Dís
Jacob Grimm points out that dís Skjöldunga in the Eddic Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (v. 52) is exactly parallel to ides Scildinga "Scylding queen" in Beowulf (l.
[4] Stories from these and other cultures survive from earlier dates than the Eddas and it is difficult to conclusively construct a clear pre-Christian mythology without conjecture.
[12] H. Davidson notes a similar northward progression of mythology where elements of Proto-Germanic concepts have metamorphosed or been combined by the time of the initial recording of the Icelandic sagas.
[4] According to Rudolf Simek, Old Norse dís appears commonly as simply a term for 'woman', just as Old High German itis, Old Saxon idis, and Anglo-Saxon ides.
[15] In Hervarar saga, the dísablót is also held in autumn, and is performed by a woman, the daughter of King Álfr of Álfheim, who "reddens the hörgr with sacrifices and is subsequently rescued by the god Thor after she has been abducted.
[17] In contrast, according to the Saga of St. Olaf in Heimskringla, at Gamla Uppsala the dísablót was celebrated during the month of Gói, i.e. in late February or early March, and accompanied by a popular assembly known as the Thing of all Swedes or Dísaþing and a yearly fair.
But at present, when Christianity is general in Sweden and the kings have ceased residing at Uppsala, the market has been shifted to meet at Candlemas... but now it lasts only three days.
In the Ynglinga saga part of Heimskringla, Aðils, the king of Sweden, dies when he rides one of his horses around the dísarsálr at the time of Dísablót and he is thrown and brains himself on a rock, perhaps suggesting a ritual killing.
[26] In Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, when the hero Helgi Hundingsbane first meets the valkyrie Sigrún, the poet calls her a "dís of the south".
They give an impression of great age, but by the time of the oldest surviving texts, their significance had become blurred and the word had lost almost all distinct meaning.
As stated above, dís has been regarded as cognate with Old High German itis, Old Saxon idis and the Anglo-Saxon ides, all meaning "lady",;[2] and idisi appears as the name of the valkyries in the only surviving pagan source from Germany, the Merseburg Incantations (see below).
In a couple of Eddic and skaldic poems, and in various kennings the generic dísir appears instead of the more specific labels norns, fylgjas, and valkyries.
The eddic poem Hamðismál deals with how Hamðir and Sörli go to the Gothic king Ermanaric to exact vengeance for the cruel death of their half-sister Svanhild.
Later, knowing that he is about to die at the hands of the Goths, Sörli talks of the cruelty of the dísir who incited him to kill Erpr, because he would have cut off the head of Ermanaric and made their expedition successful.
In Atlamál, believed to have been written in Greenland in the twelfth century, the character Glaumvör warns her husband Gunnar that she had a dream about the Dísir.
A possible translation of the material is given as follows by John Lindow in his 2001 book Norse Mythology: "I thought dead women came hither into the hall, not poorly decked out.
