Gefjun’s Plough: Land Drawn into the Sea

“She took from the north, from Jotunheim, four oxen, which were the sons of a giant and her, and set them before the plow. Then went the plow so hard and deep that it tore up the land, and the oxen drew it westward into the sea, until it stood still in a sound. There Gefjun set the land, gave it a name and called it Seeland. And where the land had been taken away became afterward a sea, which in Sweden is now called Logrinn (the Lake, the Malar Lake in Sweden).”

“Gefjun glad / Drew from Gylfe / The excellent land, / Denmark’s increase, / So that it reeked / From the running beasts.”

Gylfaginning begins with King Gylfi of Svithjod (Sweden). In Anderson’s translation he rewards a wayfaring woman for her storytelling with as much ploughland as four oxen can plough in a day and a night. She is Gefjun, of the Æsir. She fetches four oxen from Jötunheimr, sons of a giant and of herself, and yokes them to a plough.

The plough bites so deep that it tears the land loose, and the oxen drag it west into the sea until it stops in a sound. Gefjun names the new land Selund, which Anderson writes as Seeland. The place it was taken from became water, called Lögrinn, which Anderson’s translation glosses as the Mälar lake in Sweden. Snorri then cites the old skald Bragi, whose verse says the land steamed from the running beasts and that the oxen bore four heads and eight eyes. This is a tale of a goddess outwitting a king, not an account of how any coastline formed.

Snorri tells the story twice, with differences. Anderson prints the account of Odin’s migration north from the Ynglinga saga, where Odin sends Gefjun across the sound to find new land. She comes to Gylfi, goes to Jötunheimr and bears four sons to a giant, turns them into oxen and breaks the land out into the ocean opposite Odin’s island. There she settles, and Skjöld, a son of Odin, marries her and they live at Leidre. The lake left behind is named Laage in that version, and its fjords correspond to the headlands of Seeland. Anderson notes that the two versions differ.

Gefjun is also listed among the goddesses in Gylfaginning. Anderson’s notes say she is usually taken as a goddess of agriculture, and that the origin of her name is very uncertain.