Английская Википедия:Hyrrokkin
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:For
Hyrrokkin (Old Norse: Шаблон:IPA-non) is a female jötunn in Norse mythology. According to 13th-century poet Snorri Sturluson, she launched the largest of all ships at Baldr's funeral after the Æsir gods were unable to budge the vessel.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Hyrrokkin was a relatively important figure in the last decades of paganism in Iceland.Шаблон:Sfn She appears to be depicted on one of the DR 284 stones from the Hunnestad Monument near Marsvinsholm, Sweden.[1][2]
Name
The Old Norse name Hyrrokkin has been translated as 'fire-withered' or 'fire-steamer'.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn According to linguist Jan de Vries, it is a compound formed with the root hyr- ('fire') attached to hrokkinn ('curly; wrinkle').Шаблон:Sfn Scholar John Lindow has proposed the translation 'fire-smoked', perhaps referring to a dark, shrivelled appearance.Шаблон:Sfn
Attestations
Prose Edda
It is told in Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning that at Baldr's funeral his wife Nanna died of grief and was placed alongside him on his pyre, thus joining her husband in Hel. Hringhorni, Baldr's ship, was the largest of all such vessels and was to serve as the god's funeral ship. No one, however, could seem to launch the boat out to sea.
The gods then enlisted the help of Hyrrokkin, who came from Jötunheimr, arriving on a giant wolf with vipers as reins. When she dismounted, Odin summoned four berserkers to look after the animal but they were unable to control it without first rendering it unconscious. With her seismic strength, the giantess rolled the boat into the water. This caused the earth to quake and the rollers to set on fire, which angered Thor. He was about to kill Hyrrokkin with his hammer Mjöllnir, but the other gods insisted that he spare her.
She is also mentioned in a list of troll women by an anonymous skald:[3] <poem> Gjölp, Hyrrokkin, Hengikepta, Gneip ok Gnepja, Geysa, Hála, Hörn ok Hrúga, Harðgreip, Forað, Hryðja, Hveðra ok Hölgabrúðr. </poem>
Skaldic poetry
The late 10th-century skald Þorbjörn dísarskáld, in two preserved fragments of the Skáldskaparmál (4) addressed directly to Thor, mentions Hyrrokkin among the jötnar killed by the thunder-god at Baldur's funeral:Шаблон:Sfn
| <poem>
Ball í Keilu kolli, Kjallandi brauzt þú alla, áðr draptu Lút ok Leiða, léztu dreyra Búseyru; heftir þú Hengjankjöftu, Hyrrokkin dó fyrri; þó var snemr in sáma Svívör numin lífi. </poem> Guðni Jónsson's edition[4] |
<poem>
Thou didst smite the head of Keila, Smash Kjallandi altogether, Ere thou slewest Lútr and Leidi, Didst spill the blood of Búseyra; Didst hold back Hengjankjapta, Hyrrokkin died before; Yet sooner in like fashion Svívör from life was taken. </poem> Brodeur's translation (1923)[5] |
<poem>[Mjöllnir] struck on Keila's skull,
Kjallandi you battered in full; Lút and Leida you'd already killed, Búseyra's blood you let flow; Hengjankjapta you finished off, Hyrrokkin died at an earlier stage, and similarly Svívör, earlier still, was likewise deprived of her life. </poem> Andy Orchard's translation (1997)Шаблон:Sfn |
The poem Húsdrápa ('House-Lay'), composed by Úlfr Uggason around 985 AD in western Iceland and partially preserved in the Prose Edda, also appears to refer to Hyrrokkin at Baldr's funeral: "The very powerful Hild of the mountains [giantess]Шаблон:Efn caused the sea-Sleipnir [ship] to lumber forward, but the wielders of the helmet flames [warriors] of Hropt [Odin] felled her mount."Шаблон:Sfn
In popular culture
Hyrokkin is featured in the 2020 video game, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, during the missions taking place in Jötunheimr. The missions being merely vision interpretations of the fictional precursor race, the Isu's history, an equivalence is made to Juno, who was mentioned in Assassin's Creed II but made her first appearance in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
See also
- Snake-witch stone, a picture stone depicting a female grasping two snakes
References
Footnotes
Works cited
External links
