Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies
Valgrind
The holy lattice before the gates of Odin’s hall, named in Grímnismál.
In Thorpe’s translation
22. Valgrind is the lattice called, in the plain that stands, holy before the holy gates: ancient is that lattice, but few only know how it is closed with lock.
- Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Grímnismál, stanza 22 (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).
What the sources say
Grímnismál stanza 22 says that a lattice called Valgrind stands on the plain in front of the holy gates. It is ancient, and only a few know how it is locked. The next stanza counts the doors of Valhöll, so the lattice appears in the middle of the poem’s description of Odin’s hall.
The stanza does not say whose gates they are, but its place beside the Valhöll stanzas leads readers to take Valgrind as the gate of Valhöll. The passages of Snorri we checked do not mention it.
- Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 22 (Thorpe’s numbering)
Names and background
The second part, grind, means a lattice or gate; Thorpe’s version uses “lattice”. The first part, val-, is usually connected with the slain, which would give a gate of the fallen, but the poem does not explain the name.
The gate belongs with the other features of Odin’s hall in this part of Grímnismál: the five hundred and forty doors of Valhöll, the tree Læraðr and the animals above the hall.
- Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 22 (Thorpe’s numbering)
Where the sources attest it
Valgrind is named once among the sources we checked, in Grímnismál stanza 22 in Thorpe’s numbering. The poem is preserved in the Codex Regius.
No excavation or early picture identifies such a gate; it is known from the poem alone.
- Grímnismál (Poetic Edda), stanza 22 (Thorpe’s numbering)