Gullveig - Gullveig Part 6

Gullveig
Gold-Thirst / Battle of the gods / Battle of the gods / provoker of war

Previous post in this series: Hyrrokkin - Gullveig Part 5

We have but one attestation of the name Gullveig in the sources… which immediately strikes me as odd given her role and impact on the myths. However, for being just a tiny bit of information, we are informed of so much:

The Death of Gullveig - Willie Pogany - 1920 

Voluspa 21

The war I remember, | the first in the world,
When the gods with spears | had smitten Gollveig,
And in the hall | of Hor had burned her,
Three times burned, | and three times born,
Oft and again, | yet ever she lives.

Here, as previously discussed, we learn that Gullveig is killed in Odin's hall, where the first War of the Gods began. It can also be inferred based upon the swapping between first person and third person throughout the poem that Gullveig is also the Seer in this poem.

Frølich, Lorenz. Oðinn Casting His Spear. From: Ældre Eddas Gudesange. Translated by Karl Gjellerup, Kjøbenhavn: P.G. Philipsens Forlag, 1895. 7. MyNDIR: My Norse Digital Image Repository. Ed. P. A. Baer. 2024. Edition 2.6. Victoria, B. C.: Humanities Computing and Media Centre, University of Victoria. 2024.

Three times burned, three times born. What an interesting detail, and one that surely had more meaning, but as I have mentioned, these details were omitted or lost to time (do you see the pattern there? Because there's a pattern there and it's annoying).

The Heart

As detailed in the Angrboda section, the three monsters born of Angrboda were each conceived by Loki eating a burnt heart, three times. Another very explicit detail with absolutely no follow up - which is again, extremely odd given the gravity of the outcome, but not completely surprising given that most of these myths were from an oral tradition and were being told to audiences already familiar with the context around them. A pivotal plot point in the myths (like Angrboda's heart being the catalyst for the births of Jormungandr, Hel, and Fenrir) would be common knowledge to original audiences, but not to us, which can be frustrating to piece together.

Loki finds Gullveig's Heart - John Albert Bauer - 1911

Given what we know of Gullveig, a frost giant, and that Aurboda is referenced in the Skaldskaparmal, "úrsvöl Gymis völva" - Gymir's Cold Völva, it is possible that the poet here was allegorising the unburnable, cold essence of Gullveig as a heart.

Voluspa in skamma 12

[12] Loki át hjarta lindi brenndu,
fann hann halfsviðinn hugstein konu;
varð Loftr kviðugr af konu illri;
þaðan er á foldu flagð hvert komit.

[12] A heart ate Loki,-- | in the embers it lay,
And half-cooked found he | the woman's heart;--
With child from the woman | Lopt soon was,
And thence among men | came the monsters all.

A cool picture of a Ice heart I found on the internet


"Heart" is mentioned here twice, but two different ON words are used, and the second, "Hugsteinn" is of interest.

hugsteinn is a compound word from hugr, which can mean mind, heart or soul, and steinn meaning stone. So hugsteinn translates to mind-rock, or heart-rock or soul-rock and is used throughout the sources as a poetic metaphor for "heart"

Taking a deeper look at the word can reveal it's a little more than just that. The concept of eating hearts is not new in the sources and stories of the Old Norse. We see references in Hrólfs saga kraka, where hjarta is used.

Fáfnismál sees the word hugr translated to heart multiple times, but also see hjarta used.

What we see is a pattern of context. There appears to a ritual, in where the heart of a "troll/monster" is cooked and eaten and the consumer of the heart is gifted with some form of the monsters properties, and in Loki's case, upon eating the half burnt heart of Gullveig, each time is impregnated with a monstrous child.

This is a whole thing, and there are many papers written on this topic alone, but I found this post summarises it best without getting too academic.

What's in a name

I think it's important to do a little more digging into the name "Gullveig" itself. It's often used as the primary support in tying Gullveig to Freyja based on language and definitions, as well as we can understand them. What are probably the most interesting, literal translations put this as something like "gold-thirst / gold drink":

Gull - meaning gold or treasure
Gúll - meaning puffy cheeks
Veig - meaning strong or strong beverage

*guluveiki, also called gula and gulusótt in modern Icelandic, is the term used for jaundice - yellow

So if we look at the meaning "gold drink" or "gold thirst" it's possible it can be seen as how Gullveig's essence was alluring to people - "Always was she loved by wicked women".

However, there is another possible name meaning that I have come across in my research. The Swedish lexicon 'Svensk Etymologisk Ordbok' by Elof Hellquist (second edition 1939), under the word Gullmaren (Old Norse goðmarr, god-lake), it is explained that in the Scandinavian history of languages a transition was made from the letter 'ð' to 'l' during the medieval period. This changes the spelling of the word “Gullveig” to “Goðveig” and gives us some different meanings of the name altogether.

gulli which is considered to be an abbreviated form of gudh- which in English means god.

This at least suggests that there was a possible transition from goð-/guð- (meaning god) to gull-/gul-, and that the gull- in the name Gullveig could be the Old Norse word goð-/guð-, and thereby giving a whole new meaning to her name.

If Gullveig was a transition from Goðveig, this could mean that the name could mean "strong god."

If we look at "Veig," there are a few theories as to where it derives:

Víg:

[1] a fight, battle; (this is the oldest sense of the word)
[2] homicide

Vé 

[1] woe, misery
[2] a priest
[3] temple or holy place

So, where does that leave us (apart from in the basement drowning in dictionaries and books) - Well to summarise, we have just a striking pattern of three times burnt - three hearts eaten, some cool info on how eating hearts was a transformative magical practice, and ending with a different possible meaning to Gullvieg's name, God Strong or Strong God, which is pretty fucking neat.

Boring dictionary stuff:

Next post in this series: The Völva - Gullveig Part 7








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