Bragi
Bragi is the Norse god of poetry and eloquence, a son of Odin and the husband of Idun. Snorri calls him the long-bearded god and the first maker of poetry, and an Eddic poem names his tongue among the things runes were carved on.
Meaning
Bragi is the god of eloquence and poetry in Norse myth, a son of Odin and the husband of Idun. Snorri Sturluson’s Edda says he is known for wisdom, “and most of all for fluency of speech and skill with words”, and that poetry is called bragr after him. His name may come from the adjective bragr, “the foremost”, or from the noun bragr, “poetry”, Store norske leksikon says, and Dictionary.com gives the pronunciation as BRAH-gee. The Eddas that tell of him survive in manuscripts of the 13th and early 14th centuries, and the National Museum of Denmark notes that both were written by Christian writers at the start of the Middle Ages. Henry Adams Bellows, translating the Poetic Edda in 1923, counts Bragi among the later gods, named only three times in its poems; the Danish encyclopedia Lex adds that he appears in places as Odin’s spokesman. Heathens still call on him: Sweden’s Nordiska Asa-samfundet writes that anyone who wants eloquence and skill in poetry should hold a blót to him.
Origin and history
Bragi shares his name with the oldest skald whose verse survives. Store norske leksikon dates Bragi Boddason, a Norwegian poet, to the first half of the 800s. All but two of his surviving stanzas are kept in manuscripts of Snorri’s Edda, and twenty of them are thought to belong to one poem, Ragnarsdrápa, read as a shield poem describing pictures in four fields, among them Thor fishing for the Midgard Serpent. In the late 1800s several scholars doubted that the skald had lived at all; one argument was that a god was called Bragi, and gods’ names were not used for people in Norse times. The usual explanation since, the encyclopedia says, is that the skald Bragi Boddason was given a place of honour in Valhalla after his death. Bellows had suggested the same in 1923: the skald “had been traditionally apotheosized as early as the tenth century”. Lex sets that reading beside another, that Bragi is Odin’s gift for poetry given a body of its own. In the poem Eiríksmál it is Bragi who welcomes Eirik Bloodaxe to Valhalla, as Store norske leksikon notes.
Runes on his tongue
The Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál lists the places where runes were carved, “On the paws of the bear, and on Bragi’s tongue”, among the teeth of Sleipnir and the point of Gungnir. The Troth reads the line as meaning that “his spoken verses bear the might of the runes to the minds of those who hear his poetry”. Snorri gives the poets other names for him: “Husband of Idunn, First Maker of Poetry, and the Long-bearded God”, and he adds that a man with a great beard is called Beard-Bragi.
The teller of tales
Snorri builds the second part of his Edda around Bragi. At a feast the sea god Ægir sits next to him, and they drink and talk; Bragi tells him the story of Idun’s apples, and when Ægir asks how the gods came by Suttung’s mead, one of the poets’ names for poetry, Bragi answers, “That tale runs thus”, and tells how Odin won it (see the triple horn of Odin).
Mocked in Lokasenna
In Lokasenna, set at a feast in the hall of the sea god Ægir, Loki greets every god “Save for the god who yonder sits, Bragi there on the bench”. Bragi offers a horse, a sword and a ring to keep the peace; Loki answers that of all the gods and elves he is “Least brave in battle”, and calls him “Bragi, adorner of benches!” Bellows found the taunt hard to explain, since most of the skaldic poets “were likewise noted fighters”.
Bragi’s cup
At Norse feasts a solemn vow to do a great deed was made while draining a toast, the bragarfull, Store norske leksikon says; in Norwegian a brageløfte is still a promise too big to keep. Lex glosses the word as the foremost cup, with which in the Viking Age a man promised to do his utmost, in battle for instance. The Troth agrees that the word means “the best cup”, and that the form bragafull could be read as either “chieftain’s cup” or “Bragi’s cup”: “This is probably a false etymology, but Heathens may nonetheless find it a fitting name, since feasts were and are a time for poems to be spoken and songs to be sung.” The drawing here is a drinking horn for that reason.
The harp in pictures of Bragi
None of the Edda passages about Bragi quoted here gives him an instrument. The harp he holds in many pictures is a 19th-century image: Lex shows the reverse of the Oehlenschläger medal, made by J. Conradsen about 1860, where Bragi plays a harp with Idun beside him, the apples of youth in her lap.
Bragi in Heathenry today
Nordiska Asa-samfundet describes Bragi as the god of eloquence and, like Odin, of poetry. In its account he sits near Odin’s high seat in Valhalla, drinking with the gods and the fallen warriors and welcoming Valhalla’s guests, and it connects him with the raising of toasts. The Troth notes that the Old English word brego, “leader”, is related to his name, and that some Heathens in the Anglo-Saxon tradition call on him by it.
Read next
- Next in Norse gods and their symbolsIdunIdun (Iðunn) is the Norse goddess who keeps the apples of youth, which the gods eat when they begin to grow old. Her attributes are the apples and the box of ash wood that Snorri’s Edda says she keeps them in.
- In Snorri’s Edda Bragi tells the story of the mead of poetryTriple horn of OdinThree drinking horns interlaced at their tips, carved on the Snoldelev runestone in Denmark about 700–800. It is called the triple horn of Odin today; the stone itself names no god.
See also
Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldr, Tyr, Heimdall.
Sources
- The Prose Edda (Brodeur translation), Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (trans.), 1916, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Internet Archive), Gylfaginning, chapter XXVI; Skáldskaparmál, chapters I, V and X
- The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation), Henry Adams Bellows (trans.), 1923, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Project Gutenberg), Introduction; Grimnismol, stanza 44 and note; Sigrdrifumol, stanza 16; Lokasenna, stanzas 11–15 and notes
- The old religion, National Museum of Denmark, Written sources
- Brage (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon
- Bragebæger (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon
- Brage – i norrøn mytologi (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Brage – mannsnamn (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Brage Boddason (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Brageløfte (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Bragi, the greatest of poets, The Troth
- Gudar, Nordiska Asa-samfundet
- Bragi (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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