Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri
Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri are the four dwarfs in Norse mythology who support the sky.
They are called earth dwarfs in the Völuspá in the Dverga valley. Their names come from Old Norse and are derived from the names for the cardinal points: Norðri from norðr ' north ', Suðri from suðr ' south ', Austri from austr ' east ' and Vestri from vestr ' west '. The dwarfs apparently represent personifications of the four cardinal points.
Each one of them supports the sky, which consists of Ymir's skull, in the direction corresponding to his name, that is, Norðri the north, and so on. This is concluded from Snorri Sturluson's gylfaginning :
"Tóku þeir ok house hans ok gerðu þar af
himin ok settu hann upp yfir jörðina með
fjórum skautum, ok undir hvert horn settu
þeir dverg. Þeir heita svá: Austri, Vestri, Norðri, Suðri. "
“They [the gods] also took his [Ymir's] skull,
made the sky out of it, and placed it on
four corners of the earth. And in each of these corners
they placed a dwarf; they are called like this: Austri, Westri, Nordri and Sudri. "
- - S NORRI S TURLUSON : Prose Edda: Gylfaginning 8
Even if these speaking names seem constructed in view of the cosmic task: the idea of four dwarfs supporting the sky is not a literary invention of Snorri Sturluson . It is mentioned in a song by Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáld in the 10th century .
The dwarf names were accordingly also used to describe the sky. This is how Snorri Sturluson writes in the Skáldskaparmál :
"Do you have to know him in?"
Svá, at kalla hann […] erfiði eða byrði dverganna
eða hjálm Vestra ok Austra, Suðra, Norðra, […]
Svá kvað Arnórr jarlaskáld: […]
Björt verðr sól at svartri,
sökkr fold í mar dökkvani
,
erfi glymr sjár á fjöllum. "
“How should one paraphrase heaven? -
By
calling him […] the labor or burden of the dwarfs and Dach Westris, Austris, Sudris or Nordris. […]
This is how Arnor, the skald of the Jarle wrote : […]
The radiant sun
turns black,
the earth sinks into the dark sea,
Austri's burden bursts,
the whole sea rages over the mountains. "
- - S NORRI S TURLUSON : Prose Edda: Skáldskaparmál 23
Their names are also used in the Þulur as dwarf names.
literature
- Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lieder-Edda: Völuspá 11; Prose Edda: Gylfaginning 14.
- ^ Edgar C. Polomé: Notes on the dwarfs in Germanic tradition. In: Einar Ingvald Haugen, Einar Haugen, Stig Eliasson, Ernst Håkon Year: Language and Its Ecology: Essays in Memory of Einar Haugen. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1997, ISBN 978-3-11-014688-2 , p. 443. Online excerpt .
- ↑ Prosa-Edda: Gylfaginning 8th text edition according to CyberSamurai, URL: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 30, 2009.
- ^ Translation after Arnulf Krause: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson. Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-000782-2
- ↑ Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáld: Ólafsdrápa. Verse 26.
- ↑ Prosa-Edda: Skáldskaparmál 31st text edition from CyberSamurai, URL: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 30, 2009.
- ↑ Arnor Jarleskalds, Icelandic: Arnórr jarlaskáld, lived in the 11th century.
- ^ Translation after Arnulf Krause: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson. Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 978-3-15-000782-2 , Skáldskaparmál, chapter 23.
- ↑ Þulur III 40 dverga heiti
