Most myths of human origins explain how people came to exist. The Old Norse poem Rígsþula (“The List of Rígr”) explains something else: how people came to be unequal. It tells how a wandering god named Rígr visited three households, one poor, one middling, and one rich, and fathered three sons who became the ancestors of the three orders of Viking-Age society — the thralls (slaves), the karls (free farmers), and the jarls (nobles). A prose introduction identifies Rígr as Heimdall, the watchman of the gods.
The poem is found in a single manuscript, the fourteenth-century Codex Wormianus, which also contains a copy of Snorri’s Prose Edda. Its ending is lost. Its date is debated — some scholars place it in the tenth century, others as late as the thirteenth — but it offers a unique window into how the Norse imagined their own social order.
The Wandering God
The prose introduction says:
People say in old stories that one of the Aesir, who was called Heimdall, went on his way and followed the seashore until he came to a farm, and he called himself Rígr.
The name Rígr is probably borrowed from the Old Irish rí, “king” (genitive ríg). This hints at the Irish and Norse contact in the Viking Age, particularly in Dublin and the Irish Sea world, where the poem may have been composed.
The god walks “along green paths,” “mighty and wise, strong and stalwart.” In each household he follows the same pattern: he is given food, he offers wise counsel, and he sleeps three nights between the husband and wife. Nine months later a son is born.
The First House: Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother
Rígr first comes to a hut with its door ajar. Inside, by the hearth, sit an old couple named Ái (“great-grandfather”) and Edda (“great-grandmother”), wearing old-fashioned clothes. Edda serves him coarse, heavy bread, full of husks, and a bowl of broth, and calf’s meat as the best dish.
Nine months later Edda bears a son. He is dark-skinned (the poem uses the word svartr, “swarthy” or “dark”) and they name him Thræll, “slave.” The poem describes him in harsh physical detail: wrinkled skin on his hands, knotted knuckles, thick fingers, an ugly face, a bent back, long heels. He grows strong and spends his days binding bundles of sticks, carrying loads, and bringing home firewood.
A woman comes to the farm: Thír (“bondwoman”), with crooked legs, dirty feet, sunburnt arms, and a flat nose. The two have many children, whose names describe their labour and appearance — sons such as Hreimr (“shouter”), Fjósnir (“cow-shed man”), Klúrr (“coarse”), and Kleggi (“horsefly”), and daughters such as Drumba (“fat-stump”) and Kumba (“stumpy”). They fence fields, spread dung, tend pigs, herd goats, and dig turf.
“From them,” the poem says, “are descended the race of thralls.”
The Second House: Grandfather and Grandmother
Rígr walks on and comes to a hall with its door shut. Inside sit Afi (“grandfather”) and Amma (“grandmother”). Afi is whittling wood for a loom-beam, with his beard trimmed and his hair cut above the brow, wearing a close-fitting shirt. Amma is spinning, wearing a headdress and a kerchief, with brooches on her shoulders. They serve him a better meal: a boiled calf and good things.
Nine months later Amma bears a son, ruddy and fresh-faced with lively eyes. They wrap him in linen and name him Karl, “free man.” He grows up to tame oxen, make ploughs, build houses and barns, make carts, and plough the fields.
They bring home a bride for him with keys at her belt and a goatskin dress: Snør (“daughter-in-law”). They have children with names that describe the respectable free farmer: Halr (“man”), Drengr (“brave young man”), Hölðr (“landowner”), Þegn (“thane”), Smiðr (“smith”), Bóndi (“farmer”); and daughters called Snót (“lady”), Brúðr (“bride”), Svanni (“slender one”), and Svarri (“proud one”).
“From them are descended the race of karls.”
The Third House: Father and Mother
Rígr walks on and comes to a hall facing south, with a ring on its door. Inside sit Faðir (“father”) and Móðir (“mother”), playing with each other’s fingers. The husband is twisting a bowstring, bending a bow, and making arrows. The wife admires her arms, smooths her linen, and fixes her sleeves; she wears a tall headdress and a brooch, a trailing gown and a blue shirt. “Her brow was brighter, her breast lighter, her neck whiter than new-fallen snow.”
She spreads an embroidered linen cloth on the table and serves white wheaten bread, silver dishes of pork and roast birds, and wine in silver goblets.
Nine months later, Móðir bears a son. He is fair-haired, bright-cheeked, with eyes “piercing as a young serpent’s.” They name him Jarl, “earl.” He learns to use the shield, the bow, and the spear, to ride horses, to hunt with hounds, to swim.
Rígr Returns
Then something happens that did not happen in the other houses. Rígr comes back out of the forest to find the young Jarl. He teaches him the runes, gives him his own name, calls him his son, and tells him to claim his inherited lands — “ancient estates.”
Jarl rides through dark forests and over frosty mountains, makes war, reddens the fields with blood, and wins eighteen estates, which he shares with his followers, giving treasures and fine horses.
He marries Erna (“the brisk one”), daughter of Hersir, a lord, “slender-fingered, wise.” Their sons are named after words for sons and kinsmen: Burr, Barn, Jóð, Aðal, Arfi, Mögr, Niðr, Niðjungr, Sonr, Sveinn — and the youngest, Konr ungr.
Konr the Young: The First King
Konr, the youngest son, surpasses even his father. He knows the runes, both “life-runes” and “eternal runes.” He can save men’s lives, blunt swords, calm the sea, understand the speech of birds, quench fires, and soothe sorrow. He has the strength of eight men. He contends with Rígr-Jarl in rune-lore and wins, and so earns the right to be called Rígr himself.
The name Konr ungr is a pun: it sounds like konungr, the Old Norse word for “king.” The poem thus traces the origin of kingship to a son of the noble class who masters secret wisdom and inherits the name of the god.
The Lost Ending
In the final surviving stanzas, Konr is riding through the forest, hunting birds. A crow speaks to him from a branch: why does he waste his time killing birds, when he should be riding out to fight? It tells him that Dan and Danpr, two mighty lords, have finer halls and better lands than he does, and that they are skilled at sailing ships and wielding swords.
There the manuscript breaks off. The ending may have told how Konr married Danpr’s daughter and founded the Danish royal dynasty. Snorri, in the Ynglinga saga, mentions a King Danp whose daughter married a king called Rígr, and whose son Dan gave his name to Denmark.
What the Poem Tells Us
The Rígsþula is precious evidence for the social ideology of the Viking Age.
- Class as divine order. The three classes are not accidents of history. They were created by a god, and their differences — in appearance, food, clothing, and work — are presented as natural and inherited.
- Physical stereotypes. The poem describes the thrall class as dark and ugly, the karls as ruddy, and the jarls as fair. These descriptions reflect aristocratic prejudice and cannot be read as reliable information about actual appearance.
- Material culture. The poem is full of accurate detail about Viking-Age life: looms, brooches, headdresses, food, farm work. Archaeologists have found it a useful source.
- Knowledge as power. What distinguishes Jarl and Konr is not only wealth but runic knowledge. The god does not return to teach Thræll or Karl. Knowledge, the poem implies, is the ultimate privilege of rulers.
Why Heimdall?
The identification of Rígr with Heimdall comes only from the prose introduction, and some scholars think it may be a later addition. Yet it fits other evidence. The Völuspá begins by addressing “all the holy races, the greater and lesser sons of Heimdall,” which seems to mean all humankind, high and low. Heimdall, a guardian of boundaries and a figure of beginnings, would be an appropriate founder of human society.
Others argue that Rígr was originally Odin, who is more often a wandering god visiting mortals, and who is connected with the runes and with kingship. The debate remains unresolved.
Last reviewed: September 2026.