Draupnir: Wealth That Multiplies

“Thereupon he laid gold in the furnace, and requested Brok to blow, and not to stop plying the bellows before he came back. He went out; but then came the fly and lighted on his neck and stung him still worse; but he continued to work the bellows until the smith took out of the furnace the gold ring called Draupner.”

“He gave to Odin the ring, saying that every ninth night eight other rings as heavy as it would drop from it;”

“Odin laid on the funeral-pile his gold ring, Draupner, which had the property of producing, every ninth night, eight gold rings of equal weight.”

In Skáldskaparmál, Loki has cut off Sif’s hair and must have new hair made by dwarfs. He then bets his head with the dwarf Brok that Brok’s brother Sindre cannot make three more treasures as good. Sindre works in the smithy while Brok blows the bellows, and a fly stings Brok to make him stop. The second treasure to come from the furnace is the gold ring Draupner. Brok gives it to Odin, with the promise that every ninth night eight rings as heavy as itself will drop from it.

In Gylfaginning Odin lays the ring on Baldr’s funeral pile. When the god Hermóðr rides to Hel, Baldr sends it back to Odin as a keepsake (see Baldr and Nanna in Hel). The source says no more about its later history.

Thorpe’s glossary derives the name from a verb meaning to droop or one meaning to drip, which fits a ring that “drops” other rings. This is a gloss, not a settled reading.

The name Draupnir also appears in Völuspá’s list of dwarfs, in stanza 15 of Thorpe’s numbering, beside Dolgthrasir and others. The poem does not link that dwarf to the ring.

It is not Andvari’s ring (see Andvari and Andvarafors), which belongs to a different tale. This entry is listed under Nidavellir because dwarfs made the ring; the sources do not say that Nidavellir was the place of the smithy.