Asgard

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This article is about the location in Nordic Mythology. For other uses, see Asgard (disambiguation).

In

Nordic mythology, Asgard (Old Norse: Ásgarðr [ˈɑːsˌɡɑrðz̠]; "enclosure of the Æsir") is a location associated with the gods. It appears in a multitude of Old Norse sagas and mythological texts.[1] It is described as the fortified home of the Æsir gods, often associated with gold imagery. Many of the best-known Nordic gods are Æsir or live in Asgard such as Odin, Thor, Loki, and Baldr
.

Etymology

The word Ásgarðr is a

Old Norse: āss ("god") and garðr ("enclosure").[1] Possible anglicisations include: Ásgarthr, Ásgard, Ásegard, Ásgardr, Asgardr, Ásgarth, Asgarth, Esageard, and Ásgardhr.[2]

Attestations

The Poetic Edda

Asgard is named twice in

jötnar would soon be living in Asgard.[5]

Álfheim, Nóatún and Valhall, which some scholars have identified as being in Asgard. It is to be noted, however, that Asgard is not mentioned at any point in the poem.[7][8] Furthermore, Völuspá references Iðavöllr, one of the most common meeting places of Æsir gods, which in Gylfaginning, Snorri locates in the centre of Asgard.[9][10]

The Prose Edda

Prologue

The

euhemeristic prologue portrays the Æsir gods as people that travelled from the East to northern territories.[11] According to Snorri, Asgard represented the town of Troy before Greek warriors overtook it. After the defeat, Trojans moved to northern Europe, where they became a dominant group due to their "advanced technologies and culture".[11] Eventually, other tribes began to perceive the Trojans and their leader Trór (Thor in Old Norse) as gods.[1]

Gylfaginning

In Gylfaginning, Snorri Sturluson describes how during the creation of the world, the gods made the earth and surrounded it with the sea. They made the sky from the skull of Ymir and settled the jötnar on the shores of the earth. They set down the brows of Ymir, forming Midgard, and in the centre of the world they built Asgard, which he identifies as Troy:[12]

Old Norse text[13] Brodeur translation[14]

Þar næst gerðu þeir sér borg í miðjum heimi, er kölluð er Ásgarðr. Þat köllum vér Trója. Þar byggðu goðin ok ættir þeira, ok gerðust þaðan af mörg tíðendi ok greinir bæði á jörðu ok í lofti. Þar er einn staðr, er

Óðinn
settist þar í hásæti, þá sá hann of alla heima ok hvers manns athæfi ok vissi alla hluti, þá er hann sá.

Next they made for themselves in the middle of the world a city which is called Ásgard; men call it Troy. There dwelt the gods and their kindred; and many tidings and tales of it have come to pass both on earth and aloft. There is one abode called

Hlidskjálf, and when Allfather
sat in the high-seat there, he looked out over the whole world and saw every man's acts, and knew all things which he saw.

After Asgard is made, the gods then built a

chess pieces that the Æsir had once owned.[16]

Later, the section describes how an unnamed

Mjöllnir, before any harm to the gods is done.[18] The chapter does not explicitly name Asgard as the fortress but they are commonly identified by scholars.[19]

In Gylfaginning, the central cosmic tree Yggdrasil is described as having three roots that hold it up; one of these goes to the Æsir, which has been interpreted as meaning Asgard. In Grímnismál, this root instead reaches over the realm of men.[20][21] The bridge Bifröst is told to span from the heavens to the earth and over it the Æsir cross each day to hold council beneath Yggdrasil at the Urðarbrunnr. Based on this, Bifröst is commonly interpreted as the bridge to Asgard.[22]

Skáldskaparmál

Asgard is mentioned briefly throughout

Old Norse: verjandi Ásgarðs).[24][25]

Ynglinga Saga

In the

euhemerised Odin dies, the account states that the Swedes believed he had returned to Asgard and would live there forever.[26]

Interpretation and discussion

Cosmology in Old Nordic religion is presented in a vague and often contradictory manner when viewed from a naturalistic standpoint. Snorri places Asgard in the centre of the world, surrounded by Midgard and then the lands inhabited by jötnar, all of which are finally encircled by the sea. He also locates the homes of the gods in the heavens. This had led to the proposition of a system of concentric circles, centred on Asgard or Yggdrasil, and sometimes with a vertical axis, leading upwards towards the heavens. There is debate between scholars over whether the gods were conceived of as living in the heavens, with some aligning their views with Snorri, and others proposing that he at times presents the system in a Christian framework and that this organisation is not seen in either Eddic or

skaldic poetry. The concept of attempting to create a spatial cosmological model has itself been criticised by scholars who argue that the oral traditions did not form a naturalistic, structured system that aimed to be internally geographically consistent. An alternative proposal is that the world should be conceived of as a number of realms connected by passages that cannot be typically traversed. This would explain how Asgard can be located both to the east and west of the realm of men, over the sea and over Bifröst.[27]

