Eggþér

Eggþér appears in the eschatological sequence of the Old Norse poem Völuspá as a jötunn-associated herder seated on a mound at the beginning of Ragnarök. Scholarly commentary identifies him as the herder of a female jötunn dwelling in Járnviðr (Ironwood) who raises the kin of Fenrir; some scholars often identify that female jötunn with Angrboða, though that identification is presented as a scholarly suggestion rather than explicit in the poetic text.

In the Völuspá stanza Eggþér is described as sitting on a mound and joyfully striking his harp while the red rooster Fjalarr crows to herald Ragnarök. Beyond the harp, mound, and his joyful demeanor at the eschatological moment, the sources supply no further physical description; classification as a jötunn only implies membership in giant-kind within Norse conceptual categories.

The poem presents Eggþér functionally as a herder connected to the female jötunn of Járnviðr who raises Fenrir's kin (wolves). Scholarly interpretation reads his harp-striking as intended to rouse or arouse those charges to ferocious deeds at the onset of Ragnarök and frames him as an agent who participates in marshaling jötnar/wolf-kin for the final conflict; this is an interpretive reading of the poetic image rather than an independently enumerated catalog of supernatural powers in the sources.