Angrboða

Summary

Angrboða is a giantess of the land of the giants in the Scandinavian myths, who bore Loki three children who became the greatest dangers the gods face at the end of time: the wolf Fenrir, the world-serpent Jörmungandr, and Hel. Snorri says in Gylfaginning: a giantess in the land of the giants was called Angrboða; with her Loki begot three children.

The three children were reared in the land of the giants. When the gods learned of them, and traced through prophecies that great harm and misfortune would come to them from these siblings, all foreboding much evil of them, "first from the mother's kin and worse from the father's", Allfather, Odin, sent the gods to take the children and bring them to him. He cast the serpent into the deep sea that lies about all lands, and it grew until it encircled the earth and bit its own tail. He cast Hel into Niflheim and gave her power over nine worlds, to apportion lodgings among those who die of sickness and old age. The Æsir reared the wolf at home, and only Týr dared to feed it; then they bound it with the fetter Gleipnir, and it bit off Týr's hand.

Völuspá in skamma, a poem preserved inside Hyndluljóð, names her in a single stanza: "Loki begot the wolf with Angrboða, and Sleipnir he got with Svaðilfari; one witch seemed the most baleful of all, and she came from the brother of Býleistr", that is, from Loki himself. Then the poem says: "Loki ate a heart, burnt on a fire of linden; he found a woman's half-singed heart; Loptr became pregnant from the evil woman, and from that comes every ogress on earth." These are stanzas 40 and 41 of Hyndluljóð in another numbering.

The idea the story turns on is that Angrboða does nothing in the stories except bear children. She does not speak or fight, and no text says what became of her once her children were taken. Yet the gods reckon with her: the evil expected from the children comes "first from the mother's kin". She is the source of the danger on the giants' side, Loki on the gods' side, and the children join both. Odin separates the three and gives each a place: the sea for the serpent, the house of the dead for Hel, the fetter for the wolf. Then they come together at Ragnarök: the wolf breaks loose and swallows Odin, the serpent comes out and kills Thor and he dies of its venom, and all the company of Hel follow Loki into battle. The separation Odin made put the day off; it did not prevent it.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method, since neither essay reads her name. The final a of Angrboða is the nominative ending of a weak feminine noun; the poem says við Angrboðu, "with Angrboða". The name has two parts: angr, grief and sorrow in Norse, which the dictionary compares with English anger; and boð-, from the verb boða, to announce and to bode what is coming. In Norse, then, she is "the one who bodes grief". The first part is Arabic naghir: n, gh and r in order, Arabic gh becoming g in these languages. In Lane, naghirat al-qidr is said when "the cooking-pot boiled", and naghira ar-rajul when "his inside boiled against him by reason of anger", or "latent anger without power to exercise it"; a woman who is naghira is very jealous. The second part is bathth: b is b, and Norse ð answers Arabic th, its sister. In Lane, baththa al-khabar is "he spread, published, or revealed" the news, baththa Allāhu al-khalq "God spread, or dispersed, mankind" in the earth, and bathth is also "grief, or sorrow, which one makes known to his companion", "the most intense grief", and violent sickness. On this reading Angrboða is "the boiling one who spreads": the mother in whom anger boils and who spreads grief and affliction through the world. That is what the story makes her: evil comes first from her side, and from her came the wolf who swallows Odin, the serpent who kills Thor, and the mistress of the house to which those who die of sickness go.

Linguistic Root

Angrboða, naghar and bathth

Cleasby–Vigfusson gives angr as "grief, sorrow", comparing English anger and Latin angor. Orel says the Germanic *angaz was "originally a neut. s-stem identical with Skt aṃhas- 'anxiety, trouble', Lat angor 'strangling, anguish'". The Norse dictionary gives boða as "to announce, proclaim", then "to bid, order", then "to bode, signify", as in "what this might bode". Faulkes does not explain her name; he calls her a giantess and refers to Hyndluljóð.

