Angrboda- Norse GiantGiant"Mother of Monsters"

The Three Children

In Jötunheim, Angrboða bore Loki three children. Snorri writes in Gylfaginning that when the gods learned of these offspring, prophecy told them nothing good would come from a brood whose mother and father were both what they were. Odin sent gods to seize the children and bring them to Asgard. Jörmungandr he cast into the ocean, where the serpent grew until it encircled the world. Hel he sent to Niflheim to rule the dead. Fenrir they kept in Asgard and tried to raise, until his growth forced them to bind him with the fetter Gleipnir, at the cost of Týr's right hand.

All three would return at Ragnarök. Fenrir would devour Odin. Jörmungandr would poison Thor. Hel's legions would march against the Æsir. The grief Angrboða's name promised, her children delivered.

The Burned Heart

Hyndluljóð 41 tells a stranger version of the brood's origin. Loki found the half-burned heart of a wicked woman in a linden-wood fire and ate it. From this he became pregnant with monstrous offspring. The wicked woman is understood to be Angrboða. The stanza adds that from this act all the witches on earth descend, making her not only the mother of three specific monsters but the source of every flagd in the world.

The Ironwood

Völuspá 40 describes an old woman sitting in the Ironwood, a dark forest east of Midgard, nurturing the offspring of Fenrir. Among the wolves she raises is Mánagarmr, who will gorge on the flesh of the dead and stain the skies with blood. The wolves Sköll and Hati, who chase the sun and moon across the sky each day, come from this same brood. The old woman in the forest is never named in the stanza, but her work is clear: she sits among the trees, feeding wolves that will one day swallow the light.