The Norse God Heimdall

As we have already noticed, Norse mythology has a vast number of celestial deities and other creatures. People always lean towards the „good guys,“ a.k.a. The Gods of Aesir and Vanir. Each God had its purpose and special skills, and all of them combined were the all-powerful beings in the Norse cosmos.

Today, we’ll talk about the watchman of the Gods, Heimdall. Heimdall (Old Norse Heimdallr) was born of nine mothers, all of them sisters, and in his Skáldskaparmál Snorri Sturluson also calls him a son of Odin. He had one of the most significant tasks to perform. He lives at the edge of heaven and guards the bridge the Gods built from earth to heaven against the mountain giants. No source gives him a gate to keep, and Snorri never says that the bridge ends at Asgard. That bridge is known as the Bifröst bridge.

Although keeping watch was his primary duty, Heimdall wasn’t only a watchman. He was known for his incredible sight and hearing: he sees a hundred leagues by night as well as by day, and he hears the grass grow.

Stay tuned as we’ll talk more about Heimdall and his magnificent story in this article, as we’ll try to cover the most exciting legends about this Norse mythology God.

Heimdall is the ever-watchful guardian of the Norse gods, keeper of the Bifröst, the rainbow bridge the gods built from earth to heaven. Born of nine mothers, he has sight and hearing so keen that he can see for a hundred leagues and hear grass grow. He owns the horn Gjallarhorn, which he will blow to wake the gods when Ragnarök begins.

About Heimdall

Norse mythology teaches us that all Gods are special in some way, and what makes Heimdallr different from other Gods are his duties and abilities. One of the distinguishing features about Heimdall is his horn Gjallarhorn, whose blast is heard in all worlds. He will blow it to wake the Gods at the beginning of the end, the doom of the Gods known as Ragnarök.

Additionally, Heimdallr owns the horse Gulltoppr (‘gold-top’), and he is known by many names. Heimdall's other names were Hallinskíði, Gullintanni (‘golden-tooth’), Vindhlér or Vindlér, and Rig. Snorri calls him the white God, the poem Þrymskviða calls him the whitest of the Aesir, and his teeth were of gold.

Snorri’s Gylfaginning says that Heimdallr hears the grass growing on the earth and the wool growing on sheep, and everything that makes a louder sound. His sight is just as keen: he sees a hundred leagues around him, by night as well as by day. Seeing into all the worlds at once belongs to Odin, from his high seat Hliðskjálf, not to Heimdall.

Heimdall didn’t need much sleep. In fact, he needs less sleep than a bird, and that allowed him to keep watch almost all the time. With all his skills and abilities, Heimdall was the perfect watchman for the Gods’ bridge.

Heimdall’s home is known as Himinbjörg („Heaven’s Cliffs“). The poem Grímnismál (stanza 13) says that there the watchman of the Gods gladly drinks good mead in his peaceful hall. Snorri places Himinbjörg at the edge of heaven, where Bifröst (the rainbow bridge) reaches heaven.

Interesting Stories and Facts About Heimdallr

The meaning of Heimdall’s name is uncertain. The first half is generally taken as heimr, ‘world’, and the whole is sometimes read as „the one who illuminates the world“. He can also be called a God of humankind: the first stanza of Völuspá calls all people his sons, and the poem Rígsþula makes him the father of the social classes.

Additionally, in that poem Heimdall has three sons, and to the third of them, Jarl, he teaches the magical runes, gives him his own name and claims him as his son. The poem does not say that this is how all people learned the runes.

Furthermore, the prose introduction to Rígsþula says that one of the Aesir, called Heimdallr, went on his way along a seashore, came to a farmstead and called himself Rig (Rígr), a name usually linked with the Old Irish word for „king“.

