Heimdall is the watchman of the Norse gods. He lives at Himinbjörg beside the rainbow bridge Bifröst and guards it against the mountain giants. When Ragnarök begins he blows the horn Gjallarhorn and wakes the gods, and in the battle that follows he and Loki kill each other. Snorri Sturluson adds that he needs less sleep than a bird, sees as far by night as by day, and hears wool growing on sheep. He was born of nine mothers, all of them sisters.
What do the sources actually say about Heimdall?
Snorri Sturluson's thirteenth-century Prose Edda gives the fullest surviving account of Heimdall. It also quotes poems that supply some of his stranger attributes. Other Eddic poems mention his hall, his watch and his horn. The table separates what the verse says from details supplied by Snorri's prose.
| Detail | Where it comes from | What the evidence establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Watchman of the gods at Himinbjörg, guarding Bifröst | Grímnismál 13; Gylfaginning 27 | The poem names his hall and calls him the gods' warden. Snorri describes his duty at the bridge. |
| Born of nine mothers, all sisters | Heimdallargaldr and Húsdrápa, quoted by Snorri; a possible parallel in Hyndluljóð | The quoted poems give nine mothers; Heimdallargaldr calls them sisters. The child in Hyndluljóð is unnamed. |
| The horn Gjallarhorn | Völuspá 46; Gylfaginning 27 and 51 | The poem names the horn and depicts Heimdall blowing it. Snorri says its blast reaches all worlds. |
| Hears grass and wool grow; needs less sleep than a bird | Gylfaginning 27; compare Lokasenna 48 | Snorri supplies these specific abilities. Lokasenna describes his continuous watch. |
| Gold teeth, the horse Gulltoppr, the names Hallinskíði and Vindlér | Gylfaginning 27; Skáldskaparmál 15; Grímnismál 30 | Snorri gives the attributes and names. Grímnismál names Gulltoppr among divine horses without identifying his rider. |
| Contends with Loki over Brísingamen in seal form | Skáldskaparmál 15 and the surviving Húsdrápa stanza | The stanza describes a contest at Singasteinn. Snorri supplies the seal forms and identifies the object as Brísingamen. |
| He and Loki kill each other at Ragnarök | Gylfaginning 51 | Snorri's prose states their mutual death. |
| Ancestor of humankind | The medieval prose preface to Rígsþula; Völuspá 1 | The preface identifies Ríg as Heimdall. Völuspá addresses Heimdall's offspring, often understood as humanity. |
These passages survive through medieval manuscripts, including Snorri's quotations of poems otherwise lost. A detail recorded only in his prose may preserve older tradition, but the surviving record does not always let us establish its age.
What is Gjallarhorn, and when does Heimdall blow it?
Snorri introduces the horn at the end of his description of Heimdall in Gylfaginning 27: Hann hefir lúðr þann, er Gjallarhorn heitir, ok heyrir blástr hans í alla heima. He has the horn called Gjallarhorn, and its blast is heard in all worlds.
The moment it sounds comes much later, in Gylfaginning 51, when the forces gather for Ragnarök: þá stendr upp Heimdallr ok blæss ákafliga í Gjallarhorn ok vekr upp öll goðin. Then Heimdall stands up and blows hard on Gjallarhorn and rouses all the gods.
Völuspá 46 also names Gjallarhorn and gives the scene in a few words: hátt blæss Heimdallr, horn er á lofti, Heimdall blows loud, the horn is aloft.
An earlier stanza is harder to interpret. Völuspá 27 says the seeress knows where Heimdallar hljóð lies hidden under the holy tree. The following stanza places Odin's eye in Mímir's well. Scholars disagree over whether Heimdall's hljóð refers to his horn or his hearing. Anthony Faulkes discusses the horn identification conditionally. William Sayers adopts the interpretation that Heimdall sacrificed an ear, drawing a parallel with Odin's eye.
The stanza does not narrate such a sacrifice or explain how the hidden object came to be there. The disagreement is also recorded in Kolfinna Jónatansdóttir's University of Iceland overview. An ear given up in exchange for extraordinary hearing is a scholarly reconstruction of the passage.
How can Heimdall have nine mothers?
Snorri states it without explanation in Gylfaginning 27: Hann báru at syni meyjar níu ok allar systr. Nine maidens bore him as a son, and all of them sisters. He then quotes the only surviving lines of a poem called Heimdallargaldr, spoken by Heimdall himself:
Níu em ek mœðra mögr, níu em ek systra sonr.
Nine mothers' offspring am I, nine sisters' son.
A second poem gives the same number. In Skáldskaparmál, Snorri quotes a stanza of Úlfr Uggason's Húsdrápa that calls Heimdall the son of eight mothers and one more. Snorri adds a gloss explaining that the verse makes him the son of nine mothers.
Both passages reach us through Snorri's quotations. Hyndluljóð 37 and 38, in Henry Adams Bellows' numbering, offer another possible account: nine giant women bear a powerful being at the edge of the world, and the next stanza names them. The identification of this child with Heimdall is an inference, since the poem does not name him.
The familiar suggestion that his mothers are nine waves also needs a qualification. The women's names in Hyndluljóð differ from those of Ægir's nine daughters in Skáldskaparmál 33, a problem discussed in the University of Iceland overview. None of these passages explains how nine women bear one child.
