The Poetic Edda

THE

POETIC EDDA

TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

NEW YORK

THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1923

This series of Scandinavian Classics is published by The American-

Scandinavian Foundation in the belief that greater familiarity with

the chief literary monuments of the North will help Americans to a

better understanding of Scandinavians, and thus serve to stimulate

their sympathetic coöperation to good ends.

To George Lyman Kittredge

SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS

VOLUMES XXI AND XXII

THE POETIC EDDA

ESTABLISHED BY NIELS POULSON

THIS VOLUME IS ENDOWED IN PART BY CHARLES S. PETERSON OF CHICAGO

CONTENTS [1]

General Introduction xi

Lays of the Gods

Voluspo 1

Hovamol 28

Vafthruthnismol 68

Grimnismol 84

Skirnismol 107

Harbarthsljoth 121

Hymiskvitha 138

Lokasenna 151

Thrymskvitha 174

Alvissmol 183

Baldrs Draumar 195

Rigsthula 201

Hyndluljoth 217

Svipdagsmol 234

Lays of the Heroes

Völundarkvitha 252

Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar 269

Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I 290

Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II 309

Fra Dautha Sinfjotla 332

Gripisspo 337

Reginsmol 356

Fafnismol 370

Sigrdrifumol 386

Brot af Sigurtharkvithu 402

Guthrunarkvitha I 411

Sigurtharkvitha en Skamma 420

Helreith Brynhildar 442

Drap Niflunga 447

Guthrunarkvitha II, en Forna 450

Guthrunarkvitha III 465

Oddrunargratr 469

Atlakvitha en Grönlenzka 480

Atlamol en Grönlenzku 499

Guthrunarhvot 536

Hamthesmol 545

NOTE

Index.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The General Introduction mentions many of the scholars to whose work

this translation owes a special debt. Particular reference, however,

should here be made to the late William Henry Schofield, Professor of

Comparative Literature in Harvard University and President of The

American-Scandinavian Foundation, under whose guidance this translation

was begun; to Henry Goddard Leach, for many years Secretary of The

American-Scandinavian Foundation, and to William Witherle Lawrence,

Professor of English in Columbia University and Chairman of the

Foundation’s Committee on Publications, for their assistance with the

manuscript and the proofs; and to Hanna Astrup Larsen, the Foundation’s

literary secretary, for her efficient management of the complex details

of publication.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

There is scarcely any literary work of great importance which has been

less readily available for the general reader, or even for the serious

student of literature, than the Poetic Edda. Translations have been far

from numerous, and only in Germany has the complete work of translation

been done in the full light of recent scholarship. In English the only

versions were long the conspicuously inadequate one made by Thorpe, and

published about half a century ago, and the unsatisfactory prose

translations in Vigfusson and Powell’s Corpus Poeticum Boreale,

reprinted in the Norrœna collection. An excellent translation of the

poems dealing with the gods, in verse and with critical and explanatory

notes, made by Olive Bray, was, however, published by the Viking Club

of London in 1908. In French there exist only partial translations,

chief among them being those made by Bergmann many years ago. Among the

seven or eight German versions, those by the Brothers Grimm and by Karl

Simrock, which had considerable historical importance because of their

influence on nineteenth century German literature and art, and

particularly on the work of Richard Wagner, have been largely

superseded by Hugo Gering’s admirable translation, published in 1892,

and by the recent two-volume rendering by Genzmer, with excellent notes

by Andreas Heusler, 1914–1920. There are competent translations in both

Norwegian and Swedish. The lack of any complete and adequately

annotated English rendering in metrical form, based on a critical text,

and profiting by the cumulative labors of such scholars as Mogk,

Vigfusson, Finnur Jonsson, Grundtvig, Bugge, Gislason, Hildebrand,

Lüning, Sweet, Niedner, Ettmüller, Müllenhoff, Edzardi, B. M. Olsen,

Sievers, Sijmons, Detter, Heinzel, Falk, Neckel, Heusler, and Gering,

has kept this extraordinary work practically out of the reach of those

who have had neither time nor inclination to master the intricacies of

the original Old Norse.

