Yggdrasil · Giants and Dwarves

Alvíss: The Dwarf Who Knew Too Much to Leave

The dwarf who claims a bride in Alvíssmál and is questioned by Thor on the words for things until dawn.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

3. Alvis I am named, beneath the earth I dwell, under the rock I own a place. The lord of chariots I am come to visit. A promise once confirmed let no one break.

4. I will break it; for o’er the maid I have, as father, greatest power. I was from home when the promise was given thee. Among the gods I the sole giver am.

36. In one breast I have never found more ancient lore. By great wiles thou hast, I tell thee, been deluded. Thou art above ground, dwarf! at dawn; already in the hall the sun is shining!

  • Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Alvíssmál (Thorpe: The Lay of the Dwarf Alvis), stanzas 3, 4 and 36 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Myth and literature

What the sources say

Alvíssmál is a dialogue. The dwarf Alvíss arrives to claim a bride promised to him. Thor, under the name Vingþórr, asks who he is and says he was away from home when the promise was made. The bride is not named in the poem; Thorpe’s footnote gives her as Þrúðr, Thor’s daughter, citing Skáldskaparmál.

Thor says the dwarf may have the maiden if he can answer what Thor asks about every world. Alvíss says he has travelled all nine. Thor asks thirteen questions, from the earth and the sun to the sea, the night and beer. Alvíss gives the word men use and those of the gods, Vanir, giants, elves and dwarfs. Our entry on what the elves call things looks at the elves’ words.

In the last stanza Thor says he has never found such ancient lore, that the dwarf has been deceived by cunning, and that it is dawn and the sun shines in the hall. The stanza does not mention stone or say what becomes of Alvíss. His home is given only as under the earth; no settlement is named.

Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The name Alvíss is glossed in Thorpe’s edition as “All-wise”, which suits a poem built on his knowledge. He is a dwarf, one of the groups the poem sets beside the gods, the Vanir, giants and elves, each with its own words for things.

Thorpe notes that the promise to the dwarf seems to allude to a story that has been lost, so why the maiden was promised to him is not known. The poem is mostly a run of paired questions and answers, and its interest is in the vocabulary rather than in the dwarf’s own story. The elves’ words have their own entry here, and the dwarfs’ lodgings are treated on the Nidavellir page.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

Alvíss appears in the poem Alvíssmál, called “The Lay of the Dwarf Alvis” in Thorpe’s edition. He is the speaker in the dialogue, so the whole poem, thirty-six stanzas in Thorpe’s numbering, is the evidence for him. Thorpe’s glossary lists the name, and his footnote on the bride refers to Skáldskaparmál; that footnote is an editor’s remark and the prose is not quoted here.

The poem gives his home only as under the earth, and no settlement is named. No archaeological or pictorial evidence is cited for him on this site.