Divinity Atlas

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Svartalfheim (Nidavellir)

Also Known As Svartalfheim
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The subterranean realm of the dwarves and dark elves in Norse cosmology, a place of caverns and forges. Its master craftsmen fashioned the greatest treasures of the gods, including Thor hammer and Odin spear. It embodies hidden skill and the transforming power of the underground fire.

Facts
Origins
Held By
Home to the dwarfs, the master craftsmen of Norse myth who forge treasures for the gods, including Mjolnir and Draupnir. 1
Origin of the Name
Old Norse Svartalfaheimr, home of the black elves, though the Prose Edda also uses the name Nidavellir, the dark fields, for the same craftsmen's realm, and the two names are not consistently distinguished across the sources. 1
Language
Old Norse 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Craftsmen there forged the gods' greatest treasures, including Thor's hammer 1
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Subterranean realm of the dwarves and dark elves in Norse cosmology 1
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Attested 1
Structure
Structure
A place of caverns and forges, home to the master craftsmen 1
Provenance
Claimed Location
Snorri's Prose Edda places it below the earth, distinct from the sky set halls of the Aesir; in the Skaldskaparmal, Loki travels downward to reach the dwarfs there when he needs replacement treasures forged for the gods. 1
Learn More
The Forge-Realm of the Dwarves

Svartalfheim, also called Nidavellir ("the dark fields" or "low fields"), is the subterranean realm of the dwarves in Norse cosmology, a world of caverns, tunnels, and forges beneath the earth. The dwarves who dwell there are the supreme craftsmen of the Norse cosmos, and the realm is defined by their work: nearly every one of the gods' greatest treasures was made in these underground smithies.

The Eddas credit the dwarves with forging Mjollnir, Thor's hammer; Gungnir, Odin's unerring spear; the golden ship Skidbladnir; the boar with golden bristles; the ring Draupnir that drips new rings; and the golden hair made for Sif, most of them extracted, in Snorri's telling, through Loki's scheming and the dwarves' rivalry to outdo one another. (The sources are not perfectly tidy: they sometimes conflate the dwarves with the "dark elves," and the exact relation of Svartalfheim to the other worlds is left vague.) The realm embodies a recurring theme in the mythology: that the gods depend, for the very instruments of their power, on the hidden skill of beings who live below and apart from them, that the treasures of the bright upper world are made in the dark.

Two Names, and Everything the Gods Own

The poetry names Nidavellir, the dark fields, as the place of the dwarves. Snorri names Svartalfaheim, the home of the black elves, and describes dwarves living there. Whether these are one place under two names or two places that a later systematiser merged is not resolvable from the texts, and the entry carries both names for that reason.

What matters is what comes out of it. Nearly every object that gives a god their identity was made by dwarves, and most of them in a single wager. Loki, having cut off Sif's hair, is sent to get replacements and provokes a smithing contest: from it come the golden hair, the ship Skidbladnir that folds into a pocket, the spear Gungnir that never misses, the ring Draupnir that drips eight more rings every ninth night, the boar Gullinbursti, and the hammer Mjolnir with its handle too short because Loki, as a fly, bit the smith's eyelid.

The gods do not make things. They commission, steal or win them. The one class of being with the skill is not divine, lives underground, and is repeatedly cheated in the bargain. For a mythology produced by a society that valued craftsmanship highly, that is a pointed arrangement, and it is stated too consistently to be accidental.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Originates in Language

Old Norse, Languages
Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson
Sources
1. The Prose Edda
Snorri Sturluson, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1916Svartalfheim and the dwarves' craftView the Source
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