Singasteinn

What it is

Singasteinn belongs to Norse mythology, the stories of gods and giants recorded in medieval Iceland. Old Norse gives the word as 'singing stone' or 'chanting stone'. The thing itself appears in one scene: the clash between Loki and Heimdall while both take the shape of seals. The poem Húsdrápa, by the skald Úlfr Uggason, is the one place it is written down, and that poem reaches us through the Prose Edda, compiled in Iceland in the 13th century. Whether Singasteinn names a landmark, a skerry in the water, or an object the two gods struggled over is a question scholars answer differently.

Where it comes from

Every trace of the name runs through a single skaldic poem. Úlfr Uggason composed Húsdrápa, and a stretch of it describing the seal fight was still at hand when Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda in 13th-century Iceland. Snorri quotes the poem and builds a kenning on it, which indicates that the original held more lines about the episode than his text preserves. That one thread is the whole record. Modern study has since split over whether the word names a place or an object.

Tools and materials

If Singasteinn is what the gods fought over, the likeliest candidates are seeds rather than jewellery. The poem's phrase hafnýra fǫgru, 'beautiful sea-kidney', points to Caribbean drift-seeds that turn up on the coasts of the Scandinavian mainland, Orkney, the Hebrides and Iceland. A proposed emendation turns singasteini into signasteini, 'magic stone, amulet'. In older European usage the seeds went by names such as vettenyrer, or wight kidneys, wight coming from Old Norse vættr.

What it is for

The use recorded for these seeds is protective and tied to birth: they were traditionally carried as amulets, particularly in childbirth. That is what draws some scholars to the birthstone reading, since a small charm suits a word glossed as 'magic stone' better than an ornate necklace does. Within the myth the object works differently, as either the ground of the contest between Loki and Heimdall or the prize they contend for.

Peoples and places

Iceland is the country tied to the subject: the Prose Edda, which preserves the poem, was compiled there in the 13th century. The sea-kidney seeds that some scholars link to the name are collected on the coasts of the Scandinavian mainland, Orkney, the Hebrides and Iceland, being drift-seeds of Caribbean origin. Naming varies: vettenyrer in one tradition, wight kidneys in another, the second from Old Norse vættr.

What people believe

The story belongs to a world of shapeshifting gods. Loki and Heimdall meet in the sea wearing seal bodies, and Snorri's citation of a second kenning, 'Frequenter of Vágasker' (waves-skerry) and of Singasteinn, suggests the poem carried more of the episode than he quotes. Snorri treats Singasteinn as a place. In his account the fight is over Freyja's necklace, Brísingamen, and Rydberg later took the further step of placing the necklace on the skerry itself.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Snorri's reading shaped later work. Brodeur's translation follows it, and so do a number of analyses. Viktor Rydberg accepted the necklace as the prize and added that it lay on the skerry. Gabriel Turville-Petre pictured a rock standing well out in the water. Kurt Schier's essay of 1976 set out the fullest case for the location reading; Birger Pering's Lund dissertation of 1941 had earlier argued for the birthstone. Several scholars have found the emendation to signasteini attractive.

Compare and confuse

Two readings compete. One makes Singasteinn a skerry, also called Vágasker, the waves-skerry. The other makes it the prize of the fight, compared in the poem to a 'beautiful sea-kidney' and, on one suggested emendation, a 'magic stone' or amulet. The words are close enough that a single letter separates the place-name from the charm: singasteini against signasteini.

Questions people ask about Singasteinn

Good reading and sources

• Singasteinn on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data