page_title: Symbel
section_title: Bragafull
hierarchical_section_title: Symbel / Similar concepts in Scandinavia / Bragafull
caption_attribution_description: Halfdan Egedius: Illustration for Olav Trygvasons saga. Snorre 1899-edition. «Sigvalde Jarl gjør Løfte ved Mindebægret.» nb: «Sigvalde jarl gjør løfte ved minnedrikken.» nn: «Sigvalde jarl gjer lovnad ved minneskåla.»
context_page_description: Symbel and sumbl are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet".
  Accounts of the symbel are preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, Dream of the Rood and Judith, Old Saxon Heliand, and the Old Norse Lokasenna as well as other Eddic and Saga texts, such as in the Heimskringla account of the funeral ale held by King Sweyn, or in the Fagrskinna.
  Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a pagan ritual which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people". Bauschatz' lead is followed only sporadically in modern scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired such solemn drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism, especially in the United States.
context_section_description: The bragarfull "promise-cup" or bragafull "best cup" or "chieftain's cup" (compare Bragi) was in Norse culture a particular drinking from a cup or drinking horn on ceremonial occasions, often involving the swearing of oaths when the cup or horn was drunk by a chieftain or passed around and drunk by those assembled. The names are sometimes anglicized as bragarful and bragaful respectively.
  That the name appears in two forms with two meanings makes it difficult to determine the literal meaning. The word bragr 'best, foremost' is a source for its first element. The form bragafull (but not bragarfull) can also be interpreted as 'Bragi's cup', referring to the Bragi, god of poetry, though no special connection to Bragi appears in any of the sources.
  Snorri Sturluson in his Heimskringla, in the Saga of Hákon the Good, describes the custom of the bragarfull at feasts:
  The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a godi ['chief'], blessed the full goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice. And first Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king; thereafter, Njörd's and Freyja's goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the bragafull; and then the guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the minni ['remembrance'].
  In Ynglinga saga section of the same work, Snorri relates:
  It was the custom at that time that he who gave an heirship-feast after kings or jarls, and entered upon the heritage, should sit upon the footstool in front of the high
  seat, until the full bowl, which was called the bragafull, was brought in. Then he should stand up, take the bragafull, make solemn vows to be afterwards fulfilled, and thereupon empty the beaker. Then he should ascend the high seat which his father had occupied; and thus he came to the full heritage after his father. Now it was done so on this occasion. When the full bragafull came in, King Ingjald stood up, grasped a large bull's horn, and made a solemn vow to enlarge his dominions by one half, towards all the four corners of the world, or die; and thereupon pointed with the horn to the four quarters.
  The Fagrskinna (a 13th-century history of the Kings of Norway), has a similar account in respect to Svein Forkbeard, mentioning first ceremonial drinkings dedicated to the greatest of one's kindred, then to Thor or others of the gods. Then the bragarfull was poured out and when the giver of the feast had drunk this, he was to make a vow, to be also sworn by those present with him, and only then to sit himself on throne of the deceased.
  A prose passage inserted in the Poetic Edda poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar relates:
  Hedin was coming home alone from the forest one Yule-eve, and found a troll-woman; she rode on a wolf, and had snakes in place of a bridle. She asked Hedin for his company. "Nay," said he. She said, "Thou shalt pay for this at the bragarfull." That evening the great vows were taken; the sacred boar was brought in, the men laid their hands thereon, and took their vows at the bragarfull. Hedin vowed that he would have Sváva, Eylimi's daughter, the beloved of his brother Helgi; then such great grief seized him that he went forth on wild paths southward over the land, and found Helgi, his brother.
  Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks relates that Hjörvard, the son of Arngrim, promised at his bragarfull to wed Ingeborg the princess of Sweden, and the legends of Ragnar Lodbrok relate that the Geatish jarl Herraud promised his daughter to anyone who could liberate her from a dragon or talk to her in its presence.
caption: At the funeral feast of Harald Bluetooth, Jarl Sigvaldi swears an oath on his father's memory to go to Norway and kill or drive away Haakon Jarl.
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