Surtr is not known from any source outside of Iceland, but he seems to have been important there.

Surtshellir (“Surt’s Caves”), a huge lava cave in western Iceland, bears his name. In 1753, Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson discovered a boat-shaped enclosure built of stones, and several  large piles of animal bones, deep inside the cave. Several sagas describe outlaws and desperadoes holing up in this cave and others nearby, and the stonework and bone piles were long thought to be the remains of their encampment.

A Worship site for Surtr?

However, recent archaeological work has shown that the site is much more likely to be a Viking Age ritual site.

There is no sign of permanent occupation, such as soot from cooking fires. The animals are all domestic animals that were killed in late winter or early spring (not the usual slaughtering time in Iceland) and butchered in ways that resemble butchery at known feasting sites. The site has also yielded more exotic goods than would be expected from a band of desperate outlaws: fragments of whetstones, pieces of orpiment (arsenic sulfide, a yellow mineral used as a pigment), and 63 glass beads. All of these had to be imported, and the fragments of orpiment are especially rare; the nearest source for orpiment was Turkey, and other finds of orpiment in Viking Era Scandinavia come from the royal burials at Jelling and possibly Gokstad (Smith et al., “Responses to Catastrophic Volcanism,” pp. 2-3).

Hallmundarhraun, the lava flow that created Surtshellir, formed at nearly the same time as the settlement of Iceland. The settlers may well have seen the eruption and the lava flow that made the cave—which would have been completely unprecedented in their experience, as mainland Scandinavia and the British Isles are not volcanically active at all. Surtshellir would have been too hot to enter for 10-15 years after the eruption that created it. Once the cave cooled down, circa 920-930, ritual activity carried on in Surtshellir for several generations, until about 1020-1030, after the conversion to Christianity.

The Icelanders would have remembered Surtshellir as a place of uncanny power (Smith et al., “Responses to Catastrophic Volcanism,” pp. 12-17). It’s not surprising that they developed a myth of a fiery being with the power to destroy the world. In fact, as Bertha Philpotts noted as far back as 1905, Surtr is only documented from Icelandic sources, and a number of descriptions of him and his final battle sound very much like volcanic phenomena (“Surt,” pp. 24-30).

There is a report in Landnámabók (S208) of a man, Thorvaldr holbarki,  who climbed up to Surtshellir and recited a drápa (praise-poem) um jǫtuninn í hellinum, “about the giant in the cave.” This episode is “retconned” in Hellismanna saga (“Saga of the Cave-Dwellers”), a saga written in the early 19th century that collects various legends about the cave.

On the face of it, it looks very much like we have traces of a genuine cult of Surtr in western Iceland. While the praise-poem was only recorded in the 19th century and may not date to the Viking Age, it is remarkably consistent with the archaeological evidence of domestic animal sacrifices that were made in Surtshellir in the late winter, which included both cows and horses. In fact, the boat-shaped stone enclosure in Surtshellir correspond to stone boats that jotuns are said to use in several mythicized accounts of volcanic eruptions.

In a tale preserved in Landnámabók (S68/H56), a settler sees a huge jotun sailing past in a stone boat.

The jotun lands at a farm and digs at the door of the cowshed—and that night, lava bursts forth and destroys the farm, creating Borgarhraun, “Lava Field of Borgr.” In a tale from the early 14th century called Bergbúa fláttr (“Tale of the Cliff Dweller”), a jotun named Hallmundr lives in a lava cave and appears to travelers, reciting an eerie poem of twelve stanzas, now often:

Sit heill at sjót, inn hamrammi,

jötunbyggðar und jarðar beinum,

hjálmi faldinn ok hjörmundaðr,

dólgr drepshjarðar inn dimmraddaði.

. . .

Ek mun þik leyfa til árs ok friðar

manngi kykvindis ok manna

kindum.

Heitumk flér yxni ok hryssu at

jólum,

bornu á bjóð beina Hrungnis.

Shapeshifter, be well in the home

Of the jotun people under Earth’s

bones [rocks],

Hooded with a helmet and holding

a sword,

Enemy of plagued herds, deepvoiced

one. . . .

I will praise you for good harvests

and frith

For every creature, and for the children

of men.

I vow an ox to you and a mare at

Yule,

Brought to the Hrungnir’s-bone

[stone] table.

Here, Surtr is a young flurs who takes passage on a ship from Norway to Iceland, where he vanishes into Surtshellir and founds a band of outlaws that hide in the cave and rob the surrounding farms. Hellismanna saga calls him a jǫtunn and a flurs, and it also quotes what is said to be Thorvald’s praise-poem, which states, in part:

. . . . En steinnökkva styrkvan

stafns plóglimum gröfnum,

járni fáðan Aurni,

auðkenndan, réðk senda,

auðkenndan, réðk senda.

Sterkr, kveða illt at einu

oss við flann at senna,

Þórr veldr flotna fári.

Felldr er, sás jöklum eldir.

Þverrðr er áttbogi urðar.

Ek fer gneppr af nekkvi

niðr til Surts ens svarta

sveit í eld enn heita,

sveit í eld enn heita.

. . . . A strong stone boat,

Famous for its prow, carved

By plowshares, iron-bound,

I managed to send to Aurnir,

I managed to send to Aurnir.

Strong Thor causes misfortune

To sailors; they say it’s quite bad

For us to argue with him:

He who burned glaciers is fallen,

The lineage of Urd [jotuns] is diminished.

I walk, bent for a reason,

Down to black Surt’s

Troop, in flames still hot,

Troop, in flames still hot.

