You're aware of that the nine Realms are in Yggdrasil the world tree with Mimir on its trunk. And those who come to Helheim are those who died on sickness, murdered or on high age. The rest goes to Valhalla which is part of Àsgarðr but not in the middle, more on the outskirts of it. And you mentioned palaces of the Gods where some are in Àsgarðr, Alfheim and another Realm, Svartalfheim is the home of the dwarves where Mjolnyir, Gungnir and other weapons got crafted. And Hel is ruling Helheim because the Gods decided to let her there or at last through a prophecy 🫡
So this is sort of the whole point I’m trying to make with this post. Some of those ideas, for example the idea that nine realms are in Yggdrasil with Mímir in the trunk, are not actually found in our mythological source material. They’ve been made up by people in modern times. The purpose of this post is to document what the sources actually say about this topic.
When I went looking for translations previously, I found "víðbláinn" and "vindbláinn" translated with *bright* rather than *dark*. Was I misinterpreting those sources, or is this ambiguous?
Good question! To be perfectly honest, none of the translations we’re talking about are perfectly literal. In this context, við means “wide”, vind means “wind”, blá- means “blue” (often used in a very dark blue sense, for example the blue sheen on a raven’s feathers), and -inn is a definitive marker. So viðbláinn is “the wide-blue (one)” and vindbláinn is “the wind-blue (one)”. The Faulkes translation uses “dark” because blár was originally thought to be a synonym for svartr (black) and his translation came out prior to newer color terminology research that showed blue to be a better translation.
This reads as a very confused, meandering post where you self-refuted your own argument. You first argue that it doesn't necessarily refer to nine different realms of otherworldly nature but nine homes, and then argue that it doesn't refer to nine homes, but nine otherworldly locations possibly of an underworld. Maybe proofread your work next time before posting it? As it stands, you didn't really explain much of anything and seemed to have confused yourself on the purpose of the topic that you were purportedly addressing.
I think you may have misunderstood. You are correct that “heimr” does not necessarily refer to otherworldly locations but that does not mean it can’t. Simply translating the word as “home” does not imply that the home in question can’t be otherworldly. For example, I could call France “French-home” and I could also call heaven “God’s-home”. The point is to establish that the word itself is ambiguous with regard to what kind of home we are talking about. I establish that ambiguity first and then work toward a source-based interpretation from there. This is important in order to counter the common, pop-culture assumption of “nine worlds” conceptualized as planets, dimensions, and that sort of thing. I’m sorry you found this post meandering and self-refuting, but my ultimate conclusion is quite clearly stated and I suspect that in reality you just didn’t like it :)
You're aware of that the nine Realms are in Yggdrasil the world tree with Mimir on its trunk. And those who come to Helheim are those who died on sickness, murdered or on high age. The rest goes to Valhalla which is part of Àsgarðr but not in the middle, more on the outskirts of it. And you mentioned palaces of the Gods where some are in Àsgarðr, Alfheim and another Realm, Svartalfheim is the home of the dwarves where Mjolnyir, Gungnir and other weapons got crafted. And Hel is ruling Helheim because the Gods decided to let her there or at last through a prophecy 🫡
So this is sort of the whole point I’m trying to make with this post. Some of those ideas, for example the idea that nine realms are in Yggdrasil with Mímir in the trunk, are not actually found in our mythological source material. They’ve been made up by people in modern times. The purpose of this post is to document what the sources actually say about this topic.
When I went looking for translations previously, I found "víðbláinn" and "vindbláinn" translated with *bright* rather than *dark*. Was I misinterpreting those sources, or is this ambiguous?
Good question! To be perfectly honest, none of the translations we’re talking about are perfectly literal. In this context, við means “wide”, vind means “wind”, blá- means “blue” (often used in a very dark blue sense, for example the blue sheen on a raven’s feathers), and -inn is a definitive marker. So viðbláinn is “the wide-blue (one)” and vindbláinn is “the wind-blue (one)”. The Faulkes translation uses “dark” because blár was originally thought to be a synonym for svartr (black) and his translation came out prior to newer color terminology research that showed blue to be a better translation.
This reads as a very confused, meandering post where you self-refuted your own argument. You first argue that it doesn't necessarily refer to nine different realms of otherworldly nature but nine homes, and then argue that it doesn't refer to nine homes, but nine otherworldly locations possibly of an underworld. Maybe proofread your work next time before posting it? As it stands, you didn't really explain much of anything and seemed to have confused yourself on the purpose of the topic that you were purportedly addressing.
I think you may have misunderstood. You are correct that “heimr” does not necessarily refer to otherworldly locations but that does not mean it can’t. Simply translating the word as “home” does not imply that the home in question can’t be otherworldly. For example, I could call France “French-home” and I could also call heaven “God’s-home”. The point is to establish that the word itself is ambiguous with regard to what kind of home we are talking about. I establish that ambiguity first and then work toward a source-based interpretation from there. This is important in order to counter the common, pop-culture assumption of “nine worlds” conceptualized as planets, dimensions, and that sort of thing. I’m sorry you found this post meandering and self-refuting, but my ultimate conclusion is quite clearly stated and I suspect that in reality you just didn’t like it :)