Yggdrasil · Fire
The Sons of Múspell
The host that rides out against the gods at Ragnarök, named in Lokasenna and Gylfaginning.
In Thorpe’s translation
42. “With gold thou boughtest Gymir’s daughter, and so gavest away thy sword: but when Muspell’s sons through the dark forest ride, thou, unhappy, wilt not have wherewith to fight.”
50. “That ship fares from the east: come will Muspell’s people o’er the sea, and Loki steers.”
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Lokasenna, stanza 42; Völuspá, stanza 50 (Thorpe’s numbering; other editions differ) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
In Blackwell’s translation
“Bifrost, as they ride over it, breaks to pieces. Then they direct their course to the battlefield called Vigrid.”
- I. A. Blackwell (translator), The Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson (the Prose Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Gylfaginning, the account of Ragnarök Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
What the sources say
In Lokasenna, Loki taunts Freyr that when “Muspell’s sons” ride through the dark forest he will have no sword to fight with. The forest is called Myrkviðr; the poem does not say where it lies. Völuspá in Thorpe’s translation has Múspell’s people crossing the sea in a ship from the east with Loki at the helm, a line many editors dispute (see below).
Snorri gives the fullest picture. Heaven splits, the sons of Múspell ride through the breach with Surtr first, the Bifröst bridge breaks under them, and they make for the plain of Vígríðr, where they keep their bright companies apart from the other hosts. He says nothing of their number, their homes or their leaders other than Surtr.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Lokasenna 42; Völuspá 50 (Thorpe’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
- I. A. Blackwell (translator), The Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson (the Prose Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Gylfaginning, the account of Ragnarök and of the Bifröst bridge Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
Names and background
The meaning of Múspell is uncertain; one suggestion is a compound meaning “world-destroyer”, and the word has relatives outside Norse, but the sources used here do not settle it. The phrase “sons of Múspell” is the only way the word is used in the poems, and Snorri uses it in the same form.
Henry Adams Bellows, in his 1923 edition, changed the line in Völuspá (his stanza 51) from the manuscripts’ “people of Muspell” to “people of Hel”, arguing that the Múspell host came over Bifröst, while the ship brought Hel’s people. So the same line reads differently in different editions, and some of what is said of this host in Völuspá depends on which one is followed.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), Völuspá, stanza 51 and the note to it (Bellows’s numbering)
- Múspell (Wikipedia) (opens in a new tab), Múspell, etymology section Rights: Tertiary source; starting point only.
Where the sources attest it
The sons of Múspell are named in Lokasenna (stanza 42 in Thorpe’s numbering), in Völuspá (stanza 50 in Thorpe’s, 51 in Bellows’s, with the disputed reading noted above) and repeatedly in Gylfaginning. The breaking of Bifröst and the gathering on Vígríðr are Snorri’s; Vafþrúðnismál names Vígríðr as the field where the gods and Surtr will meet but does not mention the host. No archaeological or pictorial evidence is known. Lokasenna’s “sons of Múspell” and Snorri’s are the same phrase, and Bellows noted in 1923 that the name Múspell is not used elsewhere in the poems.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Lokasenna 42; Völuspá 50; Vafþrúðnismál 17–18 (Thorpe’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).
- I. A. Blackwell (translator), The Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson (the Prose Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Gylfaginning Rights: Public domain. Nineteenth-century translation, in the public domain. Text as published online by Project Gutenberg (ebook #14726).