#vitharr

Literary Sources

Poetic Edda

Then comes the great son of Odin, Vithar, to fight, to avenge his father on the wolf. He shoves his sword into the mouth of Fenrir, all the way to the heart, and thus is Odin avenged.

-Völuspá 53, Crawford tr.

Then comes Victory-father’s strong son, Vidar, to battle the Beast of Slaughter; With his hand he sends to Loki’s son’s heart his sword to stab: then his father is avenged.

-Völuspá 52, Larrington tr.

Odin said: “I have traveled so much, I have tried much, and I have often tested the mighty. Which gods will inherit Asgard, when the fires of Ragnarok go out?”

Riddle-Weaver said: “Vithar and Vali will inhabit Asgard when the fires of Ragnarok go out. Mothi and Magni will inherit Mjollnir after Thor is killed.”

Odin said: “I have traveled so much, I have tried much, and I have often tested the mighty. How will Odin lose his life at Ragnarok?”

Riddle-Weaver said: “A wolf will swallow Odin, but Vithar will avenge him. He’ll cut open the wolf’s cold jaws, kill the killer of his father.”

-Vafþrúðnismál 50-53, Crawford tr.

Odin said: "Much I have travelled, much have I tried out, much have I tested the Powers; which Æsir will rule over the gods’ possessions, when Surt’s fire is slaked?"

Vafthrudnir said: "Vidar and Vali will live in the gods’ sanctuaries, when Surt’s fire is slaked; Modi and Magni shall have Miollnir and demonstrate battle-strength."

Odin said: "Much I have travelled, much have I tried out, much have I tested the Powers; what will Odin’s life’s end be, when the Powers are torn apart?’

Vafthrudnir said: "The wolf will swallow the Father of Men, Vidar will avenge this; the cold jaws of the wolf he will sunder in battle."

-Vafþrúðnismál 50-53, Larrington tr.

“The wide land of Vithar is overgrown with high grass and weeds. That bold son of Odin is preparing himself to avenge his father on horseback."

-Grímnismál 17, Crawford tr.

"Brushwood grows and high grass and woods in Vidar’s land; and there the son proclaims from his horse’s back his keenness to avenge his father."

-Grímnismál 17, Larrington tr.

(my note: Anatoly Liberman does have a whole part on some weird language things in this stanza; when I eventually get that typed or otherwise transferred to digital I'll link it here.)

Loki said: “Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days we blended our blood? You told me then that you would never taste a drink that was not served to us both.”

Odin said: “Get up, Vithar, let this father of wolves take a seat and have a drink. Let’s not let Loki slander us here in Aegir’s hall.”

Then Vithar stood up and served Loki a drink.

-Lokasenna 9-10, Crawford tr.

Loki said: "Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days we blended our blood together? You said you’d never imbibe beer unless it were brought to both of us."

Odin said: "Get up then, Vidar, and let the wolf’s father sit down at the feast, lest Loki speak words of blame to us in Ægir’s hall.’

Then Vidar stood up and poured a drink for Loki.

-Lokasenna 9-10, Larrington tr.

Prose Edda

(by Snorri Sturluson; all quotes below use the Anthony Faulkes translation, which is available for free)

"Vidar is the name of one, the silent As. He has a thick shoe. He is almost equal in strength to Thor. He is a source of great support to the gods in all dangers." (Gylfaginning 29)

"The wolf will swallow Odin. That will be the cause of his death. And immediately after Vidar will come forward and step with one foot on the lower jaw of the wolf. On this foot he will have a shoe for which the material has been being collected throughout all time: it is the waste pieces that people cut from their shoes at the toe and heel. Therefore anyone that is concerned to give assistance to the Æsir must throw these pieces away. With one hand he will grasp the wolf's upper jaw and tear apart its mouth and this will cause the wolf's death." (Gylfaginning 51) (my note: Vafþrúðnismál and this account mention the jaw tearing as the cause of Fenrir's death; Völuspá mentions Víðarr stabbing him in the heart with a sword. Oddly enough Völuspá is the poem that gets cited directly below this passage in Gylfaginning, despite the variance)

