Mead of Poetry- Norse ArtifactArtifact"Gift of Odin"

The Blood of Kvasir

The mead begins with Kvasir. When the Æsir and Vanir sealed their peace treaty at the end of their war, each god spat into a communal vessel. From this mingled saliva Kvasir was formed, a being of such penetrating wisdom that no question could be put to him that he could not answer. He traveled the worlds, giving his knowledge freely to all who asked.

His journey brought him to the dwelling of two dwarves named Fjalar and Galar. They murdered Kvasir and drained his blood into two vats called Són and Boðn and a kettle called Óðrerir. They mixed honey with the blood and brewed a mead with the power to make anyone who drank it a poet or a scholar. When the gods inquired about Kvasir's fate, Fjalar and Galar claimed he had suffocated in his own intelligence because no one was learned enough to compete with him in knowledge.

Suttungr's Vengeance

Fjalar and Galar's treachery did not end with Kvasir. They invited the giant Gillingr to their home and drowned him at sea by overturning his boat. When Gillingr's wife wept at the news, one of the dwarves dropped a millstone on her head from above a doorway.

Gillingr's son Suttungr came seeking vengeance. He seized the two dwarves and stranded them on a tidal skerry that would be submerged at high tide. Fjalar and Galar begged for mercy and offered the Mead of Poetry as ransom for their lives. Suttungr accepted and carried the three vessels to the mountain Hnitbjörg, where he set his daughter Gunnlöð to guard them deep inside the rock.

Odin's Quest

Odin learned of the mead's existence and resolved to obtain it. He traveled to Jötunheim disguised as a wanderer calling himself Bölverk, "Evil-Worker." He came upon nine thralls working in the fields of Suttungr's brother Baugi. Odin sharpened their scythes with a whetstone so fine that each thrall wanted to buy it. He threw the whetstone into the air and the thralls, fighting over it, cut each other's throats with their newly sharpened scythes. All nine dead over a single stone.

Odin then offered to do the work of all nine thralls for Baugi over the summer, in exchange for a single drink of Suttungr's mead. Baugi agreed but warned that Suttungr would never share the treasure. After the summer's labor, Baugi brought Odin to Suttungr, who flatly refused. Odin then persuaded Baugi to help him bore through the mountain Hnitbjörg using an auger called Rati.

Inside the Mountain

When Baugi finished boring, Odin blew into the hole. Chips flew back at him: Baugi had not bored all the way through. Odin made him drill again, and the second time the chips flew inward. Odin transformed into a serpent and slithered through the narrow tunnel into the mountain's interior. Baugi stabbed at him with the auger but missed.

Inside, Odin found Gunnlöð guarding the three vessels alone in the dark heart of the mountain. He lay with her for three nights, and in return she allowed him three draughts of the mead, one from each vessel. With three swallows, Odin drained Són, Boðn, and Óðrerir completely.

In the Hávamál, Odin narrates this episode himself. He speaks of Gunnlöð giving him a drink on her golden throne, and of the mead flowing upward to the world of men. He expresses doubt about whether he would have returned alive without her aid, and he admits he treated her poorly for her generosity. Gunnlöð is left alone in the hollow mountain, and her fate is never mentioned again.

The Eagle Flight

Odin transformed into an eagle and flew from the mountain toward Asgard. Suttungr, discovering the theft, took eagle form and pursued him across the sky.

The Æsir, seeing Odin approach with Suttungr close behind, set out vats in the courtyard. Odin regurgitated the mead into the vats just as he cleared the walls. In his desperate haste, some mead fell from his rear end during flight. This inferior portion, called the "poetaster's share" (skáldfifl), fell to Midgard and is the portion available to bad poets. Anyone can claim it; no one need ask permission. The true mead, delivered safely to the Æsir, became the source of genuine verse. The skalds called poetry "Kvasir's blood" and "cargo of the eagle's beak," each kenning a marker of what it cost.