This article is about the Norse deity. For other uses, seeBORR.
InNorse mythology,Borr orBurr[a](Old Norse: 'borer'[1] sometimesanglicizedBor,Bör orBur) was the son ofBúri. Borr was the husband ofBestla and the father ofOdin,Vili and Vé. Borr receives mention in a poem in thePoetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional material, and in theProse Edda, composed in the 13th century by IcelanderSnorri Sturluson. Scholars have proposed a variety of theories about the figure.
Borr is mentioned in the fourth verse of theVöluspá, a poem contained in thePoetic Edda, and in the sixth chapter ofGylfaginning, the second section of theProse Edda.
The role of Borr in Norse mythology is unclear. Nineteenth-century German scholarJacob Grimm proposed to equate Borr withMannus as related inTacitus'Germania on the basis of the similarity in their functions in Germanic theogeny.[b]
The 19th century Icelandic scholar and archaeologistFinnur Magnússon hypothesized that Borr was
"intended to signify [...] the first mountain or mountain-chain, which it was deemed by the forefathers of our race had emerged from the waters in the same region where the first land made its appearance. This mountain chain is probably theCaucasus, called by the PersiansBorz (the genitive of the Old NorseBorr). Bör's wife, Belsta orBestla, a daughter of the giantBölthorn (spina calamitosa), is possibly the mass of ice formed on the alpine summits."[6]
In hisLexicon Mythologicum, published four years later, he modified his theory to claim that Borr symbolized the earth, and Bestla the ocean, which gave birth toOdin as the "world spirit" or "great soul of the earth" (spiritus mundi nostri; terrae magna anima, aëris et aurae numen),Vili orHoenir as the "heavenly light" (lux, imprimis coelestis) andVé orLódur as "fire" (ignis, vel elementalis vel proprie sic dictus).[7]
Highlighting that no source provides information about Borr's mother (Borr's father was licked free from the earth by the primeval cowAuðumbla),Rudolf Simek observes that "It is not clear how Burr came to be".[8]
^"Must notBuri,Börr,Oðinn be parallel, though under other names, toTvisco,Mannus,Inguio? Inguio has two brothers at his side, Iscio and Hermino, as Oðinn has Vili and Ve; we should then see the reason why the names Týski (Tvisco, i.e.Tuisto) and Maðr (Mannus) are absent from the Edda, because Buri and Börr are their substitutes."Grimm (1883), p. 349
