Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies
Iðavöllr
The gods’ meeting plain, named in Völuspá and in Snorri’s Gylfaginning.
In Thorpe’s translation
7. The Æsir met on Ida’s plain; they altar-steads and temples high constructed; their strength they proved, all things tried, furnaces established, precious things forged, formed tongs, and fabricated tools;
58. The Æsir meet on Ida’s plain, and of the mighty earth-encircler speak, and there to memory call their mighty deeds, and the supreme god’s ancient lore.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Völuspá, stanzas 7 and 58 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ; the second is numbered 60 in some editions) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
What the sources say
Völuspá mentions the plain twice, near the start and near the end of the world’s story. At the beginning the gods meet on it and build altars and temples, set up forges and make tools. After the world has ended and risen again, the gods meet there once more, talk about the great serpent that circles the earth, and remember their deeds and the old lore of the chief god.
Snorri tells the first part in Gylfaginning in his own manner. The rulers the high god appointed meet on Iðavöllr, “in the centre of the divine abode”, and there they raise their hall, the sanctuary for the goddesses and a smithy. Poem and Snorri agree that building and craft happen there.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanzas 7 and 58 (Thorpe’s numbering)
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), in Gylfaginning
Names and background
The second part of the name means a field or plain. The first part, Iða-, is not clearly explained; readers have offered different explanations and none is settled, so it is safest to keep the Old Norse form. Some English versions call it Ida’s plain.
Iðavöllr is the gods’ place of assembly and is tied to Glaðsheimr and Vingólf in Snorri’s account. It is the same kind of place as the doom-stead under Yggdrasill’s ash, where the gods meet in Grímnismál, but the sources do not say they are one site.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanzas 7 and 58 (Thorpe’s numbering)
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), in Gylfaginning
Where the sources attest it
The plain is named in Völuspá, in stanzas 7 and 58 of Thorpe’s numbering. The poem is preserved in the Codex Regius and, in a different form, in Hauksbók. It is named again in Snorri’s Gylfaginning.
No excavation or early image identifies a real place or object with Iðavöllr. It is known only from the written sources.
- Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanzas 7 and 58 (Thorpe’s numbering)
- attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), in Gylfaginning