Hnitbjörg

“Suttung brought the mead home with him, and hid it in a place called Hnitbjorg. He set his daughter Gunlad to guard it.”

105. The old Jotun I sought; now I am come back: little got I there by silence; in many words I spoke to my advantage in Suttung’s halls.

106. Gunnlod gave me, on her golden seat, a draught of the precious mead; a bad recompense I afterwards made her, for her whole soul, her fervent love.

In Skáldskaparmál, as Anderson translates it, the giant Suttungr takes the mead home and hides it at Hnitbjörg, where his daughter Gunnlöð guards it. Odin sets out for Jötunheimr, works a summer for Suttungr’s brother Baugi, has a hole bored through the rock, creeps in as a worm, wins Gunnlöð’s heart and drinks the mead from its three vessels, Óðrerir, Bodn and Són, before flying off as an eagle.

Hávamál tells of the same affair without using the name. Odin speaks of speaking his way into “Suttung’s halls”, and of Gunnlöð giving him a draught of the mead on her golden seat. The poem does not say that those halls are the place Snorri calls Hnitbjörg.

The translations used here do not explain the name. Snorri also uses it in naming poetry: songcraft is called the mead of Suttungr or the liquor of Hnitbjörg, among other names for the drink.

The giant Suttungr, his daughter Gunnlöð and the stolen mead appear in both Hávamál and Snorri, with differences of detail, and the sources do not agree on every point of the story.