Svarinshaugr and Aurvangar

“But the following come from Svarin’s How to Aurvang on Joruvold, and from them is sprung Lovar.”

14. Time ’tis of the dwarfs in Dvalin’s band, to the sons of men, to Lofar up to reckon, those who came forth from the world’s rock, earth’s foundation, to Iora’s plains.

In Anderson’s version of Gylfaginning, after Snorri lists the dwarfs said to live in the earth and those who live in rocks, he names a third group who “come from” Svarin’s How to Aurvang on Joruvold, and from whom Lofar is descended.

Völuspá, in Thorpe’s translation, has the matching moment in the dwarf catalogue: it is time to reckon the dwarfs of Dvalin’s band up to Lofar, those who came forth from the world’s rock to Iora’s plains. The poem does not name Svarinshaugr. Together the sources describe a movement of dwarfs from a rock or mound to a plain. They do not say that Svarinshaugr or Aurvangar lies within Niðavellir or any other realm.

Svarinshaugr means Svarin’s mound or how, Svarin being the name of a dwarf in the catalogue. Aurvang is also a dwarf’s name in Völuspá’s catalogue (Thorpe’s stanza 13), and the plain it names is spelled Jöruvellir, Joruvold or Iora’s plains depending on the translation.

Translators render the lines differently, and the poem’s version does not name the mound, so the place names are less settled than the lists around them. The mound and the plain are best taken as the two ends of one account of the dwarfs’ origins, not as districts of a larger dwarf land.