1. In Norse mythology, Gandvik is a dangerous sea, known as 'Bay of Serpents' because of its tortuous shape. Saxo Grammaticus stated that Gandvik was an old name for the Baltic Sea (a name mispelt Grandvik in some translations).
2. In geography, it presumably refers to Gulf of Bothnia. However, there are two opposite theories about where Gandvik was situated based on the peace treaty in Nöteborg 1323: in the Arctic Ocean or the Gulf of Bothnia. Starting from 1850s, the former received more support in that Sweden had extended far out to the Arctic Ocean, but since the 1920s the latter have gained more support. However, Fundinn Nóregr, dating from the former part of the 13th century, is by most opinions referring to the White Sea when it uses the term Gandvik. (LUNDKVIST 1985)
Source: "Northen Scandinavia during the Middle Ages", part of "In honorem Evert Baudou" (1985), Sven Lundkvist
Gandvik was a purely mythological-geographical name before it became the name of the White Sea in a late Christian time, when the sea between Greenland and America got the mythic name Ginnungagap.
The last strophe in Þórsdrápa calls the giants slain by the Gandvik champions "Alfheim's calves," Alfheim's cattle to be slaughtered, and this seems to indicate that these champions belong to the third and lowest of those clans into which the divinities of the Teutonic mythology are divided, that is, the elves.
The Gandvik champion who rescues himself on Thor's shoulders, while the rest of them hold fast to his girdle, is a celebrated archer, and so well known to the hearers of Þórsdrápa, that it was not necessary to mention him by name in order to make it clear who he was.
In Norse mythology, Gandvik is a dangerous sea, known as 'Bay of Serpents' because of its tortuous shape.
Saxo Grammaticus stated that Gandvik was an old name for the Baltic Sea (a name misspelt Grandvik in some translations).
However, there are two opposite theories about where Gandvik was situated, based on the peace treaty in Nöteborg 1323: in the Arctic Ocean or the Gulf of Bothnia.
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