Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

, Mótsognir (

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

: , "he who drinks in might"), also found as Móðsognir (; Hauksbók manuscript variant), "he who drinks in courage", is the ruler of the dwarves. In Völuspà 10, he is identified as ''mæztr um orðinn dverga allra'', "lord of all the dwarves". According to

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

Gylfaginning ''Gylfaginning'' (Old Norse: 'The Beguiling of Gylfi' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi'; 13th century Old Norse pronunciation ) is the first main part of the 13th century ''Prose Edda'', after the initial Prologue. The ''Gylfaginning'' takes the form of ...

14, which seeks to explain this verse, "the dwarfs had taken shape first and acquired life in the flesh of Ymir and were then maggots, but by decision of the gods they became conscious with intelligence and had the shape of men though they live in the earth and in rocks. Modsognir was a dwarf and the second was

Durinn In Norse mythology, Durinn (Old Norse: ; or Durin) is a dwarf according to stanza 10 of the poem ''Völuspá'' from the ''Poetic Edda'', and repeated in ''Gylfaginning'' from the ''Prose Edda''. He was the second created after the first and foremo ...

Origin

According to Völuspà 9, the dwarfs were created by ''ginnheilög goð,'' "the high holy gods", who resolved to fashion them "out of Brimir's blood and Blainn's bones," a phrase typically interpreted to mean the blood and flesh of the primordial giant, Ymir. This is based on the mythic fact that Ymir was slain and his corpse was used to fashion the earth and heaven, as told in

Grímnismál ''Grímnismál'' (Old Norse: ; 'The Lay of Grímnir') is one of the mythological poems of the '' Poetic Edda''. It is preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript and the AM 748 I 4to fragment. It is spoken through the voice of ''Grímnir'', one ...

40-41 from the

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

and Snorri's account in

8. In scholarship, the interpretation of Völuspà 9-10 in Snorri's ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

'', (''

'' 14), is disputed, primarily because his text of the verse varies from that found in independent manuscripts of the poem. The original text in the

Codex Regius Codex Regius (, "Royal Book" or "King's Book"; ) or GKS 2365 4º is an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the ''Poetic Edda'' are preserved. Thought to have been written during the 1270s, it is made up of 45 vellum Vellum ...

and

Hauksbók Hauksbók (; 'Book of Haukr') is a 14th-century Icelandic manuscript created by Haukr Erlendsson. Significant portions of it are lost, but it contains the earliest copies of many of the texts it contains, including the '' Saga of Eric the Red''. ...

manuscripts, appear to refer to how the dwarfs together gave shape to human beings (''manlíkon''), which are then brought to life by Odin and his brothers in the verses following the so-called Dvergatal (Völuspá v. 9-16), which is commonly seen as an interpolation into the text. Sigurd Nordal observed that "Sophus Bugge read the second half of verse 10 as "these dwarfs made many manikins in the earth, as Durinn said", noting "this appears to assume Modsognir and Durin shape the dwarfs, but only as manikins (i.e. dead images of men) and that the Æsir then gave them life." Nordal concludes that "Snorri's narrative is similar, but it was probably only his interpretation of the stanza as he knew it (cf. textual variants)". Ursula Dronke summarizes this view, stating "Snorri omits, therefore 10/1-4, which tells of the creating of the dwarfs by the two master dwarfs, and alters the lines 'they created many man-shaped figures out of the earth' to 'many man-shaped figures formed themselves out of the earth.' When 9/5 is cited in Snorri's Edda, it too has to be changed. The gods must not consider 'who' (''hverr'') should create the dwarfs, as this does not fit their maggot-like origins. Instead, ...they simply consider 'that' (''at'' in place of ''hverr'') the dwarfs should be created." Additional scholarly etymologies of the name Módsognir suggest a derivation from ON ''móðr'' and ''súga,'' perhaps related to Swedish ''modsugen,'' "apathetic", rendering the meaning "the tried sigher"; "moth sucker" has also been suggested, however unlikely this may seem. Lotte Motz offered the reading "furious sucker". Sveinbjörn Egilsson, in the first edition of Lexicon Poeticum (1860), interpreted the name to mean Mjóðsognir, the "mead-sucker", compare Mjóðvitnir, "the mead-wolf" in Völuspà 11.Nordal, p. 27.

Modern influence

Mótsog the Dwarf appears in ''

The Lord of the Rings Online ''The Lord of the Rings Online'' is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows and previously for OS X, set in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, taking place during the time period of ''The Lord of the Rings''. ...

'' video game, following

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

's tradition of using names from

Völuspá ''Völuspá'' (also ''Vǫluspá'', ''Vǫlospá'', or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress') is the best known poem of the ''Poetic Edda''. It dates back to the tenth century and tells the story from Norse Mythology of ...

for

Middle-earth Middle-earth is the Setting (narrative), setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Midgard, Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf'' ...

Dwarves. As in

Tolkien's legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''The Lord of the Rings'', and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of '' The Silma ...

Durin In the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Dwarves are a race inhabiting Middle-earth, the central continent of Arda in an imagined mythological past. They are based on the dwarfs of Germanic myths who were small humanoids that lived in mountain ...

was the first of the Dwarves, Mótsog is re-imagined as the second dwarf of Durin's clan, inverting their order from the Norse mythology. Mótsognir's Call appears in God of War Ragnarök as a relic weapon.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Motsognir Norse dwarves