Bragi is first and foremost a God of poetry, of inspiration and creative fire. He is a God of skalds and bards, those who weave worlds and work magic with the power of their words; the patron of singers and musicians and all those who wield the fire that burns not the flesh but the heart, and mind, and spirit.  He is the son of Gunnlod and Odin, and His birth arises out of the bartered theft of Odhroerhir, the mead of terror, inspiration, and poetic fire. While He is numbered amongst the Aesir by virtue of His father, He carries the blood of powerful mountain giants by virtue of His mother. The blood of high mountain peaks and the slow moving fire running deep within them, of the raging storm-wind, the siren song of ancient conjure, of sacrifice, terror, ecstasy, and power all runs through His veins fueling the magic that leaps in terrible joy shaped by the words of His lips and the steel strong resiliency of His will. In the beginning was the Word indeed….

In the Edda, Bragi is praised for His eloquence and wordcraft, and also for His wisdom (Gylfaginning 25), and scholar Rudolf Simek notes that in Old Norse, the “art of poetry is named after him (bragr).” (Simek, p. 42)  He is the husband of Idunna (readers who want to know more about this Goddess, can look to September’s postings, wherein She was honored as September’s Deity of the month), Herself the daughter of a warrior and a craftsman, and associated with creativity. It is said that in order to master His poetic talent, the sacred fire of His nature, the serpent of magic that flowed burning in His blood, He sought out the runes and had them cut into His tongue in what must have been a mighty initiatory process. His name can also mean ‘chieftain’ or ‘ruler’ and we know of at least one ancient human Bard amongst the Norse who bore the name of this God as his own.

Poetry was ecstatic fire: the power of the Odhroerir made manifest through the mouth and talent of the gifted Skald. Bragi’s Mother Gunnlod, whose name incidentally means “invitation to battle,” was the guardian of this sacred mead. She kept it hidden in a cave, inaccessible to any save Herself and Her father, who guarded Her. Odin, seeking out this mighty mead, found a way into the cave by transforming Himself into a serpent and slithering through a hole bored by another giant. He negotiated with Gunnlod who exchanged three nights of sex (and the conception of Her child, the influx of Aesir blood into Her clan) for three sips of the mead. Odin drained the containers in which the mead is held in three mighty gulps and fled home to Asgard. 

Gunnlod is a powerful Goddess, very powerful, a Queen and Chieftainess of Her people in Her own right (source: shared UPG of several shamans). The question remains of why She would allow Odin to have this mighty mead for His own. Here is what I believe as a shaman; what I know from my own experience with Her. Those reading, will have to make up their own minds, or perhaps seek out Her or Her son -- seek out the wisdom of that Teller of Tales for the truth, whatever that might be.  This is the tale I was told.

At any rate, the surviving tale tells us that Odin and Gunnlod made Their exchange and that was that, but speaks little to Her agency or power. Yet those who seek Her out, to hear the tale told from Her own lips, find a remarkable Leader, who met the God of Asgard when He was untutored, raw, half mad with His own potential for power. She tutored Him, taught Him to wear the veneer of civilization (and He thanks Her in the Havamal—that much has come down to us: His recognition of Her worth) and took from Him in exchange the price that She wanted, to strengthen the lines of Her people and clan. 

Moreover, we tend to think of the Mead of Poetry as a lovely little delightful thing, gifting inspiration and word-craft on those who are fortunate enough to be blessed with it. What Gunnlod guarded may have been a great deal more dangerous. In fact, given that many of us see Her sequestering Herself in the mountain cave as an act of personal choice, it may well be that She was the only one with the power to contain the poison, that Devourer of Souls, that bubbled up within the sacred mead, tainting all who encountered it. All save Gunnlod. Northern Tradition shaman Raven Kaldera comments on the nature of Odhroerir: 

“When I read about the long history of the Mead of Poetry and all its various ins and outs (some of which are in more obscure sagas), the part that struck me was that it was a powerful substance with a huge body count. First, it came out of a war between the Vanir and the Aesir in which lives were lost, then its carrier Kvasir the Van was slain to create it, then body after body piles up as people covet and try to steal it. As I read, it occurred to me with the deep, hollow ring of truth that the Mead of Poetry was cursed - powerful and potent, but poisonous. And it occurred to me also that one of the ways to cleanse a spiritually poisonous substance is to put it through the body of a shaman. That's a fairly traditional shamanic trick - the shaman takes it into their body and transmutes it into something harmless.

And Odin is a deity who embodies the shaman as one of his archetypes. To this end, one can see his swallowing of the Mead of Poetry as a shamanic transmutation, cleansing the cursed liquor and making it less dangerous, vomiting it up in Asgard transformed. Of course, there are many ways to transmute a substance with one's body, and certainly I can see how it traveled through another of his bodily fluids into Gunnlod, where it became her son. I have wondered - but have never dared to ask - if the part of the Mead of Poetry that held Kvasir's soul went into her womb. Certainly the things that are said about them are hauntingly similar - traveling to all words and being welcome there, being loved by all. Bragi, however, was born from the Mead transmuted by his father, and thus has better luck on his wyrd this time around. But seeing the Mead's story this way certainly puts an interesting slant on it.” –R. Kaldera

Frankly, I concur, and if this is in fact the case, then Gunnlod, in bartering with Odin was bartering for the soul of a great Bard and ancestor (namely Kvasir), to free Him from the cursed mead, and give Him a chance to gain greater glory through renewed life. As to the mead’s danger, even now, transformed, we still have a cultural association of poets with madness, one that may hearken back to this ancient knowledge: that the mead of inspiration was born of murder and death, sacrifice and pain and some of that primal taint lingers giving it texture, substance, and life. These are the tales of Bragi’s birthing. Take them for what you will. They are the tales as I have learned them.  

Sources:

1. The Poetic Edda
2. Dictionary of Northern Mythology by Simek