In
Norse mythology, Víðópnir is a mythological bird inhabiting the top of the Norse world tree,
Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil (from Old Norse ), in Norse cosmology, is an immense and central sacred tree. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds.
Yggdrasil is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'' compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional ...
— sometimes positioned on the brow of another cosmic bird.
Representation
According to the eddic poem, ''
Fjölsvinnsmál ''Fjölsvinnsmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Fjölsvinn') is the second of two Old Norse poems commonly published under the title '' Svipdagsmál'' "The Lay of Svipdagr". These poems are found together in several 17th-century paper manuscripts with ' ...
'', Víðópnir or Víðófnir is a rooster that inhabits the crown of the world tree, variously represented as a falcon, sitting between the eyes of the cosmic eagle
Hræsvelgr at the top of the tree of life,
Mímameiðr (Mimi's Tree), a vast tree taken to be identical with the World Tree, Yggdrasil.
Sources
Viðópnir occurs in one Norse medieval source aside from ''Fjölsvinnsmál'', a tiny phrase in
Snorri Sturluson's ''Eddu-brot'', where it guards the gate to the lands where in
Hél's
Hel or Hell lies, the six-metre high Icelandic waterfalls of
Gjallandi(literally, "the yelling"). Hel was one of the children of the trickster god
Loki, and her kingdom was said to lie downward and northward.
Viðópnir seems rather identical to
Veðrfölnir and the eagle.
See also
*
Veðrfölnir
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vidopnir
Birds in Norse mythology
Mythological galliforms