It remains an open question as to whether Surtr was worshipped as a friend and ally who could grant blessings, as the Æsir and Vanir were—or whether he was seen as a dangerous enemy, who had to be pacified with offerings so that he would not come forth again.

Kevin Smith, one of the archaeologists working at Surtshellir, has even suggested that the offerings in the cave could have been given to Freyr, Surtr’s enemy at Ragnarok, in hopes that he would be able to keep Surtr restrained (Patel, “The Blackener’s Cave,” p. 41).

Was Surtr’s characterization changed during the Conversion Period?

With the coming of Christianity and the introduction of medieval Christian lore, the image of Surtr seems to have taken on some characteristics of Satan and the destructive forces at the Apocalypse. Kees Samplonius has argued that Surtr is entirely derived from medieval Christian mythology (“Background and Scope of Vǫluspá,” pp. 117-126).

The flaming sword that Surtr wields in Snorri’s Edda may have been based on the flaming sword that God was said to wield in some medieval Christian sermons (Samplonius, p. 125), and the “dark flame” of Ragnarok (surtalogi) mentioned in Vafþrúðnismál 50-51 is very commonly mentioned in early medieval descriptions of Hell and the Last Judgment, including texts by authors like Bede and Ælfric that were known in Iceland (Samplonius, pp. 121-124). This fusion already appears in Vǫluspá, and Snorri Sturluson may have taken it further; his account of Ragnarok looks like an attempt to make Ragnarok look like the Christian apocalypse. Snorri also claims that Loki will be bringing the hosts of Hel with him, and that Hrymr will lead the frost-thurses to the last battle (Gylfaginning 51)—but this is not supported by his source material.

The People of Muspell

The Eddas also mention a group of beings called the “people of Muspell,” Múspells lý.ir, who are evidently native to Múspellheimr, the realm of primordial fire. Vǫluspá 49 tells how

Kjóll ferr austan, koma munu Múspells

of lǫg lýðir, en Loki stýrir;

fara fífls megir með freka allir,

þeim er bróðir Býleists í fǫr.

A ship travels from the east,

Muspell’s people

shall come over the water, and Loki steers:

all the monster’s sons travel with

the greedy one [Fenrir],

and Býleist’s brother takes passage

with them.

In Lokasenna 42, Loki taunts Freyr that he will not have a sword when the “Sons of Muspell,” Múspells synir, ride through Mirkwood.65 Gylfaginning 43 adds that Muspell owns Naglfar, the largest ship of all, which will sail forth at the end of time and the beginning of Ragnarok.

The etymology of the name Múspell has been debated for over a hundred years. Most scholars explain it as some variation of “destroyer of the world.” The -spilli portion of their name is probably cognate with English to spill, which had an earlier sense of “to waste; to destroy.”

This name is attested from German sources as well as Icelandic. Continental German texts use the word muspilli for the fiery end of the world itself. The Old High German poem Muspilli is an entirely Christian poem about Armageddon and the Last Judgment, but it mentions that at the end of the world,

inprinnant die perga. . . suizilot lougiu der himil. . . prinnit mittilagart,

“the mountains burn. . . the heavens blaze with fire. . .Midgard burns” (51-54),

and dar ni mac denne mak andremo helfan uora demo muspille,

“there no kinsman shall be able to help another before the muspille”

(57; Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, p. 87).

The Old Saxon poem Heliand also uses the word Mutspelli or Mudspelli to mean the end of the world (2592, 4358).

Here it is not specifically linked with fire, but at one point (4368) the Mutspelli is compared to the destruction of Sodom by swart logna, “dark flames,” a phrase that parallels surtalogi in Vǫluspá.

It is not entirely clear whether the Norse Múspell and the German Muspilli might go back to a Proto-Germanic term, or whether Icelandic scribes borrowed the word from German manuscripts circulating in Iceland (Dronke, The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, p. 146). Whatever the case, Snorri puts the two concepts together by making Surtr the ruler of Muspellheim (Gylfaginning 4), although Vǫluspá does not explicitly state this:

Fyrst var þó sá heimr í suðrhálfu er Muspell heitir. Hann er ljóss ok heitr.  Sú átt er logandi ok brennandi, er hann ok ófoerr fleim er flar eru útlendir ok eigi eigu þar óðul. Sá er Surtr nefndr er flar sitr á lands enda til landvarnar. Hann hefir loganda sverð, ok í enda veraldar mun hann fara ok herja ok sigra ǫll goðin ok brenna allan heim með eldi.

But the first was that realm in the southern half of the world that is called Muspell. It is bright and hot. That direction is flaming and burning; it is also impassible to those who are foreigners and have no estates there. He who sits at the end of this land and defends it is named Surt. He has a flaming sword, and at the end of the world he will come and battle and defeat all the gods and burn the whole world with fire.

Thus it is still unclear whether, and to what extent, the figures of Surtr and the Muspell host reflect pre-Christian concepts. If we assume, for the sake of the argument, that they do go back to pre-Christian thought, we have to decide how to think of them today.

Modern Heathens are free to do as they will with the evidence.

A fairly moderate position would be that these beings, like Angrboda’s brood, are not “evil”; they have their role to play in the natural order.

As destructive and deadly as volcanoes can be, they are not malicious; they are simply a consequence of living on a tectonically active planet, and as destructive as eruptions may be, the rock and ash that they spit out ultimately becomes rich, renewed soil. However, the hosts of Muspell do not appear in any myths until the world’s end, and there is no evidence that they interact with gods or humans at any other time, or that they bring anything but destruction.

Surtr may well have received offerings in Iceland, but it remains an open question whether this was worship, intended to strengthen friendly relations with a well-disposed god—or propitiation, intended to keep a dangerous being from suddenly turning hostile.