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which lies at the top of the World Tree, Yggdrasil.
Har also tells Gylfi that, at the time of their meeting,
only the light-elves dwell in Vidblain.
According to Snorri, in the poem V oluspa , the
golden city of Gimle stands within Vidblain. Accord-
ing to the V oluspa , Gimle is the city where the
righteous and trustworthy will survive Ragnarok,
the battle between the gods and the giants that ends
the world.
V idfinn (Wood-Finn)
The human father of the
children Bil and Hjuki who were stolen to serve
Mani, the man in the Moon. Vidfinn sent his children
to the well Byrgir for water. Along the journey Mani
stole the children and put them to work on the
Moon.
Only Snorri Sturluson mentions Vidfinn. Some
scholars suggest that the name Vidfinn is Finnish
and that Snorri or his sources wanted to connect this
father and his children with a land they thought to be
very distant from Scandinavia.
V igrid (V igriÐr , V igrith ; Field of Battle)
The
immense plain on which the bloody battle of Ragn-
arok will be fought, according to the P oetic E dda .
It stretches for a vast distance in every direction, but
the boundaries of Vigrid form the boundaries of the
battle. However, in the poem Fafnismal, the dragon
Fafnir tells Sigurd that this great plain is called
Oskopnir.
V ikings (People
of the Inlets) Scandinavian
people, essentially from Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden, who raided the coasts and inlets of Europe
and the British Isles from the ninth to the 12th cen-
turies (the Viking Age). Their greatest achievements
were in shipbuilding and navigation (see ships and
ship burials). The typical long ship was a graceful
vessel with a high prow adorned with the figure of
an animal, often a dragon, and a high curved stern.
It had a square sail and was powered by oarsmen who
hung their shields over the side of the ship. They
ventured as far away as Greenland, Iceland, North
America, the Mediterranean Sea, and Russia. They
founded colonies in the British Isles.
Their mythological and heroic legends form the
content of Old Norse literature. The Viking Age
ended, however, in the 12th century with the coming
of Christianity to Scandinavia and the rise of Euro-
pean states, whose people were able to join together
and protect themselves against further Viking inva-
sions and raids. Many Vikings settled down in the
lands that they had raided.
A Viking longhouse on the coast of Norway (Shutterstock)