The provenance file on Nanna
Provenance record 240 · Nanna · one temple, fully accounted for.
Provenance
1. The attestation. ᚾᛅᚾᚾᛅ, from the tradition's own record. On record: Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning 32 (Nanna daughter of Nepr, wife of Baldr, mother of Forseti; Glitnir) and 49 (her death on Hringhorni; the linen for Frigg and the gold ring for Fulla, sent from Hel with Hermóðr); Skáldskaparmál þulur (ásynja heiti), Poetic Edda: Grímnismál 15 (Glitnir, the hall of her son Forseti); Völuspá 62 (the return, which names Baldr and Höðr and not Nanna), Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Book 3 (Nanna daughter of Gevarus, wooed by Høtherus and desired by Balderus), trans. Peter Fisher, ed. Hilda Ellis Davidson, Cleasby–Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, s.v. nanna; Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, s.v. nanna.
2. The narrative record. The Wife of Baldr — Snorri names her in the catalogue of the Æsir's houses with genealogical economy: Baldr's wife is Nanna, daughter of Nepr, and their son is Forseti. Of Nepr nothing else is told — the father exists only to place the daughter. The Heart That Burst — When Baldr fell to the mistletoe and the Æsir could neither weep nor take vengeance in the sanctuary, they bore him to the sea and brought out Hringhorni, his ship, the greatest of all ships. The giantess Hyrrokkin launched it with one shove, and the gods built the pyre on board.
3. The physical record. Nanna is a wholly textual goddess: no runestone invokes her, no votive deposit names her, and no image can be securely identified with her. Her attestation hangs on the manuscript witnesses of the Baldr cycle — the Codex Regius and related codices of Snorri's Edda for Gylfaginning 32 and 49, and the medieval Danish tradition of Saxo's Gesta Danorum for her second life as Gevarus's daughter. The nearest material context is indirect: Úlfr Uggason's Húsdrápa (c. 983), quoted in Skáldskaparmál, proves that Baldr's funeral was carved on the panels of Óláfr pái's hall at Hjarðarholt a generation before Iceland's conversion — the procession of gods and the launch of Hringhorni were pictures as well as verses — though the surviving stanzas do not name Nanna herself. The eddic poems that touch her household survive in the Codex Regius (Grímnismál, Völuspá).
4. The current holding. The temple at /sites/nanna/, classified Tier 2. The restoration keeps one feature the ASCII form drops. One is enough to matter, and the label says so plainly: Tier-2.
5. The documented resonances. Love, Dating & Relationships, Funerary & Memorial Services, Faith & Spiritual Organizations — seats argued and weighted in the pattern atlas, read through the myths in this temple's Resonance File.
6. The primary sources. Poetic Edda, Prose Edda — the library this file answers to, open at the Sacred Texts collection.
7. The continuing record. Nanna's afterlife runs quietly through the Baldr story's long reception: every retelling of the death of the shining god, from the Kearys' Victorian 'Heroes of Asgard' onward, keeps her two scenes — the burst heart on the shore and the gifts entrusted to Hermóðr. Nineteenth-century romanticism made much of the wife on the pyre; twentieth-century scholarship made her the test case for how little the Edda needs to say.
At a Glance
- Restored name: Nanna
- ASCII form: nanna
- Meaning: "Mother, daring"
- Domain of influence: Joy, Wife of Baldr
- Pantheon: Norse
- Classification: Tier 2
- Original script: ᚾᛅᚾᚾᛅ
- Series: The Restoration Files, No. 240 of 397
The File Continues
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