Fornjót (

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 ...

: ''Fornjótr'') 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, and the father of Hlér ('sea'), Logi ('fire') and Kári ('wind'). It is also the name of a legendary king of " Finnland and

Kvenland Kvenland, known as ''Cwenland'', ''Qwenland'', ''Kænland'', and similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Fennoscandia and Scandinavia. Kvenland, in that or nearly that spelling, is known from an Old English account w ...

". The principal study of this figure is by

Margaret Clunies Ross Margaret Beryl Clunies Ross (born 24 April 1942) is a medievalist who was until her retirement in 2009 the McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Syd ...

.Margaret Clunies Ross,
Snorri Sturluson’s use of the Norse origin-legend of the sons of Fornjótr in his ''Edda''
, ''Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi'', 98 (1983), 47–66.

Name

The etymology of the

name ''Fornjótr'' remains unclear. It is often interpreted as ''forn-jótr'' ('ancient or primordial

'), or as ''for-njótr'' ('original owner', or 'destroyer'). Alternative meanings such as ''Forn-njótr'' ('one-who-enjoys-sacrifices') or ''Forn-þjótr'' ('ancient screamer') have also been proposed. According to Peter Erasmus Müller (1818), Fornjótr could be interpreted as the "original owner" (''primus occupans vel utens'') of Norway. An

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

cognate of ''Fornjótr'' may appear in a plant-name attested in the Cleopatra Glossary (as ''forneotes folm'') and in

Bald's Leechbook ''Bald's Leechbook'' (also known as ''Medicinale Anglicum'') is an Old English medical text probably compiled in the ninth century, possibly under the influence of Alfred the Great's educational reforms.Nokes, Richard Scott ‘The several compil ...

as ''fornetes folm''. ''Folm'' means 'hand, palm', and, lacking a better explanation, scholars have suggested that ''fornetes'' is an Old English form of the name ''Fornjótr'', such that the plant's name meant 'Fornet's palm'. The plant denoted by this name has not been certainly identified, but Peter Bierbaumer argued for a species of marsh-orchid ('' Dactylorhiza''), partly on account of the supposed similarity of their tubers to hands.
Dictionary of Old English Plant Names
', ed. by Peter Bierbaumer and Hans Sauer with Helmut W. Klug and Ulrike Krischke (2007-2009), s.v. ''fornetes folm''.

Attestations

Eddas

Þjóðólfr of Hvinir Þjóðólfr ór Hvini (anglicized as Thjódólf of Hvinir or Thiodolf; fl. late 9th–early 10th c. AD), was a Norwegian skald, said to have been one of the court-poets of the semi-legendary Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. His name suggests that h ...

, a Norwegian skald of the late 9th–early 10th century AD cited in '' Ynglinga tal'' (29), apparently uses the

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English ...

"son of Fornjót" as a synonym of 'fire', and another skald only known under the name Svein appears to use the kenning "ugly sons of Fornjót" to mean the 'wind'.

How should the wind be periphrased? Thus: call it son of Fornjót, Brother of the Sea and of Fire, Scathe or Ruin or Hound or Wolf of the Wood or of the Sail or of the Rigging.

Thus spake Svein in the ''Nordrsetu-drápa'':
First began to fly
Fornjót's sons ill-shapen.

In the ''þulur'', Fornjót is also included in a list of jötnar.

Sagas

In the '' Orkneyinga saga'' and in '' Hversu Noregr byggdisk'' (How Norway Was Settled), Fornjót is portrayed as a king ruling over Gotland and

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

, "which is called Finnland (the land of the

Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Ru ...

) and

he Finnish-settled part of northern Norway. Some editors alter "Gotland" or "Jutland" to "that land". In those two sources, Fornjót has three sons: Logi ('fire'), Kári ('wind'), and Hlér ('sea'), "whom we call

Ægir Ægir (anglicised as Aegir; Old Norse 'sea'), Hlér (Old Norse 'sea'), or Gymir (Old Norse less clearly 'sea, engulfer'), is a jötunn and a personification of the sea in Norse mythology. In the Old Norse record, Ægir hosts the gods in his halls ...

" according to ''Fundinn Noregr''.

Ancestor of the House of Yngling

Fornjótr appears as an ancestor-figure of the kings of Norway in several sources. Here follows one rendering of a mythic Yngling family tree based on '' Historia Norwegiæ'', ''

Ynglinga saga ''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his ''Heimskringla''. It was first translated into English and published in 184 ...

'', '' Beowulf'' and other

sources, some of which name Fornjótr. The names of Swedish kings are shown in bold.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fornjot Jötnar Orkneyinga saga characters