tradition are descended from the god Odin but include giantesses in their ancestry as well. The Hrólfs saga kraka tells of King Hrólfr kraki, whose ancestry includes giant elements, and the Hervarar saga traces the ancestry of the Gautar to the giantess Hervör alvitr.
The incorporation of giants into heroic genealogies is a structural feature of the Norse imagination. The great heroes are not simply human; they are the offspring of the union of gods and giants, and the great families of the world are the bridges between the divine and the human. The image of the giantess as the ancestor of a great hero is the positive image of the giant in the Norse world: the giants are not just enemies, they are also kin to the heroes, and the heroic world is, in some sense, a mixed world of divine, human, and giant elements.
The Giants in the Cult of the Norse
The giants are central to several specific cult-practices of the Norse world. The cult of the ancestors often includes the propitiation of giants, on the assumption that the ancestors of a great family are partly giant. The cult of the place often includes the propitiation of local giants, on the assumption that the land is partly owned by giants. The cult of the hero often includes the propitiation of giants, on the assumption that the hero’s power is partly derived from giant ancestry.
The most famous of the giant-cults is the cult of the disir (the female divine beings of the family cult), which is closely associated with the cult of the ancestors and which is sometimes understood to involve the propitiation of giant-women. The dísir are described in several sagas, including the Eyrbyggja saga and the Víga-Glúms saga, and the dísablót (dís-sacrifice) is a major feast of the late autumn in the Icelandic and Norwegian traditions. The connection between the disir and the giants is not always explicit, but the structural connection is clear: the dísir are the female divine beings of the family, and the family is partly of giant ancestry.