Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies
Fensalir
The home of the goddess Frigg, named in Völuspá and Gylfaginning.
In Thorpe’s translation
37. From that shrub was made, as to me it seemed, a deadly, noxious dart. Hödr shot it forth; but Frigg bewailed, in Fensalir, Valhall’s calamity. Understand ye yet, or what?
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völuspá, stanza 37 (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).
In Blackwell’s translation
The first," replied Har, "is Frigga, who has a magnificent mansion called Fensalir.
- I. A. Blackwell (translator), The Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson (the Prose Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Gylfaginning, the list of goddesses (Blackwell’s translation) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
What the sources say
Völuspá mentions Fensalir only in passing. In the story of the mistletoe, Höðr shoots the deadly dart and Frigg mourns Valhöll’s calamity in Fensalir. The seeress does not describe the place.
Gylfaginning names Fensalir twice. In the list of goddesses it is the “magnificent mansion” of Frigg. In the story of Baldr, Loki takes the shape of a woman and goes to Fensalir, where Frigg asks what the gods are doing at their meeting and tells him she has taken an oath from all things not to hurt Baldr. Both sources tie Fensalir to Frigg and to Baldr’s death.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanza 37
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), Gylfaginning
Names and background
The name is read as “fen halls” or “marsh halls”: the Norroena glossary gives “Fen-saloon” from fen, “fen”, and salr, “hall”, and adds that fen may also stand for the watery deep or the sea. Which meaning the poet intended is not known.
Frigg is Odin’s wife in both sources. Her hall is hardly described; the name is attached mainly to one story, the death of Baldr.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanza 37
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), Gylfaginning
Where the sources attest it
Fensalir is named in Völuspá, stanza 37 in Thorpe’s numbering (stanza 34 in some other editions), and twice in Snorri’s Gylfaginning. Both are medieval Icelandic texts.
No archaeological or pictorial evidence for such a place is known. Snorri’s Gylfaginning is a thirteenth-century work, and the poems it quotes are older than the manuscripts that carry them.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanza 37
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), Gylfaginning