Eir – The Goddess of Healing

Eir was the Aesir goddess of healing, medicin and midwifery. Mystery surrounds Eir as we know little or nothing about her ancestry. However, we know Eir was a popular goddess in the Viking Age. She might have been one of the most invoked for healing and midwifery.

Eir the Healer

References to Eir are scant although quite specific where they do exist. From the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda to Skaldic poetry and runic inscriptions, there are clues to the existence of this wise and beneficent being.

And yet clues remain to a mystery as yet unraveled. Still, it seems that the mysterious nature of Eir made her somewhat immortalized. Many parents looking for Viking girl name opt for this name, or the variant Eira.

Origins and lineage

Eir is named both as an Aesir goddess, as a Valkyrie, and as an assistant to a jotunn healing deity. This creates some confusion as to her ancestry.

In the first instance, as an Aesir, we know nothing of her heritage. 

As a Valkyrie, she might have at one time been human, but again we know nothing of this. As handmaid to a giantess, she may well have some jotunn lineage, but as with her Aesir, or human, we can also not say this for certain.

The powers of the Aesir goddess of healing

As a member of the Ásynjur, Eir is described as being the healer among them. Her role with Menglod at Lyfjaberg, the hill of healing, also confers upon her great powers of medicine and midwifery. As a Valkyrie, she has the gift of healing powers for warriors on the battlefield.

According to some folklore sources, Eir was frequently invoked in healing ceremonies, particularly for the welfare of women and especially with all things related to childbirth.

Modern-day followers of Ásatrú hold Eir in high regard and call upon her for help in all healing and childbirth endeavors. 

Mentions and stories from the old texts

The main story involving Eir, although only in passing, is the Fjölsvinnsmál contained within the longer lay of Svipdagr, the Svipdagsmál. The author lists her as one of the helpers of the giantess Menglöð.

Although not a central character in any of the sagas or poems, it is likely that Eir was a popular goddess, particularly among women. Her devotees may have invoked her more frequently for practical purposes more those of the many more famous deities in the pantheon. 

Eir in the Poetic Edda

There is no doubt as to her identity by the original composer or composers of the Svipdagsmál or ‘The Lay of Svipdagr’. This later composition of the Poetic Edda holds a clear reference to Eir and a description of her abode. 

This lay is composed of two separate manuscripts that were only related to each other in the 19th century. Scholars concluded that the lays known as the Gróagaldr and the Fjölsvinnsmál when put together formed one cohesive whole. 

The first part of the Medieval ballad of Ungen Sveidal corresponds to the Gróagaldr while the second match Fjölsvinnsmál. The two stories were considered separate before scholars acknowledged their clear parallel to the sequence of events in Ungen Sveidal. They are now commonly unified under the title of the Svipdagsmál.

In this lay, the hero Svipdagr travels to a mountaintop castle where Fjölsviðr the watchman confronts him. The meeting occurs at the beginning of the Fjölsvinnsmál and the watchman’s challenge leads to a question-and-answer game. During this exchange, Svipdagr learns of the beings who inhabit the castle and their abode.
The mistress of the castle is Menglöð, or Menglod, the giantess. She is a compassionate being who answers the prayers of women in distress. She lives in the company of 9 maidens, each with their own special power. The watchman names all 9, including Eir, whose name distinguishes her as one who offers protection, mercy, and help.

The castle is situated on Lyfjaberg, the Hill of Healing. Menglod lives in the hall of Hyrr, ‘The Shining One’. Eir and the other eight maidens live there with her in an enclosure surrounded by fire. This enclosure is called Gastropnir or ‘Guest Crusher’ and was built by Fjölsviðr from the limbs of the giant Leirbrimir. 

Eir in the Prose Edda

The classic 13th-century work of the adventurer and scholar Snorri Sturlusson speaks clearly about Eir, although not at great length. Snorri calls her ‘the best of physicians’ and identifies her as an Aesir goddess. His sources for these claims are, unfortunately, not available.

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Christian writers, pagan gods

It may be that Snorri placed her into the Aesir tribe because he believed them to be the more wholesome of the two great tribes of the Norse gods. Christian writers often transformed healing goddesses into the Virgin Mary, for example. 

Eir is a pre-Christian goddess while Snorri was a Christianized writer of the Icelandic middle ages. It was common practice for Christian writers to alter pagan myths to make them accord with Christian belief.

It is certain however that Snorri had access to sources that are no longer available to us. We must then grudgingly accept the limitations this sets upon our knowledge. Whatever the truth may be Eir, was important enough for him to make two separate references to her in his writings.

Eir in the Gylfaginning

The first of these is in chapter 35 of the Prose Edda in the Gylfaginning. King Gylfi answers questions put to him about the gods in a mysterious palace he finds himself in when attempting to travel to Asgard.

He encounters a being here known as ‘High’, who mentions Eir in a list of 16 Ásynjur goddesses. These were the most important and venerated of the female Aesir deities. 

Eir has the distinction of being third on this list and it describes her as ‘an extremely good physician’. Considering the company she is keeping here, the accolade is very high praise indeed.

Eir in the Skáldskaparmál

The second reference comes in chapter 75 of the Skáldskaparmál where the author includes her in a list of Valkyrie. They then conspicuously leave her out of an alternative list of the Ásynjur later in the same chapter.

What then are we to make of these inconsistencies in descriptions of Eir from none less than Snorri Sturlusson himself?

Eir in Skaldic poetry

Skaldic poets frequently reference the mysterious goddess in their poetry and often use her name in kennings for women as a root word combined with another to capture the essential nature of a woman of note.

There are examples of this in the works of 10th-century skaldic poets such as Hallfreðr Vandræðaskáld or Kormákr Ögmundarson. There is also an instance in the famous Gísla outlaw saga.

Eir in the anonymous Þulur

The name of Eir makes an appearance in the thulur mnemonic verses, in another list of Valkyries. Does this make a stronger case for Eir being a Valkyrie rather than a healing goddess? Or perhaps the source material involves more than one female deity with the same name?

Although it may appear incongruous that a healing goddess would be a Valkyrie, in fact, it is not that strange at all. Although we most often associate Odin’s battlefield maidens with death, we can also think of them in terms of rebirth. 

They heal the slain heroes they select from the fields of war to live again as Einherjar in Valhalla. They are ‘helper’ deities to Odin and in her aspect as a maiden to the jotunn healer Menglod, Eir also plays the role of assistant. Indeed, one translation of the name ‘Eir’ is ‘helper’.

One name, many goddesses

It is possible then from this point of view to see that Eir of the Valkyrie, Eir of the Ásynjur, and Eir of the Lyfjaberg, Hill of Healing, may all be one and the same. The different names simply represent separate aspects of the same goddess.

Eir in Runic inscriptions

There is at least one significant 12th to 13th-century runic inscription located in Berge, Norway that mentions Eir. It occurs in a kenning of the word ‘woman’ as was often the case in Skaldic poetry.

The rune is inscribed on a stick that records a business transaction but also includes thereafter a short verse, quoted here with the translator’s notes. The anonymous author laments the trouble that women have caused him. 

The authors argue that the first line means ‘women make me miserable’ and the second is that ‘women often take a lot of sleep from me’.

What does all of this have to do with our goddess Eir? 

Perhaps not much, except that we know that writers and poets used the name widely, as is seen in later Icelandic metered rímur poetry. We know that they associated it with women, just as Eir herself gave specific help to Norse women in her aspect of handmaiden to Menglod.

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