One of these exciting stories about Heimdall is the one with Freya’s stolen necklace known as Brisingamen, though only scraps of it survive. Snorri calls Loki the thief of Brísingamen and Heimdall the seeker of Freya’s necklace. He says the two quarrelled over Brísingamen at Vágasker and Singasteinn, and that the poet Úlfr Uggason told the story at length in his Húsdrápa (c. 985), where they were in the shape of seals. The verse Snorri quotes about the fight names only Singasteinn and says that the son of nine mothers wins the beautiful sea-jewel. The seals and Vágasker come from Snorri’s prose. How Loki stole it, and how the fight went, is lost.

Snorri also foretells that Loki and Heimdallr will fight at Ragnarök and kill each other. No surviving myth explains how their feud began, and in Þrymskviða the two even work together: Heimdall suggests dressing Thor as a bride, and Loki goes along as his maid.

Heimdallr’s Family Tree

Heimdall’s family story begins on the road. In Rígsþula the God, calling himself Rig, walks the green paths and visits three households in turn. At each he is fed, sleeps three nights between the husband and the wife, and nine months later a son is born.

Snorri calls Heimdall a son of Odin, and he had nine mothers, but Rígsþula says that Heimdall was also the father of three sons, and through them the forefather of the three orders of Norse society.

Rígsþula is the Eddic poem, preserved in the Codex Wormianus, which tells how Rig stayed three nights with each of three couples from different social backgrounds. The couples are named Ái and Edda („Great-grandfather“ and „Great-grandmother“), Afi and Amma („Grandfather“ and „Grandmother“), and Faðir and Móðir („Father“ and „Mother“). From their sons come the three social classes: the serfs, the free farmers and the nobles.

Heimdall’s firstborn son, born to Edda, was a wrinkled, ugly boy by the name of Thrall, who grew up binding bast and carrying loads. He was the ancestor of the serf social class. His second son, born to Amma, was Karl. Karl tamed oxen, made ploughs, built houses and barns, and he was the ancestor of the class of free farmers. Heimdall’s third son, Jarl, born to Móðir, was fair-haired and keen-eyed, and grew up with bow, spear, horse, hound and sword. Rig came back to teach him runes, and Jarl went on to win lands in war and rule eighteen estates. He was the ancestor of the noble and warrior class.

Heimdallr In Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda mentions Heimdallr on many occasions. In its main manuscript, the Codex Regius, he appears in Völuspá, Grímnismál, Þrymskviða and Lokasenna, where (stanzas 47–48) he tells Loki that he is drunk out of his wits, and Loki answers that Heimdall was given an ugly life from the start, forever awake as the watchman of the Gods. Two poems kept in other manuscripts belong here too: Rígsþula, whose prose introduction names him, and the Short Völuspá in Hyndluljóð, which says nine giant maidens bore a mighty god at the edge of the earth, a god usually taken to be Heimdall. Hrafnagaldr Óðins, which some books add to the list, is a much later poem, probably written after the Middle Ages.

Additionally, Heimdall is mentioned in Völuspá three times. In the first stanza of the poem, the völva who recites it asks for silence from all the holy kindred, „the greater and lesser sons of Heimdallr“, meaning all of humankind.

A modern Edda cover design

The second time, in stanza 27, the völva says she knows that Heimdallr’s hljóð, his hearing or perhaps his horn, lies hidden under the holy tree, and that she sees a muddy torrent pour from Odin’s pledge, the eye he left in Mímir’s well.

The third time, in stanza 46, she foresees the events of Ragnarök and the role that Heimdallr will have along with his Gjallarhorn („The Resounding Horn“): as the sons of Mímir stir, Heimdallr blows loudly, his horn held high.

Snorri adds that Heimdallr stands up and blows Gjallarhorn mightily, and it wakes all the Gods, who then hold council together.

The Unclear Details About Heimdallr

There is a connection between Heimdall and the ram, but it is quite unclear due to the scarce sources available: the medieval lists of poetic names give both heimdali and hallinskíði as words for a ram, and nobody knows why.