Skáldskaparmál 15 also calls Heimdall Odin's son: Hann er ok sonr Óðins. The text gives both relationships without explaining his unusual parentage.
Why is a sword called "Heimdall's head"?
Gylfaginning 27 closes with Heimdallar sverð er kallat höfuð manns. The word order is easy to misread. In Anthony Faulkes' edition, höfuð is the subject: a man's head is called "Heimdall's sword". His note on Skáldskaparmál explains the converse expression, Heimdallar höfuð heitir sverð: a sword is called "Heimdall's head".
Skáldskaparmál 15 gives a reason for the pairing: svá er sagt, at hann var lostinn mannshöfði í gegnum, it is said that he was struck through with a man's head. Snorri attributes the story to Heimdallargaldr, the lost poem that also supplied the nine mothers. Its surviving fragment does not include this episode, so we have only Snorri's brief account of it.
The reference list for parts of the body in Skáldskaparmál 85 confirms one direction of the comparison by listing "Heimdall's sword" as a poetic expression for a head.
Why is Heimdall called the white god?
The epithet appears in several passages. Gylfaginning 27 opens with Hann er kallaðr hvíti áss, he is called the white god. Skáldskaparmál 15 lists hvíta ás among the accepted ways to name him in verse. And Þrymskviða 15, where he proposes dressing Thor as a bride to get Mjölnir back, introduces him as Heimdallr, hvítastr ása, whitest of the Æsir.
These passages do not explain why he is called white or what the epithet describes. Snorri does give him gold teeth, but does not connect that feature to the epithet.
The same stanza of Þrymskviða adds a puzzle: vissi hann vel fram sem vanir aðrir, he knew the future well, as the other Vanir do. Having called him one of the Æsir, the verse appears to associate him with the Vanir too. Jónatansdóttir's overview treats this as a possible connection; the line alone does not settle his classification.
What did Heimdall and Loki fight about?
Skáldskaparmál 15 records that Heimdall contended with Loki over Brísingamen, Freyja's necklace, at Singasteinn. Snorri attributes the story to Úlfr Uggason's Húsdrápa and says the two took the shapes of seals. The surviving stanza describes the contest at Singasteinn, but the seal forms and the identification of the necklace come from Snorri's explanation.
Faulkes dates Húsdrápa to about 985. His note also cites Laxdœla saga 29, which describes the poem as treating scenes on the paneling of Óláfr pái's hall. The hall decoration is known through that literary account.
They fight again in words. In Lokasenna 47 and 48, Heimdall rebukes the drunken Loki, who answers by mocking his life as the gods' ever-wakeful watchman. The duty that makes Heimdall useful to the gods gives Loki something to taunt him about.
The last fight is the one at Ragnarök. Gylfaginning 51 states it briefly: Loki á orrostu við Heimdall, ok verðr hvárr annars bani. Loki has a battle with Heimdall, and each is the other's death.
Did Heimdall create the social classes?
Rígsþula tells how a wandering god called Ríg visits three households and fathers the ancestors of the enslaved, the farmers and the nobility. The verse names him only as Ríg.
The identification with Heimdall comes from the medieval prose preface: Svá segja menn í fornum sögum, at einnhverr af ásum, sá er Heimdallr hét, fór ferðar sinnar ok fram með sjóvarströndu nökkurri, kom at einum húsabæ ok nefndist Rígr. So men say in old stories that one of the Æsir, who was called Heimdallr, went on his way along a certain seashore, came to a farmstead and called himself Ríg.
Völuspá 1 offers a possible parallel when it addresses mögu Heimdallar, Heimdall's offspring, greater and lesser. This is often read as an address to humanity, although the identity of those addressed is debated. That reading would support a broader ancestral role for Heimdall without independently identifying him as Ríg.
From the archive
Our Norse designs include Heimdall: Guardian of the Bifröst, Tyr: Hand in the Jaws and The Funeral of Baldr. For more on the surviving texts, read Norse Gods: who they were, and who wrote them down or our article on Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn. You can find the Norse designs in the Folklore collection.
Sources
- Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, Old Norse text edited by Guðni Jónsson, chapters 27 and 51.
- Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, edited by Guðni Jónsson, chapters 15, 23, 33 and 85, including the quotation from Húsdrápa.
- Grímnismál, edited by Guðni Jónsson, stanzas 13 and 30.
- Völuspá, edited by Guðni Jónsson, stanzas 1, 27, 28 and 46.
- Þrymskviða, edited by Guðni Jónsson, stanza 15.
- Lokasenna, translated by Henry Adams Bellows, 1923, stanzas 47 and 48.
- Rígsþula, edited by Guðni Jónsson, the poem and its medieval prose preface.
- Hyndluljóð, translated by Henry Adams Bellows, 1923, stanzas 37 to 39 in his numbering. The nine mothers' child is unnamed.
- Anthony Faulkes, editor, Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, second edition, Viking Society, 2005, notes on pp. 61 and 64; Edda: Skáldskaparmál, volume 1, 1998, corrected reprint 2007, notes on pp. 157 and 167.
- William Sayers, "Irish Perspectives on Heimdallr", Alvíssmál 2 (1993), pp. 3 to 30, especially pp. 6 and 7 for the head/sword expressions and the ear-sacrifice interpretation.
- Kolfinna Jónatansdóttir, University of Iceland overview of Heimdall, November 16, 2012, for discussion of disputed interpretations.