This article is about the Norse deity. For other uses, see
BORR.
In
Norse mythology, Borr or Burr[1] (Old Norse: 'borer'[2] sometimes
anglicizedBor, Bör or Bur) was the son of
Búri. Borr was the husband of
Bestla and the father of
Odin,
Vili and Vé. Borr receives mention in a poem in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional material, and in the Prose Edda, composed in the 13th century by Icelander
Snorri Sturluson. Scholars have proposed a variety of theories about the figure.
Attestation
Borr is mentioned in the fourth verse of the Völuspá, a poem contained in the Poetic Edda, and in the sixth chapter of Gylfaginning, the second section of the Prose Edda.
Borr is not mentioned again in the Prose Edda. In
skaldic and
eddaic poetry, Odin is occasionally
referred to as Borr's son.
Scholarly reception and interpretation
The role of Borr in Norse mythology is unclear. Nineteenth-century German scholar
Jacob Grimm proposed to equate Borr with
Mannus as related in
Tacitus' Germania on the basis of the similarity in their functions in Germanic theogeny.[7]
The 19th century Icelandic scholar and archaeologist
Finnur Magnússon hypothesized that Borr was "intended to signify [...] the first mountain or mountain-chain, which it was deemed by the forefathers of our race had emerged from the waters in the same region where the first land made its appearance. This mountain chain is probably the
Caucasus, called by the Persians Borz (the genitive of the Old Norse Borr). Bör's wife, Belsta or
Bestla, a daughter of the giant
Bölthorn (spina calamitosa), is possibly the mass of ice formed on the alpine summits."[8] In his Lexicon Mythologicum, published four years later, he modified his theory to claim that Borr symbolized the earth, and Bestla the ocean, which gave birth to
Odin as the "world spirit" or "great soul of the earth" (spiritus mundi nostri; terrae magna anima, aëris et aurae numen),
Vili or
Hoenir as the "heavenly light" (lux, imprimis coelestis) and
Vé or
Lódur as "fire" (ignis, vel elementalis vel proprie sic dictus).[9]
Highlighting that no source provides information about Borr's mother (Borr's father was licked free from the earth by the primeval cow
Auðumbla),
Rudolf Simek observes that "It is not clear how Burr came to be".[10]
Notes and citations
^The Konungsbók or Codex Regius MS of the Völuspá reads Búrr; the Hauksbók MS reads Borr. Cf. Nordal (1980:31). The latter form alone was used by 13th-century historian and poet
Snorri Sturluson. Cf. Simek (1988:54).
^ Jan De Vries (1977) Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 51
^"Must not Buri, Börr, Oðinn be parallel, though under other names, to Tvisco, Mannus, Inguio? Inguio has two brothers at his side, Iscio and Hermino, as Oðinn has Vili and Ve; we should then see the reason why the names Týski (Tvisco, i.e.
Tuisto) and Maðr (
Mannus) are absent from the Edda, because Buri and Börr are their substitutes," Grimm (1883:349).
^Finnur Magnússon (1824). Eddalaeren og dens oprindelse, Vol. I. (1824:42). Quoted in Millet (1847:486-7).