The Völuspá line about his hljóð is just as puzzling. The word can mean ‘hearing’, ‘silence’ or ‘sound’, and the stanza sets it beside Odin’s pledged eye. Some readers think Heimdall pledged his hearing, or an ear, to the well of Mímir, as the All-father Odin pledged his eye; others think the hljóð is his horn, since Snorri says Mímir drinks from his well with Gjallarhorn. These are just speculations since there’s no firm evidence to substantiate either reading.

Heimdall In Modern Cinematography

Thanks to numerous TV shows and movies, we had the opportunity to learn more about Heimdall as well as many other Gods, giants, and Norse mythology creatures. The Marvel Cinematic Universe depicted numerous characters from Norse mythology, including Heimdall.

In the films, Heimdall, played by Idris Elba, is the gatekeeper of Asgard and watches over the Nine Realms from a golden observatory. None of that comes from the medieval sources, where he guards a bridge, not a gate. Still, the films give him a significant role to play in every one of these stories. Without his heightened senses, the other Gods, like Thor and his companions, wouldn’t be able to achieve all the victories and successful escapes.

In the films, Heimdall’s powers allow him to hear a cry for help from anywhere in the cosmos, and he opens the Bifröst, there a beam of light rather than a bridge, to bring his fellow Gods home, as in Thor (2011), when Thor and his friends get away from the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. In the sources, Heimdall never works the bridge: the Gods ride over it on horseback, and he only guards it.

Heimdall appears in every Thor film of the series, which shows how popular the character has become, even if the films’ Heimdall owes more to Marvel than to the Eddas.

Modern Influence

There are plenty of books, movies, video games, and comic books that include Heimdall’s character nowadays.

Marvel’s Heimdall first appeared in a comic book published back in 1962.

In video games, Heimdall is a major character in God of War Ragnarök (2022), where he is one of the Gods Kratos fights.

At the End of The Rainbow

So far, most of Norse mythology Gods and Goddesses had pretty exciting background stories. Do you think that Heimdall’s story is good enough for a God of his stature?

Do you believe that Heimdall’s position within the Aesir tribe was good enough for a God? Being a God and a watchman doesn’t sound like an honorable thing compared to what duties other Gods had. What are your thoughts about this? Is there anything else you know about Heimdall that we didn’t cover?

Share your thoughts, and let’s discuss the mighty God Heimdallr in the comment section below.

Heimdall, FAQ

Who is Heimdall?

Heimdall is the watchman of the Norse gods and the guardian of the Bifröst, the rainbow bridge the gods built from earth to heaven. He lives at Himinbjörg at the edge of heaven and guards the bridge against the mountain giants, and when Ragnarök begins he blows the horn Gjallarhorn to wake the gods.

What is Heimdall the god of?

Heimdall is the god of watchfulness. Snorri Sturluson calls him the watchman of the gods, and the poem Þrymskviða says he could see the future well, like the Vanir. Snorri also calls him the white god, and through the poem Rígsþula he is linked with the origins of human social classes.

What is Gjallarhorn?

Gjallarhorn is Heimdall's horn, whose blast, Snorri says, is heard in all worlds. Heimdall blows it to wake the gods when Ragnarök begins. The name is usually translated as ‘horn of clamour’ or ‘resounding horn’, and Snorri also says that Mímir drinks from his well with it.

How does Heimdall die?

At Ragnarök, Heimdall and Loki fight each other, and each kills the other. Snorri calls Heimdall Loki's enemy, and the two also fought over Freya's necklace Brísingamen, but no surviving myth explains how their feud began.

Is Heimdall a son of Odin?

Yes. Snorri Sturluson says so, and a medieval list of names counts him among Odin's sons. He was also born of nine mothers, all of them sisters, and the Short Völuspá says that nine giant maidens bore a god usually taken to be him. No source explains why he had nine.

Keep exploring: Bifröst, the bridge he guards, Asgard, the full Norse pantheon, or shop Norse god jewelry.