Glaðsheimr

8. Gladsheim the fifth is named, there the golden-bright Valhall stands spacious, there Hropt selects each day those men who die by weapons.

Their first work was to erect a court or hall wherein are twelve seats for themselves, besides the throne which is occupied by All-father. This hall is the largest and most magnificent in the universe, being resplendent on all sides, both within and without, with the finest gold. Its name is Gladsheim.

Grímnismál names Glaðsheimr as the fifth of the gods’ dwellings and puts Valhöll inside it: the poem says that “the golden-bright Valhall” stands there, and that Hropt picks out each day the men who die by weapons. In this poem Glaðsheimr is the place, and Valhöll the hall within it.

Gylfaginning uses the name for something different. Snorri has the gods build, on the plain of Iðavöllr, a court or hall with twelve seats for the gods and a throne for the All-father. He calls it the largest and finest hall in the world, gold within and without, and says its name is Glaðsheimr. A separate hall, Vingólf, is built for the goddesses. So the poem has Valhöll standing in Glaðsheimr, while Snorri describes Glaðsheimr itself as the gods’ hall of judgment.

The name is usually read as “home of gladness”, from glaðr, “glad, bright”, and heimr, “home”. The Norroena edition’s glossary glosses it as “the abode of gladness or bliss”.

In Grímnismál it is the fifth of the dwellings the speaker lists, after Sökkvabekkr and before Þrymheimr, and it is where Valhöll, the hall of the chosen slain, stands. Valhöll gets its own treatment elsewhere on this site. The poem and Snorri use the name differently, as noted above, and the texts themselves do not reconcile them.