Baugi (

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

: ; "ring-shaped") is a

jötunn A (also jotun; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; ; plural / ) or, in Old English, (plural ) is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, they are often contrasted with gods ( Æsir and Vani ...

in Norse mythology. He is brother of Suttungr, the giant from whom Odin obtained the

mead of poetry In Norse mythology, the Poetic Mead or Mead of Poetry, also known as Mead of Suttungr, is a mythical beverage that whoever "drinks becomes a skald or scholar" able to recite any information and solve any question. This myth was reported by Snorri ...

Name

The

name ''Baugi'' has been translated as 'ring-shaped'.

Attestations

The name of the

Baugi is only mentioned in ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Language of Poetry'; c. 50,000 words; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda''. The section consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bragi, the god of poetry, ...

'' (The Language of Poetry) and in the '' þulur'', and is not attested in other poetic texts. It is notably absent from ''

Hávamál ''Hávamál'' ( ; Old Norse: ,Unnormalised spelling in the :Title: Final stanza: ../ref> classical pron. , Modern Icelandic pron. , ‘Words of he High One��) is presented as a single poem in the Icelandic , a collection of Old Norse poems fr ...

'' (Words of the High One), which Snorri Sturluson used as a source for the story of the

. Some scholars have argued that Baugi may have been an invention or a misunderstanding of ''Hávamál'' by Snorri.

Mead of poetry

In ''

'', Odin causes Baugi's nine slaves to kill each other in his quest to obtain the

, possessed at that time by Baugi's brother, Suttungr. Calling himself

Bölverk Odin (Old Norse Óðinn) is a widely attested god in Germanic mythology. The god is referred to by numerous names and kenningar, particularly in the Old Norse record. List In Old English, Odin was known as ; in Old Saxon, as ; and in Old High ...

('Evil-deed' or 'Evil worker'), Odin then offers to do the labour of all nine men for Baugi as a reparation for his wrongdoings, in exchange of a wage of one drink of the mead of poetry. Baugi accepts to help him acquire it from his brother. After the summer of work is over, Bölverk (Odin) asks for his payment, but Suttungr refuses to give him a single drop of the mead. Bölverk then enlists Baugi's help to dig a hole into the Hnitbjörg mountain with Baugi's drill, Rati, in order to reach the chamber where the mead was kept and watched over by Gunnlöð, Suttung’s daughter. When Baugi announces to him that the tunnel is finished, Bölverk blows into the hole but realizes that the other end is still blocked. As he understands that Baugi is trying to deceive him, Bölverk turns himself into a snake and slips into the hole. Baugi tries to strike at him with his auger but misses.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Norse mythology Jötnar