Alviss

Also Known As: Old Norse Alvíss, “All-Wise”; the dwarf of the Eddic poem Alvíssmál, “The Sayings of All-Wise”
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Norse Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: He knows the names that men, gods, Vanir, giants, elves and dwarfs each give to earth, sky, moon, sun and nine other things.
Role in Mythos: He is the dwarf suitor who arrives to claim Thor’s daughter under a promise made while Thor was away, and whom Thor defeats with questions rather than a hammer.
Relation to Humans: Alviss has no dealings with people in the poem beyond knowing their words, which he reports first in almost every answer. The name “men” give each thing is simply the ordinary Norse word, so humanity supplies the plain baseline against which every other world’s poetry is measured.

The suitor comes in the dark and he is in a hurry. He wants the benches spread, the bride brought, and the two of them on the road home before anyone has time to object, and he says as much: people will think it a rushed match, and she will get no rest at home. Then the girl’s father walks in and takes a long look at him. What sort of creature is this, Thor asks, and why is he so pale around the nose? Has he been lying with the dead?

The creature’s answer is short. His name is Alvíss, All-Wise. He lives beneath the earth and keeps his homestead under stone. He has come, he says, to see “the man of carts”, and he reminds the room that nobody should break a pledge once given.

Everything anyone knows about Alviss is in that one poem. *Alvíssmál*, “The Sayings of All-Wise”, survives in the Codex Regius, the thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript that holds most of the Eddic poems, where it closes the run of mythological lays. No other telling, no genealogy and no second adventure has come down. Snorri Sturluson knew the poem and drew on it in his handbook for poets, but only for its vocabulary. It is usually dated to the twelfth century, when Icelandic poets were busily cataloguing the ornate words of their craft, though some have argued for an older origin. Henry Adams Bellows, translating it in 1923, called it a versified chapter of skaldic poetics. Later readers have used blunter language: a showpiece, a synonym list in verse.

The plot is a thin frame, and a good one. A promise was made while Thor was from home, apparently by Odin, to whom the words “man of carts” may point, and the dwarf has come to collect a girl the poem never names. Thor refuses. He was not at home when she was pledged, he says, and he has the strongest say over her, as her father. Alviss, who plainly has no idea who he is talking to, asks what vagrant this is who claims such rights, and who could possibly recognise him. The answer lands like a slammed door. He is Vingþórr, Thor the Hurler, who has wandered far, and his father is Síðgrani, which is to say Odin. With his blessing the dwarf will never get that marriage.

So Alviss changes tack. He wants the father’s consent, he says, and he would rather have the snow-white girl than be without her. Thor offers terms. The dwarf may have her love, if he can tell Thor everything Thor wants to know from every world.

What follows is thirteen questions and thirteen answers, and they are the real body of the poem. Thor asks, in turn, what earth, sky, moon, sun, clouds, wind, calm, sea, fire, forest, night, seed and ale are called in each world. Alviss never hesitates. Earth is earth among men, but the gods call it the fields, the giants call it the ever-green, and the elves call it the growing. The moon is the moon to people, but the giants call it the goer and the elves the year-counter. The dwarfs, his own people, have the most telling words of all. To them the sky is the dripping hall, the view from underneath. Fire is the burner. Night is dream-Njörun, a goddess’s name borrowed for the dark. And the sun is Dvalinn’s toy, Dvalinn being one of the dwarfs, which is a fond name for something that kills them.

The questions go on for hours. That is the point.

Thor asks about the forest, the night, the grain in the field and the ale in the cup, and the answers keep coming, each one a small list of names from the worlds of gods, giants, elves, the dead and the sons of Suttungr. Nothing trips the dwarf. The hearth burns down and the cold grey before morning creeps into the hall. Then Thor speaks for the last time. In a single breast, he says, he has never seen so many ancient staves of lore. But the dwarf has been tricked with great deceit. He is still up, and it has dawned. The sun is shining in the hall.

There the poem stops, and it leaves the rest to its audience. Dwarfs, in this tradition, belong to the stone and the dark, and daylight is fatal to them. The poem never shows Alviss turning to stone, but another Eddic lay spells out the fate it implies. In *Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar*, a troll-woman named Hrímgerðr is kept talking by a warrior until sunrise, and he tells her she will stand as a laughable harbour landmark in the likeness of stone.

His power is exactly what his name promises. He holds the whole lexicon of creation in his head, the private words of every race of being from the gods to the dead, and he can produce them on demand, in order, without error. That is no small thing in a culture whose poets were judged by their command of just such names. His weakness is that he knows everything except the one fact that matters. He never asks how long the night has left to run. His pallor, his home under stone and the very sun he calls a toy all say the same thing: the daylight world is not his, and he has come up into it to take something from it. Thor, a god better known for settling arguments with a hammer, settles this one with patience instead. The bride stays at home, and the only thing left in the hall at sunrise is the dwarf.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Alviss in Norse mythology?

Alviss, Old Norse Alvíss, meaning “All-Wise”, is a dwarf who appears in the Eddic poem Alvíssmál. He comes to Thor’s home to claim Thor’s daughter, who had been promised to him while Thor was away. He is known only from this one poem.

How does Thor stop Alviss from marrying his daughter?

Thor agrees to let Alviss have the girl if the dwarf can answer every question put to him, then asks him what thirteen things are called in each world. Alviss answers them all correctly, but the questioning lasts until dawn. Thor’s final words tell Alviss that he has been tricked and that the sun is now shining in the hall.

Does Alviss turn to stone?

The poem ends with sunlight entering the hall and does not describe what happens next. Because daylight was fatal to dwarfs in this tradition, Alviss is usually understood to have turned to stone or been destroyed. Another Eddic poem, Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, describes the same trick explicitly, with the troll-woman Hrímgerðr turned to stone at sunrise.

What does Alviss say the dwarfs call the sun?

Alviss says the dwarfs call the sun “Dvalinn’s toy”, Dvalinn being the name of a dwarf. In the same poem he says the dwarfs call the sky the dripping hall, fire the burner, and night dream-Njörun.

Who is Thor’s daughter in Alvíssmál?

The poem never names her. Some translators, including Henry Adams Bellows, have identified her with Þrúðr, a daughter of Thor named elsewhere in Norse tradition, but Alvíssmál itself gives no name.