Gróa

In Norse mythology, Gróa (Old Norse "growing") is a völva and practitioner of seiðr, the wife of Aurvandil the Bold.

Attestations

Prose Edda

Gróa appears in the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, in the context of Thor's battle with the jötunn Hrungnir. After Thor has dispatched Hrungnir with the hammer Mjollnir, Gróa is asked to help magically remove shards of Hrungnir's whetstone which became embedded in Thor's head. Unfortunately while Gróa was about her work, Thor distracted her by giving her news of her husband's whereabouts (he had earlier helped Aurvandil cross the river Élivágar), telling her that her husband was now at home. Gróa's spell miscarried and the pieces of whetstone remained permanently embedded in Thor's head.

Poetic Edda

Gróa is also a völva, summoned from beyond the grave, in the Old Norse poem Grógaldr, (a section of Svipdagsmál), by her son Svipdagr. In death she has lost none of her prophetic powers, and is able to assist him in a successful conclusion of the task which he has been set by his cruel stepmother. It is possible that this second Gróa is the same as the first one.

Grøa

Grøa is a village in Sunndal Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village is located along the river Driva and along the Norwegian National Road 70, about 8.5 kilometres (5.3 mi) east of Sunndalsøra and about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) east of Hoelsand. The Vinnufossen waterfall lies about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west of the village.

The 0.32-square-kilometre (79-acre) village has a population (2013) of 425, which gives the village a population density of 1,328 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,440/sq mi).

Other villages in Sunndal Municipality

Gjøra, Grøa, Hoelsand, Jordalsgrenda, Romfo, Ålvund, Ålvundeidet, and Øksendalsøra

References

Vilna Gaon

Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, (Hebrew: ר' אליהו בן שלמה זלמן‎) known as the Vilna Gaon (Yiddish: דער װילנער גאון‎, Lithuanian: Vilniaus Gaonas) or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym HaGra ("HaGaon Rabbenu Eliyahu") or Elijah Ben Solomon, (Vilnius April 23, 1720 – Vilnius October 9, 1797), was a Talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of mitnagdic (non-hasidic) Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon he-Chasid mi-Vilna, "the saintly genius from Vilnius".

Through his annotations and emendations of Talmudic and other texts he became one of the most familiar and influential names in rabbinic study since the Middle Ages, counted by many among the sages known as the Acharonim, and ranked by some with the even more revered Rishonim of the Middle Ages. Large groups of people, including many yeshivas, uphold the set of Jewish customs and rites (minhag), the "minhag ha-Gra", which is named for him, and which is also considered by many to be the prevailing Ashkenazi minhag in Jerusalem.