Huginn and Muninn: News That Must Return

20. Hugin and Munin fly each day over the spacious earth. I fear for Hugin, that he come not back, yet more anxious am I for Munin.

Blackwell’s Gylfaginning: “Two ravens sit on Odin’s shoulders and whisper in his ear the tidings and events they have heard and witnessed. They are called Hugin and Munin. He sends them out at dawn of day to fly over the whole world, and they return at eve towards meal time.”

Grímnismál stanza 20 is the speaker’s own worry. The two ravens fly over the earth every day, but he fears Hugin may not come back and is more anxious for Munin. The stanza does not say whose ravens they are or what they bring. It follows the stanza about Odin’s wolves, Geri and Freki.

Gylfaginning supplies the rest. Two ravens sit on Odin’s shoulders and tell him in his ear what they have seen and heard. They go out at dawn to fly over the whole world and return in the evening toward mealtime, and this is why Odin knows so many things. Snorri then quotes the stanza. The ravens’ errand and their return are his account and are not in the verse, where the worry is that they may not come back.

The glossary of Thorpe’s edition derives Huginn from a word meaning spirit, breath, thought, mind or reason, and Muninn from a word for mind, memory or recollection. Blackwell’s note renders the pair as “Mind or Thought, and Memory”. These are the translators’ glosses; the poem does not explain the names.

Snorri adds that Odin is called the Raven’s God. The stanza’s unequal fear, more for Munin than for Hugin, is left unexplained in both texts, and nothing in them says how it should be read. In both, the ravens sit beside Odin’s wolves, which have their own place in the account of Valhöll.