Sumarr ('summer') andvetr ('winter') are the twodivisions of the year in theOld Norse calendar.Vetr is also the term for counting years. InNorse mythology, Sumarr and Vetr occur as personified figures with named fathers in both thePoetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and theProse Edda, composed or compiled in the 13th century bySnorri Sturluson. TheProse Edda additionally names Vetr's grandfather and citesskaldickennings in which both Sumarr and Vetr are personified.
The Old Icelandic nounssumarr (alsoneutersumar) andvetr derive fromProto-Germanic, and theircognates are found throughout other Germanic languages, including contemporary Englishsummer andwinter. The Proto-Germanic words are reconstructed as *sumeraz and *wentruz.[1]
The Old Norse year was divided into two halves, winter and summer, referred to asmisseri.[2][3][4] The four-fold division of the year intoseasons was introduced from theJulian calendar, but the two-fold division remained important in people's minds.[5] In addition,vetr (literally, 'winter') was the word normally used in counting years, for example in stating ages;[3][6]ár, the word cognate with English "year", was primarily used in the specialized meaning "good harvest", as in the fixed phrasetil árs ok friðar, "for peace and plenty".[7]
In stanza 26 of thePoetic Edda poemVafþrúðnismál, the godOdin (disguised as "Gagnráðr") asks thejötunnVafþrúðnir where Vetr and "warm Sumar" originally came from when they arrived "among the wise Powers" (regin; the gods).[8] In stanza 27, Vafþrúðnir responds:
The second half of this stanza is missing from early manuscripts, but some later manuscripts feature the addition of:
- And both of these shall ever be
- Till the gods to destruction go.[10]
In chapter 19 of theProse Edda bookGylfaginning, Gangleri (KingGylfi in disguise) asks why there is an evident difference between summer and winter. The enthroned figure ofHigh responds, and (after scolding him for asking a question everyone knows the answer to) states that the father of Sumarr is Svásuðr, who is quite pleasant, while the father of Vetr is known as Vindsvalr or, alternately, Vindljóni, son of Vásaðr, and Vetr has inherited his disposition from these "cruel and cold-hearted kinsmen".[11][12]
TheProse Edda bookSkáldskaparmál lists winter and summer (sumar), followed by spring and autumn as a second pair, as words for "times" in chapter 63.[13][14][15] In addition,Skáldskaparmál citeskennings referring to summer and winter, some of which personify them. Kennings for "summer" listed in chapter 30 are "son of Svásuðr", "comfort of the snakes", and "growth of men". The illustrative example excerpted from a poem by theskaldEgill Skallagrímsson refers to summer as "valley-fish's [snake's] mercy".[16] In chapter 26, "Son of Vindsvalr", "snake's death", and "storm season" are listed as kennings for "winter". The examples given are "snake woe" in a verse by the 12th-century skald Ásgrímr Ketilsson, his only preserved work, and the personified "Vindsvalr's son" in a verse byOrmr Steinþórsson, who may also have lived and worked in the 12th century.[17][18]
The 19th-century German philologist and folkloristJacob Grimm interpreted the personified Sumar (Grimm was aware only of the neuter usages) and Vetr asjötuns, Sumar and his father "of a good friendly sort" and Vetr and his line "of a malignant [sort]", displaying "the twofold nature" of the jötuns. He highlights that both "winter" and "summer" appear asGermanic name elements (such as inWintarolf, meaning 'Winter-wolf'). Discussing a variety of other personifications of summer and winter in the Germanic textual corpus, he relates the personified figures to the personified day and night inNorse mythology,Dagr andNótt, and refers to a topos in folk tradition of the two seasons being "at war with one another, exactly like Day and Night".[19] In the 21st century, Paul S. Langeslag similarly regarded Sumarr and Vetr as figures in conflict, but as divinities rather than giants: "gods that govern seasonally", with the genealogies providing "a divine aetiology" for the difference between the seasons.[20]
Austrian philologistRudolf Simek regarded both personifications as late "purely literary" inventions since they do not occur in any recordedmyths, suggesting that they may have been "adopted from ... riddle poetry".[21]
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