Baugi

Baugi (right) is drilling into the mountain Hnitbjörg so that Odin (left behind him) can slip into it. Illustration from an Icelandic manuscript of the 18th century.

Baugi is handed down in the Old Norse mythology in the Skáldskaparmál of the Snorra Edda .

Baugi was a Jötunn , a giant and brother of Suttung , who had hidden the Skaldenmet , the mead of poetry, in the mountain Hnitbjörg . Suttung had taken the mead from the black albums Fiallarr and Gallarr . They had previously drowned Suttung's father Gilling , Baugi's uncle.

Odin wanted to get into possession of the mead of poetry and decided to get hold of it by a ruse, as he could not get hold of the mead himself. He worked for a whole summer with Baugi, who was a farmer, and only asked for a sip of the drink as a reward. Then Baugi bored a hole in the mountain Hnitbjörg. Odin turned into a snake and slipped through the borehole. In the mountain, Suttung's daughter Gunnlöð was guarding the Skaldenmet, but Odin persuaded her to let him take three trains. Odin, contrary to the agreement, drank all of the mead, turned into an eagle, and escaped.

literature

• Literature by and about Baugi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Melsted's Edda from the 18th century
• Anthony Faulkes (translator into English): Edda (Snorri Sturluson) , Everyman, London 1987 ISBN 0-460-87616-3