Gjaflaug
Aunt of Guthrun in the Eddic poems, probably an invention of the poet.
Gjaflaug is an aunt of Guthrun who appears in the Poetic Edda, where she laments her many losses -- five husbands, two daughters, three sisters, and eight brothers -- yet survives them all (Poetic Edda, Notes). The editorial commentary observes that "nothing further is known of this aunt of Guthrun" and suggests she is "probably the poet's invention," since no other trace of her survives in the tradition (Poetic Edda, Notes).
Gjaflaug's single attestation is notable precisely for what it reveals about the Eddic poets' methods. She appears in a lamentation scene where the accumulation of losses serves a rhetorical purpose: each woman present at Guthrun's grief offers her own suffering as comparison, and Gjaflaug's catalog of dead kin -- numerically precise yet historically untraceable -- functions as the most extreme example (Poetic Edda, Notes). The editorial note's suggestion that she is invented underscores how freely the poets created supporting figures to frame the emotional register of a scene.
Appears in: Beings, Cross-Source Entities, Norse Tradition
On trail: Genealogies