On the importance of the material contained in the Poetic Edda it is

here needless to dwell at any length. We have inherited the Germanic

traditions in our very speech, and the Poetic Edda is the original

storehouse of Germanic mythology. It is, indeed, in many ways the

greatest literary monument preserved to us out of the antiquity of the

kindred races which we call Germanic. Moreover, it has a literary value

altogether apart from its historical significance. The mythological

poems include, in the Voluspo, one of the vastest conceptions of the

creation and ultimate destruction of the world ever crystallized in

literary form; in parts of the Hovamol, a collection of wise counsels

that can bear comparison with most of the Biblical Book of Proverbs; in

the Lokasenna, a comedy none the less full of vivid characterization

because its humor is often broad; and in the Thrymskvitha, one of the

finest ballads in the world. The hero poems give us, in its oldest and

most vivid extant form, the story of Sigurth, Brynhild, and Atli, the

Norse parallel to the German Nibelungenlied. The Poetic Edda is not

only of great interest to the student of antiquity; it is a collection

including some of the most remarkable poems which have been preserved

to us from the period before the pen and the printing-press replaced

the poet-singer and oral tradition. It is above all else the desire to

make better known the dramatic force, the vivid and often tremendous

imagery, and the superb conceptions embodied in these poems which has

called forth the present translation.

WHAT IS THE POETIC EDDA?

Even if the poems of the so-called Edda were not so significant and

intrinsically so valuable, the long series of scholarly struggles which

have been going on over them for the better part of three centuries

would in itself give them a peculiar interest. Their history is

strangely mysterious. We do not know who composed them, or when or

where they were composed; we are by no means sure who collected them or

when he did so; finally, we are not absolutely certain as to what an

“Edda” is, and the best guess at the meaning of the word renders its

application to this collection of poems more or less misleading.

A brief review of the chief facts in the history of the Poetic Edda

will explain why this uncertainty has persisted. Preserved in various

manuscripts of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries is a prose

work consisting of a very extensive collection of mythological stories,

an explanation of the important figures and tropes of Norse poetic

diction,—the poetry of the Icelandic and Norwegian skalds was

appallingly complex in this respect,—and a treatise on metrics. This

work, clearly a handbook for poets, was commonly known as the “Edda” of

Snorri Sturluson, for at the head of the copy of it in the Uppsalabok,

a manuscript written presumably some fifty or sixty years after

Snorri’s death, which was in 1241, we find: “This book is called Edda,

which Snorri Sturluson composed.” This work, well known as the Prose

Edda, Snorri’s Edda or the Younger Edda, has recently been made

available to readers of English in the admirable translation by Arthur

G. Brodeur, published by the American-Scandinavian Foundation in 1916.

Icelandic tradition, however, persisted in ascribing either this Edda

or one resembling it to Snorri’s much earlier compatriot, Sæmund the

Wise (1056–1133). When, early in the seventeenth century, the learned

Arngrimur Jonsson proved to everyone’s satisfaction that Snorri and

nobody else must have been responsible for the work in question, the

next thing to determine was what, if anything, Sæmund had done of the

same kind. The nature of Snorri’s book gave a clue. In the mythological

stories related a number of poems were quoted, and as these and other

poems were to all appearances Snorri’s chief sources of information, it

was assumed that Sæmund must have written or compiled a verse

Edda—whatever an “Edda” might be—on which Snorri’s work was largely

based.

So matters stood when, in 1643, Brynjolfur Sveinsson, Bishop of

Skalholt, discovered a manuscript, clearly written as early as 1300,

containing twenty-nine poems, complete or fragmentary, and some of them

with the very lines and stanzas used by Snorri. Great was the joy of

the scholars, for here, of course, must be at least a part of the

long-sought Edda of Sæmund the Wise. Thus the good bishop promptly

labeled his find, and as Sæmund’s Edda, the Elder Edda or the Poetic

Edda it has been known to this day.

This precious manuscript, now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and

known as the Codex Regius (R2365), has been the basis for all published

editions of the Eddic poems. A few poems of similar character found

elsewhere have subsequently been added to the collection, until now

most editions include, as in this translation, a total of thirty-four.

