Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

VALI (VALI): Son of Odin and Rind, who avenges Balder by killing Hoder, and who survives Ragnarok

VANIR: The race of gods to which Njord, Freyr, and Freyja belong, connected with fertility

VATNSD?LA SAGA: One of the Icelandic family sagas, telling of the men of Vatnsdale (translated by G. Jones, Princeton, 1944)

VE (VE): Son of Bor and brother of Odin

VIDAR (VIDAR): Son of Odin, who avenged him by slaying Fenrir

VIGA-GLUMS SAGA: One of the Icelandic family sagas containing much early material. The story of Glum, a famous Icelandic fighter and poet (translated by Sir E. Head, London, 1866)

VIGRID (VIGRI?R): Plain on which the last great battle is fought

VIKAR (VIKARR): Norwegian king who was sacrificed to Odin

VILI: Son of Bor and brother of Odin

VINELAND (VINLAND): Settlement of the east coast of America established by Icelanders from Greenland

VITAZGJAFI: ‘Certain giver’. Name of a field beside the temple of Freyr in Viga-Glums Saga

VOLSUNG (VOLSUNGR): Founder of the Volsung family, father of hero Sigmund

VOLSUNGA SAGA: One of the best-known of the Fornaldar Sogur, telling of the history of the Volsung family, and especially of the famous hero Sigurd (translated by O. Schlauch, New York, 1949)

VOLUSPA: ‘Sooth-saying of the volva’. Poem in the Edda telling of the beginning and ending of the worlds. The Shorter Voluspa is another poem about the origin and doom of the gods

VOLVA: Woman with powers of divination, a seeress

WACHILT: Giantess mother of Wade in Germanic tradition, said to live under the sea

WADE: Giant remembered in Anglo-Saxon and Danish tradition. Connected with great stones and with the sea, father of Weland the Smith

W?LCYRGE: ‘Chooser of the slain’. Term used to translate the names of the Furies in Old English word lists of eighth and ninth centuries

WELAND: Supernatural smith of the early Anglo-Saxon tradition. Volundr in Old Norse poetry

WIDIA: Son of Weland. Wittich in German tradition

WILLEBRORD: Bishop of Utrecht. Missionary in the Netherlands in the eighth century. Life written by Alcuin of York (translated by C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, London, 1954)

WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY: Writer of twelfth-century Latin history of the kings of England, Gesta Regum Anglorum (translated by Sharpe in the G. Bell Bohn Library, 1847, 1876)

WODAN: Or Wotan. God of battle and death worshipped by the heathen Germanic peoples

WODEN: God of battle and death worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons in England

WULFSTAN: Lupus. Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of York, 1002–23. His homilies have survived, and the most famous is Sermo Lupi, a sermon about the sins of the nation (ed. Whitelock, Methuen, 1939)

YGGDRASILL: Probably ‘Horse of Yggr (Odin)’. The World Tree, forming the centre of the worlds of gods, men, and giants

YMIR: Primeval giant, from whose body the world was formed

YNGLINGA SAGA: First section of Snorri’s Heimskringla, which gives an account of the early kings of Sweden, the Ynglings, from whom the Norwegian kings were descended

YNGLINGS (YNGLINGAR): Royal dynasty of Sweden

YNGLINGATAL: Ninth-century poem by ?jo?olfr or Hvini, giving a list of the early kings, how they died and where they were buried, from which Snorri took much of his information for Ynglinga Saga

Index

Abingdon, Chronicle of, 105

Adam of Bremen: on gods at Uppsala, 70, 75, 77, 84, 86, 96, 124; on sacrifices, 51; on tree near temple, 191

Aegir, 128–30

Aesir, 25–6, 172; their war with Vanir, 40, 45, 126, 167, 168

?stii, 99

Aethelweard’s Chronicle, 105

Aggersborg, 69

Agnar, 111

Agni of Sweden, 116

Alaisiagae, 62, 64

Alamanni, 59, 160–61

Alcis, 169

Alfheim, 28, 107, 156

Alfred, King, 13, 77

Ali of Sweden, 99

Amulet (hammer), 81

Andvari, 43–4, 218

Anglo-Saxon literature: Caedmon, 198; Chronicle, 77, 105, 160; Cynewulf, 99; devil in, 178; Exodus, 65; Seafarer, 218; spells, 63, 113, 156; Wade, 131; word-lists, 62. See also Beowulf

Anglo-Saxons, 10, 11; cemeteries, 17, 81, 160; conversion, 220; dynasties, 56, 60, 108, 201; helmets, 98; place-names, 87; ship-burial, 133–4; urns, 147; worship of gods, 83, 86, 104, 113, 147, 161, 170

Angrboda, 31, 188

Apples of youth, 30, 39, 165–6, 179

Apuleius, 96

Asgard: building of, 28, 31; destruction of, 110, 202; position of, 46, 190; protection of, 91, 173

Asthall Barrow, 160

Au?humla, 27, 198, 200

Aurvandil, 41, 199

Balder, 29, 30, 40, 182–9, 217; death of, 35–7, 39, 80, 108–10, 136, 150, 162; his son, 171

Baldrs Draumar, 143, 146, 185–6, 188

Battle of Goths and Huns, 53

Beard of Thor, 73, 85

Beaw, 108

Bede, the Venerable, 11, 50, 113, 220, 221, 222

Bede (goddess), 62

Belt of Thor, 29, 33, 42, 179

Benty Grange Tumulus, 98

Beow, 108

Beowulf, 15; boar helmets in, 98, 99; creation song in, 198; cremation in, 160; dragon in, 159, 161; Grendel in, 18; Herebeald in, 189; praise of fame in, 216; sacrifice in, 51; Scyld in, 104; ship- funeral in, 135–6