Sæhrímnir, Andhrímnir, and Eldhrímnir: Feeding Valhöll

18. Andhrimnir makes, in Eldhrimnir, Sæhrimnir to boil, of meats the best; but few know how many Einheriar it feeds.

41. All the Einheriar in Odin’s halls each day together fight; the fallen they choose, and from the conflict ride; beer with the Æsir drink, of Saehrimnir eat their fill, then sit in harmony together.

Blackwell’s Gylfaginning: “the flesh of the boar Sæhrimnir will more than suffice for their sustenance. For although this boar is sodden every morning he becomes whole again every night. … The cook is called Andhrimnir, and the kettle Eldhrimnir.”

Grímnismál stanza 18 gives three names in one line: Andhrímnir cooks, in the kettle Eldhrímnir, something called Sæhrímnir, which the poem calls the best of meats. It does not say what animal Sæhrímnir is. It adds only that few know how many Einherjar, the fallen warriors, the meat feeds. A few stanzas earlier the same poem puts Valhöll in Gladsheimr, where Odin chooses the dead each day.

Vafþrúðnismál stanza 41 shows the Einherjar fighting daily, then riding home to drink beer with the Æsir and eat their fill of Sæhrímnir.

The boar belongs to Snorri. In Gylfaginning, asked how the crowd in Valhöll is fed, he answers that Sæhrímnir is a boar, boiled every morning and whole again every night, and he quotes the Grímnismál line. The renewal of the boar is his own addition to the verse. This entry is not about Gullinbursti, the boar of Freyr. For the hall itself, see Valhöll.

The glossary of Thorpe’s edition reads Andhrímnir as formed from a word for breath or spirit with hrím, rime or hoar-frost, and Eldhrímnir as fire with the same word, a kettle sooty from fire. It gives no meaning for Sæhrímnir, and none is offered here. These are glossary glosses, and the poems do not explain the names.

Both the cook and the kettle have names, and the verse says nothing more about either. The meal is one part of a larger picture of Valhöll, the hall of the chosen dead. After the meat, Snorri turns to Odin’s own fare: he gives what is set before him to two wolves, Geri and Freki, and lives on wine. Grímnismál stanza 19 says the same of the wolves and the wine.