It has been noted that the tendency to link Asgard to Troy is part of a wider European cultural practice of claiming Trojan origins for one's culture, first seen in the Aeneid and also featuring in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae for the founding of Britain.[28]

Depictions in popular culture

Thor first appeared in the Marvel Universe within comic series Journey into Mystery in the issues #83 during August 1962. Following this release, he becomes one of the central figures in the comics along with Loki and Odin. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor and Loki make their first appearance together in the 2011 film Thor. After that, Thor becomes a regular character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reappears in several films, including the Avengers series. Asgard becomes the central element of the film Thor: Ragnarok, where it is destroyed following the Old Norse mythos. These and other Norse mythology elements also appear in video games, TV series, and books based in and on the Marvel Universe, although these depictions do not closely follow historical sources.[citation needed]

Asgard is an explorable realm in the video game God of War: Ragnarök, a sequel to 2018's Norse-themed God of War.[29]

In the Assassin's Creed Valhalla video game, Asgard is featured as part of a "vision quest".[30]

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b c Lindow 2002.
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, Asgard.
  3. ^ a b Simek 2008, p. 20.
  4. ^ Orchard 2011, p. 77, Hymiskvida: The song of Hymir, stanza 7.
  5. ^ a b Bellows 1923, Þrymskviða, stanza 17.
  6. ^ Simek 2008, p. 167-169.
  7. ^ Simek 2008, pp. 8, 235, 329.
  8. ^ Mattioli 2018, p. 102.
  9. ^ Boult 1948.
  10. ^ a b c Sturluson 2018, Gylfaginning, chapter 14.
  11. ^ a b Sturluson & Byock 2005.
  12. ^ Sturluson 2018, Gylfaginning, chapter 8, 9.
  13. ^ Gylfaginning (ON), Chapter 9.
  14. ^ Sturluson 2018, Gylfaginning, chapter 9.
  15. ^ Simek 2008, p. 112.
  16. ^ Sturluson 2018, Gylfaginning, chapter 53.
  17. ^ Fontenrose 1983.
  18. ^ Sturluson 2018, Gylfaginning, chapter 42.
  19. ^ Simek 2008, p. 108.
  20. ^ Crawford 2015.
  21. ^ Simek 2008, p. 375.
  22. ^ Simek 2008, p. 36.
  23. ^ Simek 2008, p. 113.
  24. ^ Sturluson 2018, 11. Kennings for Thor.
  25. ^ Skáldskaparmál, Chapter 11.
  26. ^ Laing 1961, pp. 8–13.
  27. ^ Heide 2014, pp. 103–104, 125–127.
  28. ^ Fontenrose 1983, p. 56.
  29. ^ God Of War Interview.
  30. ^ PC Games AC.

Bibliography

Primary

  • Bellows, Henry Adams, ed. (1923). "Lays of the Gods: Voluspo". The Poetic Edda. Scandinavian classics, vols. 21, 22. Translated by Bellows, Henry Adams. New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation (published 1926). p. 3. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  • Crawford, Jackson (2015). The Poetic Edda : stories of the Norse Gods and heroes. Chicago: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 12–14, 47–58, 68, 95.
    OCLC 905921490
    .
  • Laing, Samuel (1961). Heimskringla. Part two, Sagas of the Norse Kings. London: Dent.
    ISBN 0460008471
    .
  • ISBN 9780141393728
    .
  • Sturluson, Snorri; Byock, Jesse L. (2005). The prose Edda: Norse mythology. London: Penguin Classics. pp. 30–48, 55–78, 80–83, 93–94, 97.
    OCLC 59352542
    .
  • Sturluson, Snorri (2018). The Prose Edda. Translated by Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. Franklin Classics Trade Press.
    ISBN 9780344335013
    .
  • "Gylfaginning (Old Norse)". heimskringla.no. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  • "Skaldskáparmál (Old Norse)". heimskringla.no. Retrieved 8 October 2022.

Secondary

External links

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