weapon

Gungnir

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Spear that never misses

Snorri: the Sons of Ivaldi make Gungnir for Odin; it never misses its mark. Völuspá has Odin hurl a spear over the host to begin the first war, the Aesir-Vanir conflict. Skalds swear and ken by the spear. At Ragnarok he rides with it and falls to Fenrir. The name is "the swaying one." No church or mound in Scandinavia holds a labeled Gungnir; the object lives in the Prose Edda treasure-list and in poetic diction. Oath-binding on the spear is a legal-poetic motif, not a surviving temple rite we can watch.

Primary Sources

“Odin had a spear called Gungnir, which the dwarves had made; it never stopped in its thrust.”
Prose Edda, Skáldskaparmál / Gylfaginning(c. 1220 CE)

“Odin hurled a spear over the host; that was the first war in the world.”
Poetic Edda, Völuspá(c. 10th–13th century (Codex Regius 1270s))

Powers & Abilities

Perfect AccuracyOath BindingCertain Death