Yggdrasil · Giants and Dwarves

Nidavellir (Niðavellir)

A hall of the dwarf Sindri’s kin, named in Völuspá.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

41. On the north there stood, on Nida-fells, a hall of gold, for Sindri's race; and another stood in Okôlnir, the Jötuns beer-hall which Brîmir hight.

Myth and literature

What the sources say

Völuspá names a hall of gold for Sindri’s race on the north, at Niðavellir (“Nida-fells” in Thorpe’s translation). Gylfaginning has a hall of ruddy gold called Sindri on the mountains of Niða (Niðafjöll), where righteous men will live after Ragnarök. Elsewhere the prose says the dwarves bred in Ymir’s flesh and live in rocks and caverns, and speaks of a land of the dark elves, Svartálfaheimr, where dwarves make Gleipnir.

The sources do not say whether these are one place. That Nidavellir is one of the “nine worlds” comes from modern lists, not from the old texts: the poems never list the nine.

  • Völuspá (Poetic Edda), stanza 41 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ)
  • attributed to Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning (13th century), the passages on the dwarves, Gleipnir and the new world
  • Wikipedia contributors, Nine Worlds (opens in a new tab)
Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

The name is thought to be a compound of nið, new moon or the wane of the moon (possibly related to niðr, down), and vellir, fields, so something like Dark Fields or Downward Fields. The meaning of the first part is uncertain. The place is attested in Völuspá, which names a hall of Sindri's kin there, in the north. A variant name, Myrkheimr, means world of darkness.

Snorri calls the dwarfs' world Svartálfaheimr, world of the black elves, and Wikipedia’s article treats the names as one place, though it does not explain how they relate. Calling it one of the Nine Worlds is an interpretation.