In Norse mythology, Singasteinn (

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 ...

"singing stone" or "chanting stone") is an object that appears in the account of Loki and

Heimdall In Norse mythology, Heimdall (from Old Norse Heimdallr) is a god who keeps watch for invaders and the onset of Ragnarök from his dwelling Himinbjörg, where the burning rainbow bridge Bifröst meets the sky. He is attested as possessing forekno ...

's fight in the form of

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...

s. The object is solely attested in the skaldic poem ''

Húsdrápa ''Húsdrápa'' (Old Norse: 'House-Lay') is a skaldic poem partially preserved in the Prose Edda where disjoint stanzas of it are quoted. It is attributed to the skald Úlfr Uggason. The poem describes mythological scenes carved on kitchen panels. ...

''. Some scholars have interpreted it as the location of the struggle, others as the object they were struggling over.

''Húsdrápa''

The scene is described in the skald Úlfr Uggason's ''

'', as found in the 13th century

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...

'':

Interpretations

In the ''Prose Edda'', Snorri Sturluson interprets Singasteinn as the

skerry A skerry is a small rocky island, or islet, usually too small for human habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack. A skerry may have vegetative life such as moss and small, hardy grasses. They ar ...

at which Loki and Heimdall fought. Referring to the same poem, he says that Heimdall may be called "Frequenter of Vágasker waves-skerry"and Singasteinn"; this gives another name for the skerry and this is also where he states that they were in the form of seals, showing that there was more of the poem on this story. Brodeur has followed Snorri in his translation, and so have some scholarly analyses. For example,

Gabriel Turville-Petre Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre (25 March 1908 – 17 February 1978) was an English philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies. Born at Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire to a prominent Roman Catholic family, Turville-Petre was edu ...

says, "Singasteinn was evidently a rock far out at sea."

Viktor Rydberg Abraham Viktor Rydberg (; 18 December 182821 September 1895) was a Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy, 1877–1895. "Primarily a classical idealist", Viktor Rydberg has been described as "Sweden's last Romantic" and by 1859 was ...

, following Snorri in seeing the struggle as over Freyja's necklace Brísingamen, went a step further and saw the necklace as having been lying on the skerry. Alternatively ''at singasteini'' has been taken to refer to what Heimdall and Loki were fighting over, parallel to the ''hafnýra fǫgru'', "beautiful sea-kidney" (which Brodeur rendered as simply "stone"). In this light, there is an attractive emendation of ''singasteini'' to ''signasteini'', "magic stone, amulet."Audrey Meaney, "Drift Seeds and the Brísingamen", ''Folklore'' 94.1 (1983) 33–39
p. 33
Several scholars have pointed out that both "sea-kidney" and "magic stone" fit less well with Brísingamen, a necklace, than with Caribbean drift-seeds that can be found on the beaches of Iceland, Orkney, the

Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebr ...

and the Scandinavian mainland and have been traditionally used as amulets, particularly to ease childbirth; their European names include ''vettenyrer'',

wight A wight (Old English: ''wiht'') is a mythical sentient being, often undead. In its original use the word ''wight'' described a living human being, but has come to be used in fictional works in the fantasy genre to describe certain immortal bein ...

(Old Norse '' vættr'') kidneys.Franz Rolf Schröder, "Heimdall," ''Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur'' (''PBB'') 89 (1967) 1–41 suggests that ''hafnýra'' is simply a kenning for "island". According to Heizmann
p. 310
that was a cornerstone of Kurt Schier's argument that Singasteinn was the location.

References

Sources

* Kurt Schier. "''Húsdrápa'' 2. Heimdall, Loki und die Meerniere." in Helmut Birkhan, ed. ''Festgabe für Otto Höfler zum 75. Geburtstag''. Philologica Germanica 3. Vienna: Braumüller, 1976. . 577–88 - an influential exposition of the location interpretation . * Birger Pering. ''Heimdall: Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Verständnis der altnordischen Götterwelt''. Diss. Lund University. Lund: Gleerup, 1941. - the first exposition of the birthstone interpretation {{in lang, de. Locations in Norse mythology Artifacts in Norse mythology