Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies

Glitnir

The hall of Forseti, who settles every quarrel.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

15. Glitnir is the tenth; it is on gold sustained, and eke with silver decked. There Forseti dwells throughout all time, and every strife allays.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

Grímnismál says Glitnir is the tenth dwelling, “on gold sustained” and decked with silver, and that Forseti lives there and settles every strife. In Blackwell’s translation of Gylfaginning its wall, columns and beams are of ruddy gold and its roof is of silver; other translations may describe the building differently.

  • Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 15 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ)
  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the passage on the homesteads of heaven
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

Glitnir is best known as the hall of Forseti, and most of what scholarship says concerns the god. His name probably means “the presiding one” and is related to the Icelandic word for president. Jan de Vries notes that Forseti’s link to justice rests on his name alone, since no other myth supports it, and that the line describing him may be a later addition. The Norwegian farm name Forsetlund may show that he was worshipped there.

Historical evidence

Evidence beyond the Eddas

Forseti may be linked to the Frisian god Fosite. Alcuin, Altfrid and Adam of Bremen describe a sacred island and spring tied to Fosite, which Christian missionaries defiled, with Adam placing it at Heligoland. The identification is contested, and these sources concern the god, not the hall.

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