A shorter manuscript now in the Arnamagnæan collection in Copenhagen

(AM748), contains fragmentary or complete versions of six of the poems

in the Codex Regius, and one other, Baldrs Draumar, not found in that

collection. Four other poems (Rigsthula, Hyndluljoth, Grougaldr and

Fjolsvinnsmol, the last two here combined under the title of

Svipdagsmol), from various manuscripts, so closely resemble in

subject-matter and style the poems in the Codex Regius that they have

been included by most editors in the collection. Finally, Snorri’s Edda

contains one complete poem, the Grottasongr, which many editors have

added to the poetic collection; it is, however, not included in this

translation, as an admirable English version of it is available in Mr.

Brodeur’s rendering of Snorri’s work.

From all this it is evident that the Poetic Edda, as we now know it, is

no definite and plainly limited work, but rather a more or less

haphazard collection of separate poems, dealing either with Norse

mythology or with hero-cycles unrelated to the traditional history of

greater Scandinavia or Iceland. How many other similar poems, now lost,

may have existed in such collections as were current in Iceland in the

later twelfth and thirteenth centuries we cannot know, though it is

evident that some poems of this type are missing. We can say only that

thirty-four poems have been preserved, twenty-nine of them in a single

manuscript collection, which differ considerably in subject-matter and

style from all the rest of extant Old Norse poetry, and these we group

together as the Poetic Edda.

But what does the word “Edda” mean? Various guesses have been made. An

early assumption was that the word somehow meant “Poetics,” which

fitted Snorri’s treatise to a nicety, but which, in addition to the

lack of philological evidence to support this interpretation, could by

no stretch of scholarly subtlety be made appropriate to the collection

of poems. Jacob Grimm ingeniously identified the word with the word

“edda” used in one of the poems, the Rigsthula, where, rather

conjecturally, it means “great-grandmother.” The word exists in this

sense nowhere else in Norse literature, and Grimm’s suggestion of

“Tales of a Grandmother,” though at one time it found wide acceptance,

was grotesquely inappropriate to either the prose or the verse work.

At last Eirikr Magnusson hit on what appears the likeliest solution of

the puzzle: that “Edda” is simply the genitive form of the proper name

“Oddi.” Oddi was a settlement in the southwest of Iceland, certainly

the home of Snorri Sturluson for many years, and, traditionally at

least, also the home of Sæmund the Wise. That Snorri’s work should have

been called “The Book of Oddi” is altogether reasonable, for such a

method of naming books was common—witness the “Book of the Flat Island”

and other early manuscripts. That Sæmund may also have written or

compiled another “Oddi-Book” is perfectly possible, and that tradition

should have said he did so is entirely natural.

It is, however, an open question whether or not Sæmund had anything to

do with making the collection, or any part of it, now known as the

Poetic Edda, for of course the seventeenth-century assignment of the

work to him is negligible. We can say only that he may have made some

such compilation, for he was a diligent student of Icelandic tradition

and history, and was famed throughout the North for his learning. But

otherwise no trace of his works survives, and as he was educated in

Paris, it is probable that he wrote rather in Latin than in the

vernacular.

All that is reasonably certain is that by the middle or last of the

twelfth century there existed in Iceland one or more written

collections of Old Norse mythological and heroic poems, that the Codex

Regius, a copy made a hundred years or so later, represents at least a

considerable part of one of these, and that the collection of

thirty-four poems which we now know as the Poetic or Elder Edda is

practically all that has come down to us of Old Norse poetry of this

type. Anything more is largely guesswork, and both the name of the

compiler and the meaning of the title “Edda” are conjectural.

THE ORIGIN OF THE EDDIC POEMS

There is even less agreement about the birthplace, authorship and date

of the Eddic poems themselves than about the nature of the existing

collection. Clearly the poems were the work of many different men,

living in different periods; clearly, too, most of them existed in oral

tradition for generations before they were first committed to writing.

In general the mythological poems are strongly heathen in character,

and as Christianity became generally accepted throughout Norway and

Iceland early in the eleventh century, it is altogether likely that

most of the poems dealing with the Norse gods antedate the year 1000.

