Norse Mythology Crossword Clues and Answers, with Letter Counts

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Norse god of thunder (4)? THOR. Thor's golden-haired wife (3)? SIF. This page collects around 160 Norse mythology crossword clues with their answers and letter counts, sorted into gods and goddesses, giants and other beings, worlds and halls, objects and animals, and the words around the Edda. You also get the spelling rules that decide whether your answer is MJOLNIR or MJOLLNIR, and an honest look at the clues setters keep recycling.

How to use these answer tables

Crossword setters love the Norse gods for a simple reason. The names are short, packed with vowels and built from letters that cross easily. ODIN, THOR, LOKI, EDDA, YMIR, ULL, TYR: you can drop them into almost any grid. Open a scholarly edition, though, and you meet Óðinn, Iðunn and Mjǫllnir, and suddenly nothing fits.

Every table below gives the answer as it appears in a grid: capital letters, no accents, special Old Norse letters resolved. In British cryptics and American puzzles alike, the number in brackets after a clue gives the length, so "Norse god of thunder (4)" means a four-letter answer. That number sits in our third column. Where several spellings are in use, we list them all, each with its own count, in the same order. The first is the one we see most often in English puzzles. Where we have a full article on a figure, the answer links to it.

One honest warning. Crossword clues are not sources. Some are loose, some owe more to Wagner or Marvel than to the medieval texts. We checked every answer against the Poetic Edda, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda from the 13th century and Rudolf Simek's standard Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Where puzzle convention and the sources part ways, we tell you.

Gods and goddesses: ODIN, THOR, LOKI and company

The single most useful word in this whole field is AESIR, the family of gods around Odin, Thor, Frigg and Tyr. Five letters, three vowels, and a near-guaranteed guest in American grids. Its partner is VANIR, the gods of fertility and wealth: Njord, Frey and Freyja, who joined the Aesir after the war between the two families.

Variants are the classic trap. Odin appears as WODEN in Old English and as WOTAN in Wagner, both five letters, and the Anglo-Saxon form survives in Wednesday. The thunder god has the German form DONAR and the Old English THUNOR, which is why we have Thursday. Neither DONAR nor WODEN appears in the Edda. If a clue specifically asks for a god "in the Edda", THOR or ODIN is the safe call. Freyja splits into FREYA and FREYJA, and Frey into FREY and FREYR; the final -R is just an Old Norse grammatical ending, and setters drop it when they need one letter less.

Marvel has added its own layer. HELA, the villain of the films, is a comic invention built on HEL, the ruler of the dead in Norse myth. If the clue says "Norse goddess of the dead", the answer is three letters. Loki is another case: in the comics he is Thor's adopted brother, in the medieval sources he is the son of a giant and Odin's blood-brother. The grid does not care, but quiz questions sometimes do.

For "Norse goddess of the hunt" the answer is almost always SKADI. The North had no Diana, but Snorri describes Skadi going about on skis with a bow, shooting game. Her male counterpart is ULL, the archer god, three letters with two of them the same. Setters adore him.

Clue	Answer	Letters
Norse All-Father	ODIN, WODEN, WOTAN	4, 5, 5
One-eyed Norse god	ODIN	4
Odin's title, the High One	HAR	3
Odin in disguise, the Masked One	GRIMNIR	7
Norse god of thunder	THOR	4
Germanic thunder god	DONAR, THUNOR	5, 6
Thor's golden-haired wife	SIF	3
Wife of Odin	FRIGG, FRIGGA	5, 6
Norse goddess of love	FREYA, FREYJA	5, 6
Norse god of fertility	FREY, FREYR	4, 5
Norse god of light	BALDER, BALDUR, BALDR	6, 6, 5
Blind god who killed Balder	HOD, HODER, HODUR	3, 5, 5
One-handed Norse war god	TYR, TIW	3, 3
Watchman of the gods	HEIMDALL, HEIMDAL	8, 7
Norse trickster god	LOKI	4
Norse god of poetry	BRAGI	5
Keeper of the golden apples	IDUN, IDUNN, IDUNA	4, 5, 5
Norse god of sea and wind	NJORD, NJORDR	5, 6
Norse god of justice	FORSETI	7
Norse god of archery and skis	ULL, ULLR	3, 4
Norse goddess of the hunt	SKADI	5
Norse goddess of the dead	HEL	3
Silent god, Odin's avenger	VIDAR	5
Avenger of Balder	VALI	4
Balder's wife	NANNA	5
Loki's faithful wife	SIGYN	5
Odin's mother	BESTLA	6
Odin's father	BOR, BORR	3, 4
First god, licked from ice	BURI	4
Goddess who ploughed Zealand	GEFJON, GEFION	6, 6
Thor's strong son	MAGNI	5
Thor's daughter	THRUD	5
God who rode to Hel for Balder	HERMOD	6
Norse sun goddess	SOL, SUNNA	3, 5
Norse moon god	MANI	4
Freyja's wandering husband	OD, ODR	2, 3
God sent as hostage to the Vanir	HOENIR	6
Earth goddess in Tacitus	NERTHUS	7
Norse gods collectively	AESIR	5
Norse fertility gods	VANIR	5

