The Mead of Poetry

When the Aesir and Vanir gods ended their war, they sealed their peace in a ritual older than memory. Each god spat into a great vessel, and from this mingled essence they created Kvasir, a being of unparalleled wisdom who could answer any question put to him. Kvasir wandered the Nine Worlds, sharing knowledge with all who sought it.

But wisdom so pure attracts those who would possess it. Two dwarves, Fjalar and Galar, invited Kvasir to a feast and murdered him in secret. They drained his blood into three vessels: two vats called Son and Bodn, and a cauldron called Odrerir. Mixed with honey, Kvasir's blood became the Mead of Poetry, a drink that could make anyone who tasted it a poet or scholar.

Whoever drinks of the mead becomes a poet and a sage. The mead is Odin's gift to the worlds, though he won it through cunning, not kindness.

The dwarves' crime did not go unpunished for long. When they later murdered a giant named Gilling and his wife, Gilling's son Suttung came seeking vengeance. He seized the dwarves and stranded them on a tidal rock, where they would surely drown. To save their lives, they offered him the mead as weregild. Suttung took the three vessels and hid them deep within the mountain Hnitbjorg, setting his daughter Gunnlod to guard them.

Word of the mead reached Odin, and the All-Father became consumed with desire for it. He understood that the power of poetry was too precious to remain locked away in a giant's cave, hoarded rather than shared. He laid his plans carefully.

Odin descended to Midgard in disguise, calling himself Bolverk, meaning "worker of evil." He came upon nine thralls mowing hay for Baugi, Suttung's brother. Odin produced a whetstone and offered to sharpen their scythes. The blades became so keen that the thralls fought over who would buy the stone, and in their struggle, all nine cut each other's throats with their own scythes.

Odin then approached Baugi, offering to do the work of nine men in exchange for a single drink of Suttung's mead. Baugi agreed, though he warned that the mead was not his to give. For an entire summer, Odin labored in the fields, working as hard as any mortal.

When harvest came, Baugi approached his brother, but Suttung refused to part with even a drop of the mead. Baugi, bound by his oath, agreed to help Odin steal it instead. Taking an auger called Rati, Baugi bored a hole through the mountain Hnitbjorg. Odin transformed himself into a serpent and slithered through the narrow passage.

In the heart of the mountain, Odin found Gunnlod sitting alone with the three vessels of mead. He resumed his true form, the handsome god of wisdom and poetry, and for three nights he lay with her in darkness. Whether through love or magic, Gunnlod agreed to give him three sips of the mead.

But Odin's sips were mighty indeed. With his first draft, he drained the cauldron Odrerir. With his second, the vat Bodn. With his third, Son was emptied completely. The mead of poetry, every drop of it, now resided in the All-Father's belly.

Before Gunnlod or Suttung could react, Odin transformed himself into an eagle and burst from the mountain. Suttung, enraged, took eagle form himself and gave chase across the sky. The gods of Asgard, seeing the two great birds approaching, set out vessels in the courtyard to receive the mead.

Odin reached Asgard just ahead of his pursuer and disgorged the mead into the waiting containers. In his haste, some of the mead escaped from behind, falling to earth below. This portion, touched by Odin's flight but not his intent, became the portion of rhymesters and bad poets, available to anyone without discrimination.

But the true mead, the gift that Odin dispenses sparingly to gods and mortals, grants genuine poetic inspiration. Those touched by it speak in verse that moves the heart, write words that endure beyond lifetimes, and understand truths that ordinary speech cannot convey. Every great poem ever composed, every song that lives in memory, owes its existence to Odin's theft from the giants and his gift to the worlds.