On the other hand, Hoffory, Finnur Jonsson and others have shown pretty

conclusively from linguistic evidence that these poems cannot have

assumed anything like their present form before the ninth century. As

for the poems belonging to the hero cycles, one or two of them appear

to be as late as 1100, but most of them clearly belong to the hundred

years following 950. It is a fairly safe guess that the years between

900 and 1050 saw the majority of the Eddic poems put into shape, but it

must be remembered that many changes took place during the long

subsequent period of oral transmission, and also that many of the

legends, both mythological and heroic, on which the poems were based,

certainly existed in Norway, and quite possibly in verse form, long

before the year 900. In considering such poems it is essential to

forget the present mode of composition, whereby a poet at once fixes

his thought and his style by means of writing, and to remember that for

at least two centuries, and possibly much longer, the correct

transmission of many of the Eddic poems depended solely on accurate

hearing and retentive memory.

As to the origin of the legends on which the poems are based, the whole

question, at least so far as the stories of the gods are concerned, is

much too complex for discussion here. How much of the actual narrative

material of the mythological lays is properly to be called Scandinavian

is a matter for students of comparative mythology to guess at. The

tales underlying the heroic lays are clearly of foreign origin: the

Helgi story comes from Denmark, and that of Völund from Germany, as

also the great mass of traditions centering around Sigurth (Siegfried),

Brynhild, the sons of Gjuki, Atli (Attila), and Jormunrek (Ermanarich).

The introductory notes to the various poems deal with the more

important of these questions of origin.

Of the men who composed these poems,—“wrote” is obviously the wrong

word,—we know absolutely nothing, save that some of them must have been

literary artists with a high degree of conscious skill. The Eddic poems

are “folk-poetry,”—whatever that may be,—only in the sense that some of

them strongly reflect racial feelings and beliefs; they are anything

but crude or primitive in workmanship, and they show that not only the

poets themselves, but also many of their hearers, must have made a

careful study of the art of poetry.

Where the poems were composed is almost equally uncertain. The claims

of Norway have been extensively advanced, but the great literary

activity of Iceland after the settlement of the island by Norwegian

emigrants late in the ninth century makes the theory of an Icelandic

source for most of the poems plausible. The two Atli lays, with what

authority we do not know, bear in the Codex Regius the superscription

“the Greenland poem,” and internal evidence indicates that this

statement is correct. Certainly in one poem, the Rigsthula, and

probably in several others, there are marks of Celtic influence. During

a considerable part of the ninth and tenth centuries, Scandinavians

were active in Ireland and in most of the western islands inhabited by

branches of the Celtic race. Some scholars claim nearly all the Eddic

poems for these “Western Isles,” in sharp distinction from Iceland;

their arguments are commented on in the introductory note to the

Rigsthula. However, as Iceland early came to be the true center of this

Scandinavian island world, it may be said that most of the evidence

concerning the birthplace of the Eddic poems in anything like their

present form points in that direction, and certainly it was in Iceland

that they were chiefly preserved.

THE EDDA AND OLD NORSE LITERATURE

Within the proper limits of an introduction it would be impossible to

give any adequate summary of the history and literature with which the

Eddic poems are indissolubly connected, but a mere mention of a few of

the salient facts may be of some service to those who are unfamiliar

with the subject. Old Norse literature covers approximately the period

between 850 and 1300. During the first part of that period occurred the

great wanderings of the Scandinavian peoples, and particularly the

Norwegians. A convenient date to remember is that of the sea-fight of

Hafrsfjord, 872, when Harald the Fair-Haired broke the power of the

independent Norwegian nobles, and made himself overlord of nearly all

the country. Many of the defeated nobles fled overseas, where inviting

refuges had been found for them by earlier wanderers and

plunder-seeking raiders. This was the time of the inroads of the

dreaded Northmen in France, and in 885 Hrolf Gangr (Rollo) laid siege

to Paris itself. Many Norwegians went to Ireland, where their

compatriots had already built Dublin, and where they remained in

control of most of the island till Brian Boru shattered their power at

the battle of Clontarf in 1014.