Giants, dwarfs, Norns and other beings

No giants, no world. Odin and his brothers built earth, sea and sky from the body of the primeval giant YMIR, who was fed by the cow AUDHUMLA. She licked the first god, BURI, out of the salty ice. These creation clues are friendly because the names are short and stable.

For "giant" in general, English puzzles have a secret weapon: ETIN or ETTIN, an old English word from the same root as Old Norse jötunn. It is not a Norse term in the strict sense, but it is a real English cognate, and it turns up in grids far more often than JOTUN. The Midgard Serpent is JORMUNGAND or JORMUNGANDR, ten or eleven letters, mostly seen in themed puzzles. The fire giant SURT also appears as SURTR.

AEGIR is a puzzle favourite and a small trap. Many clues call him a sea god, but the sources make him a giant who hosts the gods at feasts in his hall, together with his wife RAN. The god of sea and wind among the Vanir is NJORD. Both answers have five letters, so check the crossings. The Norns are URD, VERDANDI and SKULD. Calling them past, present and future is a modern shorthand; the Völuspá only names them and says they lay down the lives of men.

VALKYRIE is the standard spelling, with VALKYR as a rarer variant. Individual valkyries appear in the Eddic poem Grímnismál, but in puzzles the famous one is BRYNHILD from the Volsung legend, also spelled BRUNHILD in the German Nibelung tradition.

Clue	Answer	Letters
Primeval frost giant	YMIR	4
Primeval cow	AUDHUMLA, AUDUMLA	8, 7
Norse giant	JOTUN, ETIN, ETTIN	5, 4, 5
Fire giant of Muspelheim	SURT, SURTR	4, 5
Monstrous wolf, son of Loki	FENRIR, FENRIS	6, 6
Midgard Serpent	JORMUNGAND, JORMUNGANDR	10, 11
Giantess, mother of Fenrir	ANGRBODA	8
Giant who abducted Idun	THJAZI, THIAZI	6, 6
Stone-hearted giant	HRUNGNIR	8
Giant king of Utgard	UTGARDLOKI	10
Giant who stole Thor's hammer	THRYM	5
Giantess guarding the mead	GUNNLOD	7
Sea giantess with a net	RAN	3
Norse sea giant, host of the gods	AEGIR	5
Giantess who wed Frey	GERD, GERDA	4, 5
Wise being made from spittle	KVASIR	6
Wise head at the well	MIMIR	5
Norse Fates	NORNS	5
A Norse Fate	NORN	4
Eldest Norn	URD, URDR	3, 4
Norn named Becoming	VERDANDI	8
Youngest Norn	SKULD	5
Chooser of the slain	VALKYRIE, VALKYR	8, 6
Valkyrie of the Volsung legend	BRYNHILD, BRUNHILD	8, 8
Norse seeress	VOLVA	5
Elves in Old Norse	ALFAR	5
Dwarf who forged Mjolnir	EITRI, SINDRI	5, 6
Dwarf who bet against Loki	BROKK, BROKKR	5, 6
Dwarf with the cursed ring	ANDVARI	7
Dragon slain by Sigurd	FAFNIR, FAFNER	6, 6
Dragon-slaying hero	SIGURD, SIEGFRIED	6, 9
Legendary smith	VOLUND, WAYLAND, WELAND	6, 7, 6
Guardian spirit	FYLGJA	6
Norse undead	DRAUGR, DRAUG	6, 5
Scandinavian folk creature	TROLL	5
First man	ASK, ASKR	3, 4
First woman	EMBLA	5
Survivors of Ragnarok	LIF, LIFTHRASIR	3, 10
Frey's servant	SKIRNIR	7
Thor's servant	THJALFI	7

Worlds and halls: from ASGARD to UTGARD

The Völuspá speaks of nine worlds beneath the World Tree YGGDRASIL but never lists them. The tidy roster of Asgard, Midgard, Vanaheim and the rest is a modern assembly from several sources. Puzzles do not care: ASGARD (6) and MIDGARD (7) are among the most common Norse answers in any language.