Lane, under n-gh-r: naghirat al-qidr, "the cooking-pot boiled; became in a state of violent commotion", and hence naghira ar-rajul, "his inside boiled against him by reason of anger, or by reason of vehement anger, or latent anger without power to exercise it"; imraʾa naghira, "a woman very jealous". Under b-th-th: baththahu, "he spread it; he dispersed it", said of a thing or of news; baththa Allāhu al-khalq, God spread mankind in the earth; baththa al-ḥadīth, "he spread, published, or revealed" it; and al-bathth, "grief, or sorrow, which one makes known to his companion or friend: or violent, or intense, grief or sorrow; and violent, or severe, disease or sickness; or the most violent or intense grief or sorrow".

The comparison keeps n and r and sets Arabic gh against g, which is what gh becomes in the Juthoor sound laws when it does not drop. It keeps b, and sets Arabic th against Norse ð, two sounds made at the same place, one voiceless and one voiced. Two things remain. Orel makes the r of angr an old suffix, and if so naghir takes a suffix letter as a root letter. And the verb boða has an old d in its sister languages, as in Gothic biudan, so Arabic th needs a witness for this correspondence.

Other readings

Neither essay reads Angrboða's name. The second part could also be read as badā, abdā, to appear and to make appear; in Lane badā lahu fī al-amr is said when an opinion presented itself to someone. The name would then be "she who shows grief". That stands closer to the old d of the Germanic verb and farther from the sense of grief carried by bathth.

Key Mythic Narratives

The old woman in the Iron Wood

The seeress says in Völuspá: "In the east sat the old one in Járnviðr and there bore Fenrir's kin; of them all one in particular will be the snatcher of the moon, in a troll's form." Snorri explains the stanza: east of Midgard is a forest called Járnviðr, the Iron Wood, where troll-women live, and the old giantess bears many giants as sons, all in the shape of wolves; among them are the two wolves that chase the sun and the moon, Sköll and Hati, and the mightiest is Mánagarmr, who fills himself with the lives of the dead, swallows the moon and spatters the sky with blood. Neither text names the old woman or says she is Angrboða, but both make her like her: a giantess in the giants' land who bears wolves, and her offspring are "Fenrir's kin". The translator notes that the verb may mean "bore", "nursed" or "reared".

At the end

In the Ragnarök account Snorri says that the wolf swallows the sun and the other wolf takes the moon; then all fetters break and Fenrir gets loose, the serpent turns in giant-fury and the sea surges over the land, and Loki comes, followed by all the company of Hel. So Angrboða's three children meet on one day after Odin had separated them, and the wolves of the Iron Wood are with them.

Symbolic Reading

The Norse rereading essay does not read Angrboða, but it reads her three children as the three great dangers of the North: the wolf a hunger that grows and cannot be bound for ever, the serpent the sea that surrounds people and cannot be escaped, and Hel cold, slow death. It reads the land of the giants as the frozen wild where no one lives, and the giants as the forces of nature beyond control. On that reading, which applies the essay's view to this story rather than quoting a reading of Angrboða, the giantess is the wild itself, from which hunger, drowning and death come, and the gods' taking of her children is an attempt to push these dangers out to the edges of the world. What the text itself gives is a mother named in only one stanza of verse, and three children taken from her while young.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

Her nearest counterpart among the Greeks is Echidna, half woman and half serpent, with whom Typhon lay; she bore him Orthus, the hound of Geryon, Cerberus, the hound of Hades, and the Hydra of Lerna, and heroes killed most of her brood. Angrboða bore Loki the wolf, the serpent and the mistress of the house of the dead, so both mothers bear offspring that guard death or fight the gods. But Echidna's children are killed one by one by heroes, while Angrboða's are sent away and bound and last until the end.

In the Enūma eliš Tiamat creates serpents and monsters to fight the gods. The difference is that Tiamat fights herself and is killed, while Angrboða never appears in any war; her children fight at the end of time.

Her three children carry Ragnarök, her union with Loki places her in the story of the trickster, and her serpent is Thor's adversary in the gods' fight with sea and dragon.