Yggdrasil · Cold and the Dead

Gjöll (The River)

A river of the underworld, nearest the gate of the abode of death.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

28. Vina one is called, a second Vegsvin, a third Thiodnuma; Nyt and Nön and Hrön, Slid and Hrid, Sylg and Ylg, Vîd and Vân, Vönd and Strönd, Gioll and Leipt; these (two) fall near to men, but fall hence to Hel.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

Gylfaginning says the spring Hvergelmir lies in the middle of Niflheim and twelve rivers flow from it, of which Gjöll is the nearest to the gate of the abode of death. Grímnismál lists Gjöll among a long list of rivers, and in Thorpe’s translation Gjöll and Leipt fall near the dwellings of men, then flow down to Hel.

The map shows it as a marker on the approach to Hel, not as a drawn river. The sources say what it is near, not its course.

  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the creation passage on Niflheim and Hvergelmir
  • Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 28 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ)
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The river Gjöll, in Old Norse Gjǫll, is said to separate the living from the dead. Its name has been translated as noisy, and Wikipedia’s article offers no further etymology. It is counted among the eleven rivers associated with the Élivágar, which flowed through Ginnungagap in primordial times.

The same name is also given to the boulder to which Fenrir is bound, so a reader meeting the word needs to check which Gjöll is meant. Our main account comes from Snorri's Edda, which speaks of the river's source in Hvergelmir and its course to the underworld, and mentions a bridge, Gjallarbrú, guarded by Móðguðr.

Commentators set the river beside the Greek Styx and the Hindu Vaitarani as comparable boundary rivers of the dead.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

Gjöll is a river near the gates of Hel in Snorri’s Gylfaginning. A bridge over it, thatched with gold, is guarded by the maiden Móðguðr, and Hermóðr crosses it on his ride to Hel. A river of the same name also appears in a list of rivers in Grímnismál stanza 28 (Bellows’s numbering, spelled Gjol), among those said to flow among men. Bellows’s note on that stanza discusses Leipt, not Gjöll.

The poem only lists the river by name, while Snorri places it on the road to the dead. No pictorial or archaeological evidence is cited.