#hresvelgr

Oh hey, I made more of these!

Race: Wilder

Alignment: Dark-Law

May 13th, 2024

Norse mythology has no shortage of giants making up its ranks, immensely powerful creatures called Jötunn that wreak havoc and devour the earth below, only matched in strength by the gods themselves. The Jötunn, descended from the primordial god Ymir, whose body was used to create the human realm of Midgard, live almost entirely within their own realm separate from both Midgard and Asgard, a frozen-over world called Jötunheimr (or Útgarðr depending on the source) that is as desolate as it is deadly. The Jötunn weren't quite as malevolent as they were representative of chaos itself, and many friendly Jötunn actually existed as well- one of those being the demon of the day, Hresvelgr, the cold winds of heaven's end.

Depictions of Hresvelgr are scant, only showing in a few stanzas of Vafþrúðnismál, wherein Odin spoke with the wise elder Jötunn, Vafþrúðnir, about the origin of the winds of the world. He would provide Odin with a simple, short answer, explaining the following.

"He is called Hræsvelg, who sits at heaven’s end, a giant, in the shape of an eagle; from his wings they say the wind comes over all people." - Translation by J. Lindow, 2002.

This excerpt would later be paraphrased in the Prose Edda, everyone's favorite piece of christianized literature, where it would be effectively repeated in the Gylfaginning section, albeit asked by a different character, that being the disguised Gylfi to the jötunn Hárr. As the story goes, the giant provides the winds to the worlds throughout Yggdrasil through the flapping of its wings. Whether the giant simply is an eagle or takes the form of one is unclear, as this great bird appears only briefly throughout the few sources we have on Norse mythology. The name's meaning as well is vague, having two meanings pertaining to his role- 'corpse-swallower' and 'shipwreck-current.'

Due to this, we can see Hresvelgr as a literal force of nature- the winds he whips up aren't malevolent, but will happily swallow people in storms and destroy their ships if they're not careful. However, wind can also bring joy- it guides ships, lets people know when a storm is brewing, and can even let people play in it if they're astute enough to build kites or the like. It's due to this that we can see, in force, the duality of the jötunn- they are not evil, not good, but simply neither, bringers of natural events that spell disaster and fortune in equal droves.

In SMT, Hresvelgr's specialty in wind skills is almost comedically obvious, a late game magic attacker who whips up hurricanes to attack his foes. The main thing I'd like to talk about, however, is his design- while appearing on the surface as a simple eagle, the detail of screaming faces under his wing paint a grim picture of the devastation that a tornado can bring, while the white, in contrast, represents the simple pleasure of a windy day.

Cmsn work!