The ending -heim, "home" or "world", gives setters long words from short roots: NIFLHEIM, MUSPELHEIM, VANAHEIM, JOTUNHEIM. For the realm of the dead, HEL is often enough; it is the name of both the goddess and her domain. HELHEIM dominates in modern books and games, while the medieval texts usually just say Hel.

VALHALLA is the usual English form, eight letters. It comes from Old Norse Valhǫll, "hall of the slain", which gives the shorter VALHALL (7). Both are fair. If you want to know who actually went where after death, read Valhalla or Hel.

The halls of the gods, such as HLIDSKJALF, BILSKIRNIR and BREIDABLIK, mostly turn up in large themed puzzles and quiz rounds. Nearly all come from Grímnismál, the poem in which Odin, tortured between two fires, recites the homes of the gods.

Clue	Answer	Letters
Home of the Aesir	ASGARD	6
World of humans	MIDGARD	7
Home of the Vanir	VANAHEIM	8
Land of the giants	JOTUNHEIM, UTGARD	9, 6
Norse underworld	HEL, HELHEIM	3, 7
World of mist and ice	NIFLHEIM	8
World of fire	MUSPELHEIM, MUSPELL	10, 7
Realm of the light elves	ALFHEIM	7
Realm of the dark elves	SVARTALFHEIM	12
Void before creation	GINNUNGAGAP	11
World Tree	YGGDRASIL, YGGDRASILL	9, 10
Rainbow bridge	BIFROST	7
Hall of the slain	VALHALLA, VALHALL	8, 7
Freyja's field of the slain	FOLKVANG	8
Frigg's hall	FENSALIR	8
Thor's hall	BILSKIRNIR	10
Balder's hall	BREIDABLIK	10
Heimdall's fortress	HIMINBJORG	10
Njord's home by the sea	NOATUN	6
Odin's high seat	HLIDSKJALF	10
Plain of the final battle	VIGRID	6
Golden hall after Ragnarok	GIMLE	5
River on the road to Hel	GJOLL	5
Spring in Niflheim	HVERGELMIR	10

Weapons, treasures and animals

Thor's hammer is Mjǫllnir in Old Norse. English grids give MJOLNIR (7), the form made famous by comics and films, or MJOLLNIR (8), which keeps the double L of the original. Snorri tells how it was made. Loki had cut off Sif's hair and had to replace it. The sons of Ivaldi forged new golden hair, plus the folding ship SKIDBLADNIR and the spear GUNGNIR. Then Loki bet his head with the dwarf Brokk that Brokk's brother Eitri could not do better. Eitri produced the boar GULLINBURSTI, the ring DRAUPNIR and the hammer. Six crossword answers from a single story.

Animals come in pairs, which suits symmetrical grids. Odin's ravens are HUGIN and MUNIN, "thought" and "memory", or HUGINN and MUNINN in fuller form. His wolves are GERI and FREKI, Thor's goats TANNGRISNIR and TANNGNJOSTR. Odin's eight-legged horse SLEIPNIR is, oddly, Loki's child by the stallion SVADILFARI, who helped a giant build the wall of Asgard.

A Wagner trap waits here too. Sigurd's sword is GRAM in the Edda. Wagner calls it Nothung, and the cursed ring of the Old Norse tale is ANDVARANAUT, not "the Ring of the Nibelung".

