Yggdrasil · Gods and Their Allies

Váli: The Avenger Who Remains

The son of Odin and Rindr, born to avenge Baldr and named among the gods who survive Ragnarök.

Myth and literature · Quotation

In Thorpe’s translation

Baldr’s Dream 16. “Rind a son shall bear, in the western halls: he shall slay Odin’s son, when one night old. He a hand will not wash, nor his head comb, ere he to the pile has borne Baldr’s adversary.”

Hyndla’s Lay 29. There were eleven Æsir reckoned, when Baldr on the pile was laid; him Vali showed himself worthy to avenge, his own brother: he the slayer slew.

Vafþrúðnismál 51. Vidar and Vali will the gods’ holy fanes inhabit, when Surt’s fire shall be quenched.

  • Benjamin Thorpe (translator), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (the Poetic Edda) (opens in a new tab) (19th c.; Norroena ed. 1906), Baldr’s Dream (Vegtamskviða), stanza 16; Hyndla’s Lay, stanza 29; Vafþrúðnismál, stanza 51 (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).
Myth and literature

What the sources say

Gylfaginning lists Váli, also called Áli, among the gods as the son of Odin and Rindr, bold in war and an excellent archer. In Baldr’s Dream a prophetess says that Rindr will bear a son in the western halls who will kill Odin’s son when one night old, and who will not wash his hands or comb his hair until he has carried Baldr’s opponent to the pyre. That stanza does not name him. Hyndla’s Lay does: Váli avenged his brother Baldr and killed the slayer.

After Ragnarök both Vafþrúðnismál and Gylfaginning have Váli and Víðarr surviving, untouched by the flood or Surtr’s fire, in the gods’ holy seats on the plain of Ida. The Gylfaginning text consulted does not retell the avenging itself.

Myth and literature · Context

Names and background

Translators spell the name Vali, Vale or Ale, and Anderson renders Snorri’s list as “Ale, or Vale”. His mother Rindr is named in Baldr’s Dream and in Gylfaginning. Váli is Baldr’s half-brother through Odin, and the poem calls him Baldr’s brother.

Other beings share the name and are not to be merged with him. In Gylfaginning’s tale of Loki’s binding, a son of Loki called Váli is turned into a wolf by the gods and tears his brother Narfi apart. Nothing in the text identifies that Váli with Odin’s son, so they are treated here as two figures. Váli’s companion in the renewed world is Víðarr, who has his own entry.

Historical evidence

Where the sources attest it

Odin’s son Váli is named in Hyndla’s Lay (stanza 29 in Thorpe’s numbering), in Vafþrúðnismál (stanza 51), and in Snorri’s Gylfaginning, both in the list of the gods and in the account of the world after Ragnarök. Baldr’s Dream describes the avenger without naming him. Of these, the poems tell the avenging most plainly. No archaeological or pictorial evidence for Váli is cited in this entry.