"The earth will shoot up out of the sea and will then be green and fair. Crops will grow unsown. Vidar and Vali will be alive, the sea and Surt's fire not having harmed them, and they will dwell on Idavoll, where Asgard had been previously. And then Thor's sons Modi and Magni will arrive, bringing Miollnir. After that Baldr and Hod will arrive from Hel. Then they will all sit down together and talk and discuss their mysteries and speak of things that had happened in former times, of the Midgard serpent and Fenriswolf. Then they will find in the grass the golden playing pieces that had belonged to the Æsir. Thus it is said:

Vidar and Vali will dwell in the gods' holy places when Surt's flame goes dark. Modi and Magni shall have Miollnir when Vingnir fights no more."

(Gylfaginning 54) (my note: Snorri quoting/referencing Vafþrúðnismál 51 here)

"Then the Æsir instituted their banquet and twelve Æsir who were to be judges took their place in their thrones and their names are as follows: Thor, Niord, Freyr, Tyr, Heimdall, Bragi, Vidar, Vali, Ull, Hænir, Forseti, Loki; similarly the Asyniur, Frigg, Freyja, Gefiun, Idunn, Gerd, Sigyn, Fulla, Nanna." (from the list of attendees at the banquet in the beginning of Skáldskaparmál)

"How shall Vidar be referred to? He may be called the silent As, possessor of the iron shoe, enemy and slayer of Fenriswolf, the gods' avenging As, father's homestead-inhabiting As and son of Odin, brother of the Æsir." (Skáldskaparmál 11)

"Then Geirrod locked Loki in a chest and starved him there for three months. And when Geirrod took him out and demanded that he speak, Loki said who he was, and to redeem his life he swore Geirrod oaths that he would get Thor to come to Geirrod's courts without his bringing either his hammer or his girdle of might. Thor lodged for the night with a giantess called Grid. She was Vidar the silent's mother. She told Thor the truth about Geirrod, that he was a cunning giant and awkward to deal with. She lent him a girdle of might and some iron gauntlets of hers, and her staff, called Grid's pole." (Skáldskaparmál 18, tr. Faulkes) (my note: bolding mine; also that gear does end up saving Thor's ass twice later in the story)

There are a few more mentions of him in Skáldskaparmál, but just in lists of Æsir or gods (the same is true for Gríðr (Grid) who shows up in a list of troll-women and some related kennings).

Other Resources

Further Research/Resource Links

Who is Víðarr? (Dr. Jackson Crawford, YouTube): If you want someone to read all this to you along with most of it in reconstructed Old Norse in less than 4 minutes, boy do I have a deal for you. If I have a critique it's that while he does a pretty good job describing the backstory behind the wine-pouring incident (which is helpful), as you can see above or in this post Odin is the one who tells Víðarr to do it while specifically referring to Loki as "the father of the wolf," so credit where credit is due; the Old Bastard purposefully and very effectively escalated the situation IMO. Solid other than that.

Deafness and Nonspeaking in Late Medieval Iceland (1200–1550) (yoav tirosh, PDF): Focuses more on the lived experience than mythological instances, but it wouldn't hurt to read it. If you're interested in more work along these lines, Christopher Crocker's Bibliography of Disability and the Medieval Icelandic Sagas is an excellent place to start looking.

