Heidrun was the magical goat of Valhalla — the she-goat who stands upon Odin's hall, feeds upon the leaves of a special tree, and from whose udder flows an endless supply of mead for the slain warriors who feast there. She is the inexhaustible source of the drink of the Einherjar, one of the wonders that make Valhalla a warrior's paradise.
The Goat Upon Valhalla
Heidrun (Old Norse Heiðrún) was a she-goat that stands upon the roof of Valhalla, Odin's great hall of the slain. There she browses upon the leaves and branches of a tree called Læraðr (often identified with the world-tree Yggdrasil), feeding upon its foliage. And from this feeding comes her marvelous gift: from Heidrun's udder flows not milk but mead — clear, sweet mead in such abundance that it fills a great vat every day, enough to satisfy all the warriors in Valhalla, however many they may be.
The Endless Mead of the Einherjar
Valhalla was the paradise of the slain warriors — the Einherjar, the bravest of those who died in battle, gathered by Odin to feast and fight in his hall until they should be called to the final battle of Ragnarök. Each day these warriors fought and were healed, and each night they feasted — and the drink at their endless feast came from Heidrun. Her mead never ran dry: however many warriors filled the hall, however deeply they drank, the magical goat upon the roof provided mead enough for all, an inexhaustible fountain of the warriors' drink. Together with the boar Saehrimnir, who was eaten each day and made whole each night to provide endless meat, Heidrun made the feast of Valhalla a feast that could never fail.
The Wonder of the Warriors' Paradise
Heidrun embodies the Norse vision of Valhalla as the perfect warrior's afterlife — a place of endless battle by day and endless feasting by night, where the bravest of the dead want for nothing. The magical goat whose udder flows with mead is a wonderfully concrete image of that paradise: not abstract bliss, but an inexhaustible supply of the good mead that a Norse warrior loved, provided forever by a goat browsing on the leaves of the great tree atop the hall. It is a vision of heaven shaped entirely by what a warrior would most desire — battle, feasting, and mead that never runs out.
The Mead-Goat of Heaven
Heidrun endures as the magical goat of Valhalla — the she-goat upon Odin's hall whose udder flows with endless mead for the feasting slain. She embodies the Norse warrior's dream of the afterlife, a paradise of inexhaustible plenty, and stands among the most charming and distinctive images of Norse myth: a goat on the roof of heaven, browsing the world-tree, giving mead instead of milk, so that the heroes who feast in Odin's hall need never run dry until the world ends.
Upon the roof of the hall of the slain stands a goat who browses the world-tree and gives, instead of milk, an endless flow of mead for the feasting heroes below.