Heremod and Óðinn: From Beowulf to Snorri’s Prose Edda

Abstract

This article reassesses the sources pertaining to Heremod (Hermóðr) in order to explore the nature of his relationship with Óðinn. In Beowulf, Heremod is presented as a Danish tyrant without any overt connection to Óðinn, whereas in Old Norse sources, Hermóðr is consistently presented as a mortal favourite or divine offspring of Óðinn. Closer scrutiny of the Beowulf passages in light of their analogues suggests that the disagreement results from the Beowulf poet’s obfuscation of a prior relationship between Heremod and Óðinn. An ancient connection between the god and his favourite appears to antedate Beowulf and persist into late sources concerning not only Hermóðr, but also Lotherus and Olo, recognized analogues to Heremod whose legends are believed to have absorbed aspects of the earlier Heremod tradition. An original legend, in which Óðinn patronized, sabotaged, and elicited transgressive deeds from Heremod, appears to have constituted the core tradition around which numerous variants emerged in subsequent centuries.

Notes

1 Linguistic and text-critical considerations suggest that the sole extant manuscript of Beowulf (from c.1000) preserves a copy of a poem first composed and written down around the year 700 (Fulk 1992; Russom 2002; Cronan 2004; Neidorf 2017). A precise date cannot be attached to the composition of the Prose Edda either, but there are strong reasons to believe that Snorri Sturluson, who lived from 1179 to 1241, is the genuine author–compiler–redactor of the work (Faulkes 2005, xii–xvi; Haukur Þorgeirsson 2014, 71–73).

2 Margaret Goldsmith, for instance, judges Heremod to be ‘the negation of a true king, the protector turned destroyer and the provider turned niggard’ (Goldsmith 1970, 189). Francis Leneghan likewise states that Heremod is ‘the poem’s first example of bad kingship’ (Leneghan 2020, 61). Scott Gwara finds that Heremod exhibits ‘a psychopathy related to the unrestrained ambition that causes a warrior’s banishment’ (Gwara 2008, 76). Each concurs in regarding the legend of Heremod as a secular tale concerning the downfall of a mortal king. For an overview of Heremod in Beowulf, see Honegger (1999), Orchard (2003, 105–14), and Fox (2020, 101–56).

3 On the variation between ‘son of Óðinn’ (sonr Óðins) and ‘servant of Óðinn’ (sveinn Óðins) and its attendant implications, see Lindow (1997, 103–15) and Faulkes (2005, 46, 145, s.v. sveinn, and 169, s.v. Hermóðr). For an overview of Hermóðr in Old Norse literature, see De Vries (1970, 2: sec. 485), Simek (1993, 143–45), and Lindow (1997, 101–30).

4 Opinions differ as to the status of Hermóðr in Hákonarmál. Fulk (2012b, 188, n. 1) suggests that Hermóðr is ‘[h]ere the son of Óðinn’, whereas Simek (1993, 143) affirms that Hermóðr ‘is a god only in Snorri’s version’. Orchard (1997, 83) concurs with Simek. The view that Hermóðr is a human rather than a deity in Hákonarmál appears to be most commonly held. Cöllen (2020, 1375, n. 7), for instance, casually states: ‘In Hákonarmál st. 14, Hermóðr is obviously a human hero, residing with Bragi (presumably the poet Bragi Boddason, ninth century) in Valhǫll; his ascent to godhood seems to be a parallel phenomenon to that of Bragi’. For arguments in defence of this view, see Lindow (1997, 104–106). On the mythology of the einherjar, see Hultgård (2011).

5 There are two additional references to Hermóðr in Old Norse literature that might be noted in passing: his name occurs as the base of a kenning for warrior in a stanza preserved in Skáldskaparmál (Faulkes 1998, 62); and he is mentioned incidentally in the context of the Æsir in Sǫgubrot af fornkonungum (Guðni Jónsson 1959, 1: 348). Neither reference displays any knowledge of narratives pertaining to Hermóðr; his name is simply used as one that apparently belonged to a god.

6 On the English origins of the relevant Scandinavian genealogies (revealed, for instance, in the nonsensical form seskef, which represents an obvious corruption of Old English se Scef ‘this Scef’), see Faulkes (1982, 99).

7 Evidence for the antiquity of Óðinn’s role in the fornaldarsǫgur and in Gesta Danorum has, in fact, been detected in the Old English poem Widsith, where a supernaturally aged traveller with an Odinic name claims to have personally visited and interacted with numerous legendary heroes of the migration period (Schlauch 1931; Neidorf 2022b). For an overview of the evidence for Woden from early medieval England, see Ryan (1963), Meaney (1966), Owen (1981, 8–22), and Pollington (2011, 145–66). Much of this evidence can be interpreted as demonstrating both the parity of Woden with Óðinn and the antiquity of traditions concerning Óðinn that are recorded in sources from the thirteenth century or later. For arguments to this effect, see Turville-Petre (1964, 72), Davidson (1964, 56 and 147), O’Donoghue (2007, 64), and Schjødt (2019).

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Notes on contributors

Leonard Neidorf

Leonard Neidorf is Professor of English at Nanjing University, China. He has published widely on Old English literature, Old Norse literature, and Germanic mythology. He is the author of The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet (Cornell University Press, 2022) and The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behaviour (Cornell University Press, 2017).