In Norse mythology, Borr or Burr
(Old Norse: 'borer'
Attestation
Borr is mentioned in the fourth verse of the
Völuspá, a poem contained in the
Poetic Edda, and in the sixth chapter of
Gylfaginning, the second section of the
Prose Edda.
Völuspá
- Original text:
- Áðr Burs synir
- bjóðum umb ypðu,
- þeir er Miðgarð
- mæran skópu.
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- Bellow's translation:
[, tr. Bellows]
- Then Bur's sons lifted
- the level land,
- Mithgarth the mighty
- there they made.
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Gylfaginning
- Original text:
- Hann Búri gat son þann er Borr hét,
- hann fekk þeirar konu er Bestla hét,
- dóttir Bölþorns iötuns, ok fengu þau .iii. þrjá sonu,
- hét einn Óðinn, annarr Vili, .iii. þriði Vé.
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- Brodeur's translation:
[, tr. Brodeur]
- Búri begat a son called Borr,
- who wedded the woman named Bestla,
- daughter of Bölthorn the giant; and they had three sons:
- one was Odin, the second Vili, the third Vé.
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Borr is not mentioned again in the Prose Edda. In skaldic poetry and Poetic Edda poetry, Odin is occasionally kenning as Borr's son.
Scholarly reception and interpretation
The role of Borr in Norse mythology is unclear. Nineteenth-century German scholar
Jacob Grimm proposed to equate Borr with
Mannus as related in
Tacitus'
Germania on the basis of the similarity in their functions in Germanic theogeny.
The 19th century Icelandic scholar and archaeologist Finnur Magnússon hypothesized that Borr was
- "intended to signify ... the first mountain or mountain-chain, which it was deemed by the forefathers of our race had emerged from the waters in the same region where the first land made its appearance. This mountain chain is probably the Greater Caucasus, called by the Persians Borz (the genitive of the Old Norse Borr). Bör's wife, Belsta or Bestla, a daughter of the giant Bölthorn ( spina calamitosa), is possibly the mass of ice formed on the alpine summits."
[, as quoted by .]
In his
Lexicon Mythologicum, published four years later, he modified his theory to claim that Borr symbolized the earth, and Bestla the ocean, which gave birth to
Odin as the "world spirit" or "great soul of the earth" (
spiritus mundi nostri; terrae magna anima, aëris et aurae numen), Vili or
Hoenir as the "heavenly light" (
lux, imprimis coelestis) and Vé or Lódur as "fire" (
ignis, vel elementalis vel proprie sic dictus).
Highlighting that no source provides information about Borr's mother (Borr's father was licked free from the earth by the primeval cow Auðumbla), Rudolf Simek observes that "It is not clear how Burr came to be".
Footnotes
