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sumption is readily apparent in Old Norse-Icelandic sources. In the earliest
mythological material, certain jötnar are not only swollen in size, suggest-
ing a voracious appetite – they are also greedy hoarders of resources that
are either consumable, such as the mead of Suttungr, or connected to eat-
ing, as with Hymir’s magical cauldron.11 The jötunn Ægir is also the patron
of the divine feast. Joseph Harris adds to this list the jötunn Hræsvelgr,
whose name means “corpse-swallower.”12 This obvious connection with
excessive consumption and greed might be key to the negative mytho-
logical identity of the jötnar. This reading is supported by the appearance
of the cognate noun eoten in Beowulf, where it applies to the gluttonous
man-eater Grendel. Judging by the probable etymology of the word jötunn,
these figures had negative associations with greed from the earliest times.
This is crucial for contextualising the negativity of jötnar, both in early
mythological material and in the sagas in which they later appear.
Turning to Old Norse mythology itself, the term jötunn abounds in
pre-Christian skaldic poetry, in the eddic poems of the Codex Regius
manuscript, and in the narratives of Snorra Edda. It is well known that the
jötnar occupied a crucial position as the wise and civilised enemies of the
Æsir. In these texts, jötnar do not resemble the giants familiar from later
European folklore. Extant sources suggest that, instead, they occupy a
similar social rung as the Æsir, against whom they are terminally opposed.
As Kuusela has recently argued, “I fornnordiska myttraditioner framställs
jättar varken som proportionsmässigt överdimensionerade eller stupida” [in
Old Norse mythic traditions, giants are portrayed neither as proportionally
oversised nor stupid].13 This point will be returned to in due course.
in recent scholarship. See, for instance, Eldevik, “Less Than Kind,” 98–9; Joseph Harris,
“The Rök Stone’s iatun and the Mythology of Death,” Analecta Septentrionalia 65 (2009):
488–93; and tommy Kuusela, “‘Hallen var lyst i helig frid.’ Krig mellan gudar och jättar i
en fornnordisk hallmiljö,” (PhD diss., University of Stockholm, 2017), 24–6.
11 The eddic poem Hymiskviða relates that Hymir’s cauldron is inordinately large and this
implies that both he, and his hall, are huge. The largest jötunn is the primordial being Ymir,
from whom the world is shaped. Ymir’s dismemberment is described in stanza 4 of vǫluspá
and stanza 21 of Vafþrúðnismál.
12 Harris, “Rök Stone,” 488.
13 Kuusela, “Hallen,” 23. Ingunn Ásdísardóttir affirms that “the more negative and exaggerated
derogative connotations regarding size and monstrosity seem to become more prominent
in later sources,” “Jǫtnar in War and Peace: The Jǫtnar in Old Norse Mythology. Their
Nature and Function” (PhD diss., The University of Iceland, 2018), 9. See also Margaret
Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, Volume 1: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society,
A PROBLEM OF GIANT PROPORTIONS