Bragi

Snorri introduces Bragi among the Æsir as renowned for wisdom and above all for eloquence and skill with words. He knows the most about poetry, and Snorri says the word bragr, 'poetry', comes from his name. His wife is Iðunn, who keeps the apples the gods bite when they grow old so that they become young again. In his list of kennings Snorri calls Bragi Iðunn's husband, the first maker of poetry, the long-bearded god and Odin's son, and adds that a man with a big beard is called skeggbragi, 'beard-Bragi'. Grímnismál 44, which Snorri quotes in Gylfaginning, ranks the best of each kind, among them Yggdrasil of trees, Odin of the Æsir, Sleipnir of horses, Bifröst of bridges and Bragi of poets. Sigrdrífumál 16 names 'Bragi's tongue' among the places where runes were carved before they were scraped off and mixed into the holy mead.
He is the gods' storyteller. Snorri opens Skáldskaparmál with the sea giant Ægir visiting Ásgarðr, where twelve Æsir sat on high seats as judges, Bragi among them. Bragi sat next to Ægir, they drank and talked, and Bragi told him many tales of what the Æsir had done: how the giant Þjazi carried off Iðunn, and how Odin won the mead of poetry. When Ægir asks how many kinds of poetry there are, Bragi answers that there are two, language and metre, and Snorri's treatise on poetic language starts from that conversation.
Lokasenna shows him under attack. When Loki forces his way into Ægir's hall and asks for a seat, Bragi answers that the Æsir will never choose him one (st. 8). Odin overrules him, and before drinking Loki hails every god and goddess except Bragi (st. 11). Bragi offers him a horse, a sword and a ring to keep the peace (st. 12). Loki answers that Bragi will always lack both horses and arm-rings and is the most wary of battle of everyone in the hall (st. 13). Bragi says that if he were outside, he would carry Loki's head in his hand (st. 14), and Loki mocks him as bekkskrautuðr, 'bench-ornament', brave only in his seat (st. 15). Iðunn begs her husband not to trade insults with Loki and says she is calming him, merry with beer, so the two will not fight (st. 16 and 18).
Two 10th-century memorial poems give him a place in Valhalla. In Eiríksmál, when a great din is heard, Bragi takes it for Baldr coming back to Odin's halls, and Odin tells 'wise Bragi' not to talk nonsense: the noise is for King Eiríkr (st. 3–4). In Hákonarmál, Odin sends Hermóðr and Bragi to meet King Hákon, and Bragi promises him the peace of the einherjar, ale from the Æsir and eight brothers already in the hall (st. 14–16). Snorri's Heimskringla also records a toast. At sacrifices, Hákonar saga góða says, many men drank the Braga full after the cups of Odin, Njörðr and Freyr; in Ynglinga saga, at a king's funeral feast, the heir stood up to meet the bragafull, made a vow, drank, and only then took his father's high seat. Snorri also quotes a poet he calls Bragi the Old and says he made a drápa about Ragnar loðbrók, and Skáldatal names him Bragi Boddason. Whether the god is this poet raised among the gods is a scholarly hypothesis, not something the sources say.