In Norse mythology , Ydalir (" yew - dales " ^[1] ) is a location containing a dwelling owned by the god Ullr . Ydalir is solely attested in the Poetic Edda , compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the implications of the location.

Attestations [ edit ]

Ydalir is solely attested in stanza 5 of the poem Grimnismal (collected in the Poetic Edda ), where Odin (disguised as Grimnir ) tells the young Agnar that Ullr owns a dwelling in Ydalir. The stanza reads ( Ydalir is here translated as Ydalir ):

Ydalir it is called, where Ullr

has himself a dwelling made.

Alfheim the gods Frey gave

in days of yore for a tooth-gift. ^[2]

Theories [ edit ]

Discussing Ydalir, Henry Adams Bellows comments that "the wood of the yew-tree was used for bows in the North just as it was long afterwards for England." ^[3] Rudolf Simek says that "this connexion of the god with the yew-tree, of whose wood bows were made (cf. ON ybogi 'yew bow'), has led to Ullr being seen as a bow-god." ^[4] Andy Orchard comments that Ydalir is an "aptly named dwelling-place [for the] archer -god, Ull." ^[1] According to Hilda Ellis Davidson , while Valhalla "is well known because it plays so large a part in images of warfare and death," the significance of other halls in Norse mythology such as Ydalir, and the goddess Freyja 's afterlife location Folkvangr has been lost. ^[5]

Udale , located in Cromarty , Scotland , is first recorded in 1578, and is thought to derive from Old Norse y-dalr . Robert Bevan-Jones proposes a connection between veneration of Ullr and Ydalir among the settling pagan Norse in Scotland and their bestowment of the name ydalr to the location. ^[6]

In popular culture [ edit ]

Ydalir was probably the inspiration for the name of a bow in the 1996 Super Famicom game Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War . A legendary bow wielded by the crusader Ullr (named after the Norse God) is called Ichiibaru ( イチイバル ) , with " Ichii " the Japanese term for "Yew", and "baru" perhaps a loose Japanese syllabification of the English word " valley ." The same term was used in the 2012 anime Symphogear . In 2013, "Ichaival" was added to an English Wikipedia list, but incorrectly presented as a Norse term for a bow of Odin, rather than a Japanese phrase translating Ydalir's meaning of "Yew Dales". This confusion resulted in the inclusion of "Ichaival" elsewhere as a bow of Odin originating in Norse mythology, notably in the 2014 video game Smite . The erroneous term was briefly removed in 2015 but quickly restored; it was removed more finally from the English Wikipedia article in 2018. ^[7]

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]