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Grimnir began to chant a song that was known as Grimnismal( The Lay of Grimnir). The song contained a great deal of knowledge about Asgard, the home of the gods, and about the gods themselves and their possessions, especially about Odin and his many names. When Geirrod finally realized that his captive was Odin, he leapt up to release him, but he fell on his own sword and killed himself. Then Odin disappeared, and Geirrod’ s son, Agnar, became king and ruled for many peaceable years.
Gelgja The name that 13th-century Icelandic writer Snorri Sturluson gave to a very strong chain used to help secure Fenrir, the giant, monstrous wolf. After learning that Fenrir, a son of the god Loki, would eventually help destroy them, the gods decided to chain the wolf to a huge rock and keep him captive forever. Finally, through magic, they managed to get the rope Gleipnir around the wolf’ s neck. They fastened Gleipnir to Gelgja, a shackle or chain. Some experts believe Gelgja, too, was made of magical materials. Finally, the gods fastened Gelgja to the rock Gjoll( 1).
Gerda( Gerd; Enclosed Field) The daughter of the Jotun Gymir and Aurboda; the sister of Beli; the wife of Frey, whose servant Skirnir, wooed and won her for his master. Gerda spurned apples and gold but finally gave in at the terrible threat of eternal cold and loneliness, thus personifying winter giving in at last to the warm sunshine of spring. The nine nights of waiting between her consent to become Frey’ s bride and the actual union is symbolic of the long nine months of hard winter in northern countries before spring arrives. In some mythologies the radiance of Gerda personifies the aurora borealis( northern lights).
Geri( Ravenous) One of the wolf companions of the god Odin. The other was Freki, whose name also means“ ravenous.” Odin fed the wolves all the meat that was served to him, for he needed only to drink divine mead for sustenance. The wolves attended him at Hlidskjalf, his high seat, and also at Valhalla.
Germanic A term for the family of languages spoken by the peoples of northern Europe or for the peoples themselves. Historians and archaeologists point out that when referring to the people or the languages, the term Germanic does not necessarily apply to the same geography over the millennia.
The Germanic family of languages is a branch of the Indo-European languages. They likely developed in northern Europe during the first millennium b. c., though linguists and historians suggest that the original proto-German language developed in parts of Eastern Europe and western Asia before the peoples moved into northern Europe.
The languages of Scandinavia, including Iceland, developed into a group of related languages known as Northern Germanic. All of these people used a similar alphabet of runes in the earliest surviving writings created in the earliest centuries of the first millennium a. d.
The people of the Germanic tribes that shared a common or related language settled in northern Europe and then spread into Scandinavia and westward into the islands of the north Atlantic during the last millennium b. c. and during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean. By the Migration Period, which began about 400 a. d., they had developed into distinct cultures in the lands surrounding the Baltic and North seas. They shared a history but were, by the beginning of the Viking Age in the late 700s a. d., separate peoples.
Gesta Danorum A 16-volume history of the Danish people from prehistoric days to the 13th century written by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish scholar and historian. Books 10 through 16 are strictly historical, and scholars believe Saxo wrote these before writing Books 1 through 9, which record the oral myths and legends of the Norse people, including those living in Denmark. Saxo apparently learned these stories from well-educated and well-traveled men from Iceland. The Gesta Danorum is considered a very important source of information on the legends, myths, and religions of the Scandinavians.
Gialp( Gjalp; Howler) The daughter of the giant Geirrod( 1). Her sister was Greip.
Gialp tried to drown the god Thor by straddling the river Vimur and letting her bodily fluids add to the flow of the river. Thor threw a huge bolder at her in order to plug the sources of the flood. He hit her and Gialp ran off screaming.
Thor killed Gialp and Greip by breaking their backs after they tried to kill him by hiding under his chair and lifting him hard against the ceiling when he was in Geirrod’ s house.
These stories are told by Snorri Sturluson in
Skaldsaparmal.