Yggdrasil · Giants and Dwarves

Járnviðr (The Iron Wood)

A wood east of Midgard, home of a witch and her wolf-shaped sons.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

32. East sat the crone, in Iârnvidir, and there reared up Fenrir's progeny: of all shall be one especially the moon's devourer, in a troll's semblance.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

Völuspá says the crone sat in the east, in Járnviðr, and there reared the offspring of Fenrir, one of whom, in a troll’s shape, will be the devourer of the moon. Gylfaginning says a hag lives in a wood east of Midgard called Járnviðr (the Iron Wood), the home of a race of witches, the Járnviðjur. She is the mother of many gigantic sons shaped like wolves. The most formidable of them, Mánagarmr, will be filled with the life-blood of those near their end, swallow the moon and stain heaven and earth with blood.

Both sources put the wood east of Midgard. The map treats east as the right-hand side; the exact patch of the picture is the artist’s choice.

  • Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanza 32 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ)
  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the passage on the wolves of Ragnarök
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The name means Iron-wood, and its inhabitants are the járnviðjur, ironwood-women. In Völuspá an old woman in the eastern forest raises Fenrir's offspring, one of whom will snatch the moon. Wikipedia’s article suggests the woman may be Angrboða and the creature Mánagarmr or perhaps Hati, but hedges both.

Snorri changes the picture: the single old woman becomes an old witch bearing many giants in wolf shape, the forest holds plural troll-women, and the moon-swallower is named as Mánagarmr, said to feed on the dead. The plural form appears nowhere else.

Historical evidence

Evidence beyond the Eddas

The singular Járnviðja turns up outside the Eddas in the þulur, word-lists, as a troll-wife. It also occurs in Eyvindr Skáldaspillir's poem Háleygjatal, which Wikipedia’s article dates to the 10th century, where it refers to the goddess Skaði, a different sort of figure from a troll.

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