Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies
Fulla: Trusted with Frigg’s Counsel
A maiden goddess in Frigg’s service who carries her chest and shoes and knows her secrets.
In Anderson’s translation
“The fifth is Fulla, who is also a may, she wears her hair flowing and has a golden ribbon about her head; she carries Frigg’s chest, takes care of her shoes and knows her secrets.”
- Rasmus B. Anderson, The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda (opens in a new tab) (1897), Gylfaginning, the list of the goddesses (Anderson’s translation) Rights: Public domain. Public domain; Project Gutenberg #18947.
What the sources say
Gylfaginning describes Fulla as a maiden who wears her hair loose with a gold band on her head. She carries Frigg’s chest, looks after her shoes and knows her secrets. The prose that introduces the poem Grímnismál shows her in action: Frigg sends her to warn King Geirröðr that a dangerous visitor is coming, and to say that no dog will attack him. In the account of Baldr’s death in Gylfaginning, Nanna sends Frigg a kerchief and sends Fulla a ring.
In all three places she is Frigg’s close servant. The sources do not give her a home or a family.
- Rasmus B. Anderson, The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda (opens in a new tab) (1897), Gylfaginning, the list of the goddesses (Anderson’s translation) Rights: Public domain. Public domain; Project Gutenberg #18947.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Prose introduction to Grímnismál (Thorpe’s translation) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Names and background
An older glossary connects the name with the Old Norse fullr, meaning full, and renders it as abundance. Snorri does not give a meaning, so this is a scholar’s reading.
Skáldskaparmál uses her name in a kenning: gold may be called “Fulla’s head-gear”, which fits the golden band Gylfaginning gives her. That is a poetic expression, not an extra story about her.
- Rasmus B. Anderson, The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda (opens in a new tab) (1897), Skáldskaparmál, kennings for gold Rights: Public domain. Public domain; Project Gutenberg #18947.
Where the sources attest it
Fulla is named in Gylfaginning, in the prose before Grímnismál in the Elder Edda, in Gylfaginning’s account of Baldr’s funeral, and in a kenning in Skáldskaparmál. The translations used here are Anderson’s of 1897 for Snorri and Thorpe’s for the poem’s prose.
No archaeological or pictorial evidence for her is cited here.
- Rasmus B. Anderson, The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda (opens in a new tab) (1897), Gylfaginning, the list of the goddesses (Anderson’s translation) Rights: Public domain. Public domain; Project Gutenberg #18947.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Prose introduction to Grímnismál Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).