Bilskirnir- Norse LocationLocation · Landmark"Thor's Hall"
Titles & Epithets
Description
Named for the crack of lightning, Bilskirnir rises in Þrúðheimr with 540 rooms — the greatest roofed hall in all the worlds, where Thor dwells with his household amid the thunder.
Mythology & Lore
The Greatest of Roofed Halls
Odin, bound between fires in the hall of the giant Geirröðr and speaking as Grímnir, names the halls of the gods one by one. When he reaches his son's dwelling, he stops to count: "Five hundred floors and forty more / I think Bilskirnir has with its turnings; / of those halls which I know to be roofed, / my son's I know to be the greatest."
The name means something like "lightning-crack," from Old Norse bil (a brief interval) and skirna (to shine). The hall stands in Þrúðheimr, Thor's own realm. Snorri's Gylfaginning gives Valhalla 540 doors, matching Bilskirnir's 540 rooms, though the two halls serve different purposes: one houses a god's household, the other an army of the dead.
No myth is set inside Bilskirnir. It exists in a single stanza, named and numbered and called the greatest. That is all the sources give it.
Relationships
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