Álfröðull, the Elf-Beam

47. “A daughter shall Alfrödull bear, ere Fenrir shall have swallowed her. The maid shall ride, when the powers die, on her mother’s course.”

4. “Why shall I tell thee, thou young man, my mind’s great trouble? for the Alfs’ illuminator shines every day, yet not for my pleasure.”

In Vafþrúðnismál Odin asks where the sun will come from once the wolf has swallowed it. The giant answers that Álfröðull will bear a daughter before that happens, and the girl will ride her mother’s road after the gods’ end. Álfröðull here is the sun herself or her car.

In Skírnismál Freyr, sunk in longing for Gerðr, says that the “Alfs’ illuminator” shines every day and still brings him no pleasure. Thorpe renders the same word as “illuminator” there. In both poems the word is a name for the sun. Neither poem says the sun belongs to Álfheimr or is a queen of the elves.

The name is glossed as “elf-beam”, “elf-disc” or “elf-glory”, and it is both a name and a kenning, an image-word, for the sun. It is ambiguous whether it points to Sól herself or to her chariot.

Alaric Hall has suggested that the choice of álfr in the word may be partly for alliteration, since röðull alone also means sun, but that it still shows the sun and the elves were felt to belong together. He raises the possibility that álfr could be a poetic name for Freyr, which would link Freyr to the sun. This is an interpretation and not stated in the poems.