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AngrbodaAngrboda (Old Norse Angrboa 'Harm-foreboding') appears in Norse Mythology as a giantess. She is mentioned in eddic poems only in the Shorter Vlusp (in some edition included in the Hyndlujd) only as the mother of Fenris by Loki. Snorri Sturluson in his Edda (in the Gylfaginning) calls Angrboda a "giantess in Jtunheim" and mother by Loki of Fenris, Jrmungand, and Hel. As indicated following, she may be identical with Irnvidia 'She of Iron-wood' mentioned in the list of troll-wives in Snorri's Skldskaparml. The eddic poem Vlusp (stanzas 40–41 in most editions) speaks of a giantess dwelling in Jrnvid ('Iron-wood') whom commentators usually identify with Angrboda (and the Irnvidia of the list of troll-wives): The giantess old in Ironwood sat,
In the east, and bore the brood of Fenrir;
Among these one in monster's guise
Was soon to steal the sun from the sky.
There feeds he full on the flesh of the dead,
And the home of the gods he reddens with gore;
Dark grows the sun, and in summer soon
Come mighty storms: would you know yet more? Snorri's Gylfaginning gives a prose explanation and a variant form of these stanzas. Brodeur's translation renders: A witch dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest called Ironwood: in that wood dwell the troll-women, who are known as Ironwood-Women Irnvidjur. The old witch bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this source are these wolves sprung. The saying runs thus: from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named Moon-Hound Mnagarm; he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and he shall swallow the moon, and sprinkle with blood the heavens and all the lair; thereof-shall the sun lose her shining, and the winds in that day shall be unquiet and roar on every side. So it says in Vlusp: Eastward dwells the Old One in Ironwood,
And there gives birth to Fenrir's brethren;
There shall spring of them all a certain one,
The moon's taker in troll's likeness.
He is filled with flesh of fey men.
Reddens the gods' seatsvwith ruddy blood-gouts;
Swart becomes sunshinevin summers after,
The weather all shifty. Wit ye yet, or what? In stanza 13 of the eddic poem Baldrs draumar Odin says to the prophesying seeress whom he has brought up from the dead: No wise-woman art thou, nor wisdom hast;
Of giants three the mother art thou. This might refer to Angboda as mother of the three monsters. The seeress states that she will never be charmed from the dead again until Loki is loosed from his bonds. The name is sometimes rendered in English as Angerboda. See Gullveig for details of arguments by which Viktor Rydberg in his Teutonic Mythology identified Angrboda with Gullveig.
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