Menglod- Norse GodDeity"Joy of Necklaces"

The Fortress on Lyfjaberg

Menglöð sat enthroned on the healing mountain Lyfjaberg, behind walls called Gastropnir that were forged from the limbs of the clay giant Leirbrimir. Flame ringed the fortress. Two hounds, Gífr and Geri, kept the gate, and the giant Fjölsviðr stood watch. Above it all perched the rooster Viðófnir in the branches of the great tree Mimámeiðr. Nine maidens attended Menglöð on the mountaintop, among them one named Eir, who shares her name with a goddess of healing counted among the Ásynjur.

No one could pass the gate unless they were fated to. Menglöð waited for one man. She had waited a long time.

Svipdag at the Gates

Before he ever reached Lyfjaberg, Svipdag went to his mother's grave. Gróa was dead, but he called her up and she came. In the Grógaldr, she chants nine protective spells over her son: against harm on the road, against fetters, against drowning in rivers, against enemies. Then she sank back into the earth and Svipdag walked on alone.

He arrived at the fortress and found Fjölsviðr blocking the way. What followed, preserved in the Fjölsvinnsmál, was a riddling exchange. Svipdag asked the name of every wonder he could see: the walls, the hounds, the tree, the rooster, the hall. Fjölsviðr answered each question but would not open the gate. Only one man could enter, and Fjölsviðr did not yet know who stood before him.

Svipdag gave his name. Fjölsviðr recognized it.

Menglöð came down from her throne. She crossed the courtyard and opened the gates herself, and told him she had sat on Lyfjaberg waiting for him day after day. The poem ends there, with the two of them standing in the open gate. Her name means "necklace-glad," a word that recalls Freyja's Brísingamen, though the poem itself never calls her Freyja.