"Whence did this art, which ye call poetry, derive its beginnings?"
Such asked
Aegir, and
Bragi explained:
These were the beginnings thereof. There was a
war between the gods of the
Aesir and the
Vanir--
For strife between those who are deemed wise and powerful and independent,
and the primal forces of nature, continues endlessly, even today...
--and they appointed a meeting of
peace between them, and to
seal the peace
treaty they spat into a vat. Not wishing their
symbolic act to
perish, they formed a
man from this, and his name was
Kvasir. He possessed such
knowledge that none could question him with anything for which he did not know the
answer.
Perhaps... "What other visions did Odin see as he hanged from Yggdrasil, before the runes?"
"Are the spinnings of fate which are the Norns' unchangeable,
or may our will and troth reweave them to other destinies?"
"Are there more branches in the World Tree than the ideas of mankind in Midgard?"
Kvasir wandered the
earth, to give
instruction to men. He was invited into the abode of two
dwarves,
Fjalar and
Galarr. Completing their
plot, they
killed him, draining his
blood into two vats and a kettle. They mixed
honey with the
blood, making the
mead which has the
virtue of making anyone drinking from it a
poet or
scholar. In explanation, they informed the
Aesir that
Kvasir had
choked on his own
wisdom, when finding no one who could reach his
insight.
Now, many of the dwarves we highly valued by Odin and the other Aesir,
for their great skills of craftmanship,
having created such works as Freya's necklace Brisingamen,
and Thor's hammer Mjollnir;
but these dwarves were vicious,
and were soon confronted
by the wrath resulting from another of their crimes...
The giant
Suttungr,
enraged by
Fjalar and
Galarr's
murder of his
father Gillingr and his
mother, took the
dwarves out to
sea, setting them on a
reef which would be covered at
high tide. The
dwarves entreated
Suttungr to spare them, offering him for
reconciliation the
precious mead they had obtained.
Suttungr brought the
mead to his
home and
concealed it in a place called
Hnitbjorg, asking his
daughter Gunnlod to
guard it.
From this come the kennings
"Kvasir's Blood"
"Dwarves' Drink" and
"Ferryboat of the Dwarves"
for "poetry"...
"These seem to me to be dark sayings, to call poetry by these names. But how did the Aesir receive Suttungr's mead?"
Asked
Aegir again, and
Bragi continued:
Odin left his home and traveled to a certain place where nine
thralls were working mowing hay. He asked if any of them wished him to sharpen their
scythes, and all agreed.
Odin then took a
hone from his belt, sharpening their scythes greatly. So impressed were they by how well their scythes now cut the harvest, they asked insistently that he sell the hone to them. Odin told them he would only
sell it at a very considerable
price, but they agreed and
persisted. He then tossed the hone into the air, and the
thralls scrambled for it with such
desire that they
mortally wounded each other with their scythes.
Odin then sought a night's lodging with the dead thralls'
master,
Baugi, who was
Suttungr's
brother.
Baugi despaired for his
efforts, having found his
workers had
killed each other, declaring all
workers
hopeless. To
disguise himself,
Odin called himself
Bolverkr in
Baugi's presence, and offered to undertake the work of all nine
thralls. In return, however, he demanded as
wages one
drink of
Suttungr's
mead.
Baugi answered that he had no
control whatsoever of the
mead, that
Suttungr insisted on having it entirely to himself, but
assented to go with
Bolverkr (Odin) to try to get the mead.
Odin completed the tasks of the nine workmen over the
summer, and as
winter arrived he asked for the
pay which was
promised.
They traveled to
Suttungr's
home, and when
Baugi told his brother of the bargain, Suttungr refused to share even a
drop of his
beloved mead.
Bolverkr suggested to
Baugi they might be able to get the mead by
trickery, and Baugi readily agreed.
Odin produced an
auger called
Rati, asking
Baugi to
bore through the
rock barring them from the
cache of mead, and when the hole was bored through, Odin transformed himself into a
snake and slithered through the opening. Baugi, believing himself
deceived, thrust the
auger after Odin through the hole, but missed.
Odin continued to where
Gunnlod was at
watch guarding the
mead, and
slept with her for three
nights, after which she
consented to give him three
swallows of the
precious drink. Odin
drained the entire
cache with three massive swallows,
transforming to an
eagle for the
escape back to
Asgard.
Odin now gives the mead of
Suttungr to the
Aesir, to the
Valkyries for reviving dead
heroes upon their arrival in
Valhalla, and to all who have the
ability to
compose.
And so from Odin,
whose own name means
something between "madness" and "fury",
came poetry and more kennings for it,
Odin's Booty and Find,
his Drink and Gift,
the Drink of the Aesir.
(Paraphrased from Snorri's Prose Edda, with additional writer's commentary drawing from Norse mythology)