Yggdrasil · Described Without a Place on the Map

Hræsvelgr: Wings at the Edge of Heaven

A giant in eagle’s form who sits at the end of heaven; the wind is said to come from his wings.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

36. Tell me ninthly, since thou art called wise, and if thou knowest, Vafthrûdnir! whence the wind comes, that over ocean passes, itself invisible to man?

37. Hraesvelg he is called, who at the end of heaven sits, a Jötun in an eagle’s plumage: from his wings comes, it is said, the wind, that over all men passes.

  • Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Vafþrúðnismál (Thorpe: The Lay of Vafthrudnir), stanzas 36–37 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Myth and literature

What the sources say

In Vafþrúðnismál, Odin, travelling as Gagnráðr, tests the giant Vafþrúðnir with questions. The ninth is where the wind comes from. Vafþrúðnir answers that Hræsvelgr sits at the end of heaven, a giant in an eagle’s plumage, and that the wind that passes over men comes from his wings.

Gylfaginning gives a closely matching account in Blackwell’s translation. Gangleri asks where the wind comes from, and Hár answers that a giant called Hræsvelgur sits at the northern extremity of the heavens, clad in eagles’ plumes, and that when he spreads his wings for flight the winds arise from under them. The poem says “the end of heaven” without a direction; Snorri says the north. Snorri appears to draw on the poem here.

Neither text names him as the eagle in the branches of Yggdrasill. Gylfaginning describes that eagle separately, as one that knows many things. Our entry on the eagle and Veðrfölnir covers that bird.

Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

Thorpe’s glossary renders the name as “Raw-swallower”, that is, swallowing raw flesh like an eagle. Neither the poem nor Snorri explains the name, so this is an interpretation of its parts. Thorpe prints it as Hraesvelg in the poem and Hræsvelgur in Gylfaginning; both are the same figure.

He is a giant (a jötunn) in the shape or dress of an eagle, and the wind is his one attested function. No family, home or deeds are given in the passages quoted here. The eagle in Yggdrasill’s branches is also a bird of great knowledge, but the texts do not connect the two, and this site keeps them separate.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

Hræsvelgr is named in Vafþrúðnismál (stanza 37 in Thorpe’s numbering) and in Gylfaginning in Blackwell’s translation, which puts him at the northern extremity of the heavens. Thorpe’s glossary lists the name. In the poem he is part of Odin’s contest of questions with the giant Vafþrúðnir; in Gylfaginning he answers Gangleri’s question about the wind. These are the two places quoted or summarised here, and neither describes him beyond his bird form and his place at the edge of heaven.

No archaeological or pictorial evidence for him is cited on this site.