Citation: Draupnir

Tags: Magic Ring

Description:

Draupnir is a ring created by the dwarf brothers, Brokkr (LINK) and Eitri (LINK), who is also called Sindri, as a part of a bet with Loki (LINK) that the two brother could not make finer gifts then the nameless Sons of Ivaldi (LINK). See their entry page for the precious items they made for the gods. This story is recounted in the Prose Edda, in the section known as Skáldskaparmál ("The Language of Poetry").

Draupnir is described as a ring which creates eight more gold rings of equal weight every nine nights, and its name means "dripper" (Skáldskaparmál, ch. 43). It was given to Óðinn (LINK). Alongside Draupnir, they also made the famous hammer, Mjöllnir (LINK), for Þórr (LINK) and a boar, Gullinbursti, whose bristles are made of gold, which was given to Freyr.

According to chapter 34 of Gylfaginning, another section of the Prose Edda, Óðinn places Draupnir on his son Baldr's funeral pyre, and Baldr later returns the ring from Hel (LINK) by giving it to Hermóðr (LINK), who had taken Frigg's (LINK) mission to try and rescue her son (And his brother) from Hel (LINK). This description of the ring is contradictory with the one given in Skáldskaparmál, where it is forged with its magical properties by Brokkr and Sindri/Eitri. In Gylfaginning, though, the text says that after Óðinn lays the ring on Baldr's funeral pyre, from then onward it has the property of dripping eight more of itself.

In Skírnismál (stanzas 21 & 22), Skírnir (LINK), Freyr's (LINK) servant, offers Draupnir to Gerðr (LINK), a jötunn (LINK) woman whom Freyr has become infatuated with after seeing her from atop Hlíðskjálf (LINK). It is never explained how Skírnir gets Draupnir in the first place.