Odin’s Deception of Gunnlöð

At a Glance

• Central figures: Odin, the Allfather, who disguises himself as a wanderer; Gunnlöð, daughter of the giant Suttung and guardian of the Mead of Poetry; Baugi, Suttung’s brother; Fjalar and Galar, the dwarves who first created the mead by killing Kvasir.
• Setting: Jotunheim and the mountain stronghold of Suttung, with the pursuit ending at the gates of Asgard; drawn from Norse mythological tradition recorded in the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda.
• The turn: Odin spends three nights with Gunnlöð, wins her trust, then drains all three vats of the mead and flees in eagle-form.
• The outcome: Odin carries the Mead of Poetry to Asgard; a few drops spill over Midgard, and from those drops true poets are born.
• The legacy: The scattered drops of the mead that fell to Midgard are held to be the source of poetic gift among mortals - those Odin blessed with his stolen knowledge.

The Mead of Poetry did not begin with Odin. It began with Kvasir - the wisest being in the nine worlds, formed from the mingled saliva of the Aesir and Vanir when they made their peace after the great war. Kvasir wandered freely, answering every question put to him. No one had ever asked him anything he could not answer. Then two dwarves, Fjalar and Galar, invited him to a private meeting and killed him, draining his blood into three vats - Bodn, Son, and Óðrerir - and mixing it with honey. What they made was the Mead of Poetry: drink it and you gain wisdom, mastery of verse, the power of the word. The dwarves did not keep it long. The giant Suttung found them drowning in the sea as punishment for other crimes, rescued them, and took the mead as his price. He hid it deep in a mountain called Hnitbjorg and set his daughter Gunnlöð to guard it.

Odin heard, and began to plan.

The Farmhands of Baugi

Odin does not take things by storm when he can take them by cunning. He disguised himself as a man, called himself Bölverk - Worker of Evil - and traveled to the farm of Baugi, Suttung’s brother, in Jotunheim. When he arrived, nine farmhands were out in the fields, cutting hay under the summer sun. Odin watched them for a moment, then walked among them and drew out a whetstone. He offered to sharpen their scythes. Each blade he touched came away keener than before. The workers crowded around, all of them wanting it. He tossed the stone into the air. In the scramble, they turned their scythes on each other, and before evening came, all nine lay dead in the grass.

Baugi came out to find his entire harvest crew gone. Odin was there, helpful and calm, and offered a bargain: he would do the work of all nine men through the season, in exchange for one sip of the Mead of Poetry. Baugi said he did not control the mead - that was Suttung’s - but he would try. Odin agreed to the terms and went to work.

One Season’s Labor

Through the long northern summer, Odin plowed and harvested and proved himself worth every one of those nine dead men. He did not complain. He did not ask about the mead again until the work was done. When autumn came, he and Baugi traveled to Suttung’s mountain. Baugi made the case as promised. Suttung refused without hesitation.

“The mead is mine. No one drinks it. Not you, not your hired man, not anyone.”

So Odin proposed another way in. He asked Baugi to use an auger and bore into the mountain wall. He told Baugi they would take the mead together. Baugi drilled, and when the hole finally opened, Odin transformed into a snake and slid inside before Baugi could react or object. Baugi stabbed at the hole after him with the auger, but Odin was already gone.

Three Nights with Gunnlöð

Inside the mountain it was dark and cold. At the center of the chamber, beside three great vats, sat Gunnlöð. She was large as all her kin, and she had been given one task: let no one touch the mead.

Odin did not reach for the vats. He sat with her. He talked. He spoke of the worlds above and the strange things he had seen, and he had seen more than anyone living, so there was much to say. He praised her, and he was not crude about it. He returned the next night and the night after that, and by the third night she had begun to trust him. She agreed to let him drink - three sips, one for each night he had stayed.

He had not promised to stop at three sips’ worth.

The Three Vats

At dawn on the fourth day, Gunnlöð led him to Bodn, Son, and Óðrerir. He put his lips to the first vat and drank until it was empty. He moved to the second and emptied that as well. By the time he reached the third, Gunnlöð understood what was happening, but there was nothing to be done. He drained it and held all the mead in himself - every drop of Kvasir’s wisdom, every word ever pressed into those vats.

Then he became an eagle and flew hard for Asgard.

The Eagle Chase

Suttung came back into the chamber and saw three empty vats and his daughter standing alone. He took eagle-shape himself and went after Odin across the sky. The gods saw them coming from the walls of Asgard - first Odin, then the great shadow of Suttung behind him - and they brought out the vats and set them ready at the gates.

Odin crossed into Asgard and spat the mead into the waiting vessels. He had cut it close. Suttung broke off the chase at the walls and turned back toward Jotunheim, empty-handed.

A few drops had spilled during the flight. They came down over Midgard and scattered across the earth. Those drops are the gift that falls on certain mortal throats - the ones who find, without being taught it, that words arrange themselves, that the line turns and the listener goes still. Odin did not plan that part. It happened anyway.

Gunnlöð was left in the mountain with three empty vats and three nights she could not take back. Suttung raged and could do nothing. The mead was in Asgard. The words belonged to the gods now, and to those mortals lucky enough to have caught a few drops of the god’s flight home.