Clue	Answer	Letters
Thor's hammer	MJOLNIR, MJOLLNIR	7, 8
Odin's spear	GUNGNIR	7
Odin's gold ring	DRAUPNIR	8
Freyja's necklace	BRISINGAMEN	11
Fetter of Fenrir	GLEIPNIR	8
Frey's folding ship	SKIDBLADNIR	11
Balder's funeral ship	HRINGHORNI	10
Ship of dead men's nails	NAGLFAR	7
Heimdall's horn	GJALLARHORN	11
Thor's belt of strength	MEGINGJORD	10
Thor's iron gloves	JARNGREIPR	10
Sigurd's sword	GRAM	4
Andvari's cursed ring	ANDVARANAUT	11
Vessel of the mead of poetry	ODRERIR	7
Mill of Fenja and Menja	GROTTI	6
Odin's eight-legged horse	SLEIPNIR	8
Odin's ravens	HUGIN, MUNIN, HUGINN, MUNINN	5, 5, 6, 6
Odin's wolves	GERI, FREKI	4, 5
Thor's goats	TANNGRISNIR, TANNGNJOSTR	11, 11
Frey's golden boar	GULLINBURSTI	12
Goat on Valhalla's roof	HEIDRUN	7
Stag on Valhalla's roof	EIKTHYRNIR	10
Boar eaten nightly in Valhalla	SAEHRIMNIR	10
Golden-combed rooster	GULLINKAMBI	11
Squirrel on the World Tree	RATATOSK	8
Dragon gnawing the World Tree	NIDHOGG	7
Wolf chasing the sun	SKOLL	5
Wolf chasing the moon	HATI	4
Hound of Hel	GARM, GARMR	4, 5
Sigurd's horse	GRANI	5
Stallion that sired Sleipnir	SVADILFARI	10
Horse of night	HRIMFAXI	8
Horse of day	SKINFAXI	8

Words and texts: EDDA, SKALD, RUNE, THING, MEAD

EDDA may be the perfect crossword word: four letters, symmetrical, two vowels. Originally only Snorri's handbook for poets, written around 1220, carried the name. When the manuscript of the old mythological and heroic poems surfaced in 1643, scholars gave it the same title, and since then we speak of the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. More in our article on the Edda.

A SKALD is not an anonymous Eddic poet but a named court poet who praised kings and jarls in intricate verse. The skalds worked with the KENNING, a compressed image: "Sif's hair" for gold, "Ymir's skull" for the sky. Setters should feel at home, because a kenning is itself a small cryptic clue.

THING is the assembly of free men where law was spoken; its echo survives in the English word "thing" and in place names such as Tynwald on the Isle of Man. Iceland's ALTHING met from 930 at Þingvellir. MEAD fills four squares neatly. The mead of poetry, brewed from the blood of the wise KVASIR, was carried off by Odin in eagle form from the mountain where the giantess Gunnlöd guarded it.

Two answers deserve a myth check. VALKNUT, the three interlocked triangles, is a modern name for a motif on picture stones; nobody knows what the Viking Age called it. And GOTTERDAMMERUNG, Wagner's twilight of the gods, goes back to the form ragnarøkkr, "darkening of the gods", found in the Lokasenna. The older ragnarǫk means "fate of the gods".

Clue	Answer	Letters
Old Norse poetic collection	EDDA	4
Author of the Prose Edda	SNORRI	6
Prophecy of the Seeress	VOLUSPA	7
Sayings of the High One	HAVAMAL	7
Loki's flyting poem	LOKASENNA	9
Norse court poet	SKALD	5
Poetic circumlocution	KENNING	7
Icelandic prose tale	SAGA	4
Runic letter	RUNE	4
Runic alphabet	FUTHARK, FUTHORC	7, 7
Norse assembly	THING	5
Iceland's assembly since 930	ALTHING	7
Honey wine	MEAD	4
Norse sacrifice	BLOT	4
Ritual toast	SUMBEL	6
Norse sorcery	SEIDR, SEID	5, 4
Valhalla's warriors	EINHERJAR	9
Frenzied warrior	BERSERKER, BERSERK	9, 7
Wolf-skinned warriors	ULFHEDNAR	9
Twilight of the gods	RAGNAROK, GOTTERDAMMERUNG	8, 15
Great winter before the end	FIMBULWINTER	12
Norse chieftain	JARL	4
Seafaring raider	VIKING, NORSEMAN	6, 8
Viking cargo ship	KNARR	5
Viking warship	LONGSHIP	8
Three interlocked triangles	VALKNUT	7

The clues readers ask us about most

Some clues reach us again and again, often straight from a half-finished grid. Here are the likeliest answers.

Clue	Answer	Letters
Norse god of thunder	THOR	4
Norse father of the gods	ODIN, WODEN	4, 5
Thor's golden-haired wife	SIF	3
Norse goddess of hunting	SKADI	5
Realm high above Midgard	ASGARD	6
Rumble over Midgard	THUNDER, THOR	7, 4
God in an Eddic poem	ODIN, THOR, LOKI, TYR	4, 4, 4, 3

Norse god of thunder (4): THOR. His name literally means "thunder". If you have five squares and the clue says "Germanic", try DONAR.