Possible Name Etymology

"In addition to OI víðr 'wide,' there is víðir 'willow; withe'. Kauffmann suggested that Víðarr derives from wīþagaizaz (gaizaz is the etymon of geirr 'spear') but offered an untenable interpretation, according to which *-gaizaz meant 'wand,' so that Víðarr, the forest god, might have been named for some such attribute. This hypothesis did not convince anyone, but Kauffmann appears to have spotted the right first element of Víðarr's name. Shields and spears were made of lime tree (lind), and the production of spears depended mainly on ash (askr). Yet another wood, willow, was also used for the same purpose. In Norwegian and Danish, pil still means 'willow' and 'spear'. Pil, like G. Pfeile, is a borrowing of Lat. pilum. Willow boughs were pliant, and when they were straight, they could be made into slender spears. No Scandinavian language has retained víðir or its cognates with the sense 'spear,' but reconstructing it is not too risky. The idea of endowing a Latin loanword for 'spear' with the sense 'willow' (the tree was renamed for the artifact, rather than the other way around-- strange but indubitable!) must have been inspired by native usage; see FT, pil II. Víðir *'spear' was presumably lost among its synonyms: cf. in addition to pil, OI spjót and spjǫr, and see FT, agnor. The probable original form of Víðarr's name was *wīþi-geizaz 'spear-spear, spear-lance,' a typical tautological compound. The stem vowel (-i-) was apocopated before the vowel of -arr in other compounds (for instance, Víðidalr 'inhabitant of a valley overgrown with willow trees'), it has been retained. "[…] If my conjecture commands acceptance or is at least worthy of consideration, Víðarr did not get his name for his reticence, remote abode in the woods, wide range of powers, being able to see objects at a great distance, or ruling the post-Ragnarǫk world. The name emphasized his status of a great warrior. It was an analog of Oddgeir and Franconian Gerort. Perhaps at one time it was the name of a more visible war god. OI víðir, derived from a root meaning 'bind,' coexisted with viðja 'fetter,' from the zero grade of the same root: cf. Engl. withe versus withy and G. Weide 'willow' vs Dan. vidje 'withy, willow shoot'. Their closeness may have contributed to the variation Víðarr ~ Viðarr, but neither goes back to víðr 'wide' or viðr 'wood'. In poetry, Víðarr prevailed (one can imagine more or less by chance). I thought of connecting Víðarr with víðir long before I read Kauffmann's article (Liberman 2008:176). My topic was the syncretism child/branch (offspring/offshoot). It seemed to me that Víðarr meant simply 'child' (='Óðinn's son'). This hypothesis is no longer needed. There is some poetic justice in the fact that the wielder of the famous spear Gungnir had a son called Spear-spear, or, if -arr goes back to -herr, then a prospective avenger, Spear-lord."

-from In Prayer and Laughter: Essays on Medieval Scandinavian and Germanic Mythology, Literature, and Culture, by Anatoly Liberman, pp. 98-100

Archaeological/Material Finds

Gosforth Cross- one of a few carved figures/scenes on this piece that seem to reference Norse mythology, though if the name didn't tip you off this is in a Christian context/piece.

The Rök Runestone- If the 2020 interpretation is correct, the last two "lines" on the stone are mythological riddles which reference Víðarr's mentions in Völuspá and Vafþruðnismál.

MyNDIR page for Víðarr- Not comprehensive but a good start for past artistic renditions of him.

Other Retellings

This section is at the end and slightly different from the rest, as it addresses a phenomenon somewhat the opposite of his father, yet with a similar result-- basically, if you've got enough written about you, it's easy to sneak more in, but if you've got nearly nothing people will fill the need to fill gaps. While I am cognizant of the fact that "filling gaps" may be something necessary in a situation like a revived religious practice, many of these books floating around freely online are a) fairly old, and techniques of analysis and changes in thought in the study of this stuff do make a difference, and b) not necessarily writing for an audience looking to do research, in the sense that they will make claims or insert entire passages/events with wording that makes it unclear as to whether this is a tale or an accounting of history-- a nebulous group of people believing in something is a frequent and often evocative literary technique, but even then if it's going to be something more gets based on you should want to see more evidence or citations.

TL;DR: There's a lot of public domain stuff floating around that I am not sure people have context for or information about; the below is a short attempt to remedy that since I presume no one cares for a full breakdown/commentary of individual texts.

The Children of Odin, Padraic Colum (1920): One of a series of mythological children's retellings that Colum did for Macmillan Publishers. Uses an unattested story involving Odin basically mythologically infodumping to Víðarr (Vidar) because he can't speak (and presumably tell anyone) and will live past Ragnarök. While the incident in question is unattested, the chapter does pull from Eddic poems such as Baldrs draumar (Vegtamskviða), Hávamál, and bits from the Prose Edda, but mixed with explanations and reasoning not necessarily in those sources and making the mythology more coherent than it actually is.