page_title: Bifröst
section_title: Poetic Edda
hierarchical_section_title: Bifröst / Attestations / Poetic Edda
caption_attribution_description: Thor wades rivers while the rest of the æsir ride across the bridge Bifröst as described in Grímnismál.
context_page_description: In Norse mythology, Bifröst is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is attested as Bilröst in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifröst in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in the poetry of skalds. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Ásbrú.
  According to the Prose Edda, the bridge ends in heaven at Himinbjörg, the residence of the god Heimdallr, who guards it from the jötnar. The bridge's destruction during Ragnarök by the forces of Muspell is foretold. Scholars have proposed that the bridge may have originally represented the Milky Way and have noted parallels between the bridge and another bridge in Norse mythology, Gjallarbrú.
context_section_description: In the Poetic Edda, the bridge is mentioned in the poems Grímnismál and Fáfnismál, where it is referred to as Bilröst. In one of two stanzas in the poem Grímnismál that mentions the bridge,  Grímnir (the god Odin in disguise) provides the young Agnarr with cosmological knowledge, including that Bilröst is the best of bridges. Later in Grímnismál, Grímnir notes that Asbrú "burns all with flames" and that, every day, the god Thor wades through the waters of Körmt and Örmt and the two Kerlaugar:
  Benjamin Thorpe translation:
  Körmt and Ormt, and the Kerlaugs twain:
  these Thor must wade
  each day, when he to council goes
  at Yggdrasil's ash;
  for as the As-bridge is all on fire,
  the holy waters boil.
  Henry Adams Bellows translation:
  Kormt and Ormt and the Kerlaugs twain
  Shall Thor each day wade through,
  (When dooms to give he forth shall go
  To the ash-tree Yggdrasil;)
  For heaven's bridge burns all in flame,
  And the sacred waters seethe.
  In Fáfnismál, the dying wyrm Fafnir tells the hero Sigurd that, during the events of Ragnarök, bearing spears, gods will meet at Óskópnir. From there, the gods will cross Bilröst, which will break apart as they cross over it, causing their horses to dredge through an immense river.
caption: Thor wades through rivers while the rest of the æsir ride across Bifröst (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.
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