Norse father of the gods (4): ODIN, also clued as "All-Father". With five squares, WODEN or WOTAN.

Thor's golden-haired wife (3): SIF. Her hair is the starting point of the smithing contest above. Read more in our article on Sif.

Norse goddess of hunting (5): SKADI. If the clue says god rather than goddess, it is ULL.

Realm high above Midgard (6): ASGARD. Watch the wording: if the clue says "their realm lay high above Midgard", it is asking for the people, and AESIR (5) fits better. Snorri, strictly speaking, places Asgard in the middle of the world in one passage, while elsewhere the bridge Bifröst climbs from earth to heaven. The puzzle does not mind.

Rumble over Midgard: Here we have to be honest. This is not a fixed mythological term and does not appear in the reference works. The most likely answer is the sound itself, THUNDER (7). If the setter wants the one causing it, THOR (4).

God in an Eddic poem: deliberately open, a joker clue for short divine names. Three letters: TYR, ULL or BOR. Four: ODIN, THOR or LOKI. Five: BRAGI or FREYR. Six: BALDER. Eight: HEIMDALL. ODIN is the most frequent answer in our experience. WODEN and DONAR cannot be right, since neither name occurs in the Edda.

Special letters: getting ð, þ, æ and ö into the grid

Old Norse uses letters that no crossword has room for. Setters resolve them by fixed rules, and once you know them you will find the right spelling faster.

• þ (thorn) becomes TH: Þórr becomes THOR, Þrymr becomes THRYM.
• ð (eth) becomes D in most puzzles: Óðinn becomes ODIN, Gerðr becomes GERD. Older English books sometimes write TH instead, as in Othin.
• æ becomes AE: Ægir becomes AEGIR, Sæhrímnir becomes SAEHRIMNIR.
• ö, ǫ and ø simply become O in English puzzles: Mjǫllnir becomes MJOLNIR, Ragnarǫk becomes RAGNAROK.
• Accents disappear: Hávamál becomes HAVAMAL, Sól becomes SOL.

That fourth rule is the big difference from German puzzles, which spell the umlaut out as OE: MJOELNIR, RAGNAROEK. If an answer you found online is one letter too long, it probably comes from a German list. The other common trick is the final -R. Freyr, Surtr and Baldr carry a grammatical ending that setters drop when convenient, which is why FREY and FREYR, SURT and SURTR, BALDR and BALDER all appear. Modern Icelandic turns that ending into -UR, which gives BALDUR.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Norse god of thunder in 4 letters? THOR. The continental Germanic form DONAR has five letters, the Old English THUNOR six.

Who is Thor's wife in a crossword? SIF, three letters. She is the golden-haired goddess whose hair Loki cut off, and the mother of the archer god Ull.

Is it Valhalla or Valhall? Both appear in puzzles. VALHALLA has eight letters and is the usual English form, VALHALL has seven and is closer to the Old Norse.

What is the Norse word for giant in crosswords? JOTUN in Norse-themed puzzles, but the English cognates ETIN and ETTIN turn up more often in general crosswords.

Who is the Norse goddess of hunting? SKADI, five letters. Snorri describes her hunting on skis with a bow.

Is Hela a real Norse goddess? No. The mythological ruler of the dead is HEL; Hela is the Marvel version.

And if you would rather carry one of these names in slate or wood than in pencil, that is what our workshop is for.

For courage. For remembrance. For legends that live on.

Read more with us

Odin · Thor · The Norse pantheon · The nine worlds · The Edda · Norse Mythology – Introduction.

Sources & literature

• Image credit: The Tjängvide picture stone (Gotland, 8th–9th century), shown in colour: a rider on an eight-legged horse above, a ship below – motifs that turn up in every mythology crossword. – Berig, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
• Rudolf Simek: Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Translated by Angela Hall. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1993.
• The Poetic Edda. Translated by Henry Adams Bellows. New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation 1923 (public domain).
• Snorri Sturluson: The Prose Edda. Translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation 1916 (public domain).
• John Lindow: Norse Mythology. A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001.
• Andy Orchard: Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. London: Cassell 1997.

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