Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies

Alfheim (Álfheimr)

The world of the elves, given to the god Freyr as a gift.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

5. Ydalir it is called, where Ullr has himself a dwelling made. Alfheim the gods to Frey gave in days of yore for a tooth-gift.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

Grímnismál says the gods gave Álfheimr to Freyr in days of old as a tooth-gift, the present given to a child on its first tooth. Gylfaginning lists Álfheimr among the homesteads of heaven and says the “light elves” live there, while the “dark elves” live under the earth and differ from them still more in their ways than in their looks.

Neither source says what the place looks like.

  • Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 5 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ)
  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the passage on the homesteads of heaven (the light and dark elves)
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The name joins álfr, elf, with heimr, home or world, and is usually rendered Home of the Elves; a variant, Ljósálfheimr, means home of the light elves. Wikipedia’s article says the place is named only twice in the old texts, and the two accounts do not match. In Grímnismál it is one of twelve divine dwellings and was given to Freyr as a tooth-gift long ago, with no mention of elves living there. In Gylfaginning it is a heavenly abode of the light elves, who are described as fairer than the sun, while dark elves live underground.

Wikipedia’s article does not try to reconcile the two settings.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

The Poetic Edda mentions Álfheimr in Grímnismál, stanza 5 in Thorpe’s numbering, where the gods give it to Freyr as a tooth-gift. Snorri, in Gylfaginning, says the light elves live in Álfheimr while the dark elves live underground. The poem gives the place and its owner; the prose adds the division between elf kinds. The two texts do not describe the place beyond this.

Snorri’s Prose Edda survives in several medieval manuscripts, chiefly Codex Regius, Codex Wormianus and the Uppsala manuscript, so the Gylfaginning accounts rest on those copies rather than on a single text.