NorsePlay Investigates: The Giants Grim & Godmund's Golden Horns!

While in Norway's Bergen, during my recent cross-Atlantic trip, I went to investigate the Map Of Midgard sites of The Giants Grim & Godmund's Golden Horns:

Above's the current day Alrekstad Skole, the site where Álreksstaðir, King Olaf Tryggvason's residence, once stood. Odds are this long building probably sits squarely where the royal hall used to be, so it's easy to imagine it being there.

The story of the Giants' Grim & Godmund's Golden Horns from Helga þáttr þórissonar tells of two giants both named Grim entering Olaf's hall bearing the gift of a pair of golden drinking horns from their Jötunn King Godmund. Olaf has the giants served, and being the hardcore convert that he is, blesses their drinks. The giants, being Heathen supernatural creatures, find they now cannot drink them, and are angered at this seeming turn of backhanded hospitality. They cast darkness in the hall, kill three of his men, and leave via a mountain pass, which became named after them as Grímaskarð/Grims' Pass, which no one has used ever since!

This is the school's south entrance, where I would guess the doors to the original hall would be.

[the school's SE corner.]

[the view of nearby Ulriken from the school.]

If we presume Jotunheim to be in the East as per the Lore, then the Grims would be coming & going up & over this approach on Ulriken, appropriately the largest of the seven mountains surrounding the city. The pass of Grímaskarð (closest likely match Grimeskaret) is on the eastern descent of the massif and that cleft with its mountain wilderness would match the saga's curse-like & unwelcoming description.

Note while the Grims are labeled as "men", their actions & preternatural restrictions as envoys of a giant would indicate they are also giants in disguise in whole or in part.

But what happened to those fancy horns, you ask? I might presume the horns to have only been last recorded as seen here, and perhaps could be instead with Godmund's other giant-related gifts in Nidaros/Trondheim where Olaf has his treasury, if not somehow buried to hide them here, maybe Olaf rejecting their jötunnic Heathen origins.

Subjective observations: While I wish I could say I could smell traces of giants, and a feeling of the supernatural, that wasn't there for me (rats!). What I can say instead is that if you know the story then the site physically fits it. I can easily imagine the giants trudging down from the looming mountain, barging in through the large hall's eastern door, and then Grendel-like just violently insta-waxing a trio of the king's thanes in a rage, and leaving up and over into the dark cleft that gets named after them. That in itself is evocative and magical in its legendary way to stand in that very space.

[Yours truly at the bronze plaque on the N end of the school.] 

I would like to thank Jan Harald Fredheim, my fellow 20:09er, with mappoint credit for finding where Grimeskaret was in late 2022, then being game to meet me in Bergen, and hunting down a place that carried the Haandbryggeriet Smoked Norwegian Wood Lager I wanted to try (it was sooooo good! Go get some!) and who, as a supercool local Bergenser, made getting on the light rail to get to this site easy-peasy, and for taking the above photos! You rock, jhfred!

Godmund's Golden Horns @ Alrekstad Skole's GPS: 60.38, 5.35861

Grim's Pass GPS: 60.35672, 5.41422

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.