Svalinn is a legendary shield in
Nordic mythology which stands in front of
Sun, protecting the world from her heat. It has been suggested to be part of a continuous tradition of solar imagery dating back to the
Nordic Bronze Age.
Etymology
Svalinn in
Old Norse translates as "cold" or "chill" and is derived from the verb svala, meaning "to cool", in turn from the adjective
Old Norse: svalr ('cool'), from
Proto-Germanic: *swalaz from
Proto-Germanic: *swelaną ("to burn slowly, create a burningly cold sensation") from
Proto-Indo-European: '*swel-' ("to shine, warm up, burn").[1][2][3]
Attestations
Grímnismál
In
Grímnismál,
Odin gives the role of Svalinn as part of his description of the cosmology:
The association between the sun and shields is noted both in
Þórsdrápa, in which the sun is described as 'the splendid sky-shield',[12][note 1] and in
Skáldskaparmál, in which a
kenning for 'shield' is the "sun of the ship" (
Old Norse: skipsól). This relationship between ships, shields and the sun has been suggested to originate in the
Nordic Bronze Age, in which all three form part of the sun myth.[13] Ritual shields dating to the Bronze Age have also been discovered in Scandinavia which have been noted by scholars to resemble the sun and were possibly used to represent it in a religious context.[14]
In the Nordic Bronze Age, the sun could be depicted as a
wheel cross or a disc, as with the
Trundholm sun chariot. It has been argued that the disc later ceased to be seen as a representation of the sun god herself and instead as it appears in the sky, as a round shield. By this theory, the role of the shield in preventing the world from overheating came later to explain its presence.[15]
See also
Hou Yi—archer in Chinese mythology who saved the world from the heat of suns
Branston, Brian (1980). Gods of the North. London: Thames and Hudson.
Wang, Lanchun (2017). Freyja and Freyr: Successors of the Sun: On the Absence of the Sun in Nordic Saga Literature. Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo.
S2CID55929363.
"svala". Wiktionary. 3 July 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
"svalr". Wiktionary. 5 January 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2022.