Study › Runes & Norse › Odin as Grimnir
Disguised as Grimnir, "the Masked One", Odin went to test his foster-son King Geirrod. The king set him between two fires for eight nights, and there Odin spoke the poem Grímnismál.
Odin's foster-son
Odin and Frigg each raised a young prince. Odin's favourite, Geirrod, became a king; Frigg's, Agnar, lived in a cave. Odin boasted of his foster-son, and Frigg replied that Geirrod was so mean he tortured his guests. To test him, Odin went to Geirrod's hall disguised, calling himself Grimnir, 'the Masked One'.
Between two fires
Frigg had warned the king that a sorcerer was coming, so Geirrod had Grimnir seized and set between two fires, and left him there for eight nights without food or drink. Only the king's young son, also named Agnar, pitied him and brought him a full horn to drink.
Grímnismál
Then, in the poem Grímnismál, Odin began to speak: of the halls of the gods, of Valhalla and its doors, of the rivers and the roots of Yggdrasil and the ravens Hugin and Munin. At last he named himself. Geirrod leapt up to pull him from the fire, but his sword slipped from his hand, and he stumbled onto it and died. The boy Agnar, who had shown kindness, became king.
Read about Odin, Hugin and Munin and Valhalla.
Questions
What does Grimnir mean?
"The Masked One".
What is Grímnismál about?
The halls of the gods, Valhalla, the roots of Yggdrasil and Odin's ravens, spoken by Odin between two fires.