Of all the migrations, however, the most important were those to

Iceland. Here grew up an active civilization, fostered by absolute

independence and by remoteness from the wars which wracked Norway, yet

kept from degenerating into provincialism by the roving life of the

people, which brought them constantly in contact with the culture of

the South. Christianity, introduced throughout the Norse world about

the year 1000, brought with it the stability of learning, and the

Icelanders became not only the makers but also the students and

recorders of history.

The years between 875 and 1100 were the great spontaneous period of

oral literature. Most of the military and political leaders were also

poets, and they composed a mass of lyric poetry concerning the

authorship of which we know a good deal, and much of which has been

preserved. Narrative prose also flourished, for the Icelander had a

passion for story-telling and story-hearing. After 1100 came the day of

the writers. These sagamen collected the material that for generations

had passed from mouth to mouth, and gave it permanent form in writing.

The greatest bulk of what we now have of Old Norse literature,—and the

published part of it makes a formidable library,—originated thus in the

earlier period before the introduction of writing, and was put into

final shape by the scholars, most of them Icelanders, of the hundred

years following 1150.

After 1250 came a rapid and tragic decline. Iceland lost its

independence, becoming a Norwegian province. Later Norway too fell

under alien rule, a Swede ascending the Norwegian throne in 1320.

Pestilence and famine laid waste the whole North; volcanic disturbances

worked havoc in Iceland. Literature did not quite die, but it fell upon

evil days; for the vigorous native narratives and heroic poems of the

older period were substituted translations of French romances. The

poets wrote mostly doggerel; the prose writers were devoid of national

or racial inspiration.

The mass of literature thus collected and written down largely between

1150 and 1250 may be roughly divided into four groups. The greatest in

volume is made up of the sagas: narratives mainly in prose, ranging all

the way from authentic history of the Norwegian kings and the early

Icelandic settlements to fairy-tales. Embodied in the sagas is found

the material composing the second group: the skaldic poetry, a vast

collection of songs of praise, triumph, love, lamentation, and so on,

almost uniformly characterized by an appalling complexity of figurative

language. There is no absolute line to be drawn between the poetry of

the skalds and the poems of the Edda, which we may call the third

group; but in addition to the remarkable artificiality of style which

marks the skaldic poetry, and which is seldom found in the poems of the

Edda, the skalds dealt almost exclusively with their own emotions,

whereas the Eddic poems are quite impersonal. Finally, there is the

fourth group, made up of didactic works, religious and legal treatises,

and so on, studies which originated chiefly in the later period of

learned activity.

PRESERVATION OF THE EDDIC POEMS

Most of the poems of the Poetic Edda have unquestionably reached us in

rather bad shape. During the long period of oral transmission they

suffered all sorts of interpolations, omissions and changes, and some

of them, as they now stand, are a bewildering hodge-podge of

little-related fragments. To some extent the diligent twelfth century

compiler to whom we owe the Codex Regius—Sæmund or another—was himself

doubtless responsible for the patchwork process, often supplemented by

narrative prose notes of his own; but in the days before written

records existed, it was easy to lose stanzas and longer passages from

their context, and equally easy to interpolate them where they did not

by any means belong. Some few of the poems, however, appear to be

virtually complete and unified as we now have them.

Under such circumstances it is clear that the establishment of a

satisfactory text is a matter of the utmost difficulty. As the basis

for this translation I have used the text prepared by Karl Hildebrand

(1876) and revised by Hugo Gering (1904). Textual emendation has,

however, been so extensive in every edition of the Edda, and has

depended so much on the theories of the editor, that I have also made

extensive use of many other editions, notably those by Finnur Jonsson,

Neckel, Sijmons, and Detter and Heinzel, together with numerous

commentaries. The condition of the text in both the principal codices

is such that no great reliance can be placed on the accuracy of the

copyists, and frequently two editions will differ fundamentally as to

their readings of a given passage or even of an entire poem. For this

reason, and because guesswork necessarily plays so large a part in any

edition or translation of the Eddic poems, I have risked overloading

the pages with textual notes in order to show, as nearly as possible,

the exact state of the original together with all the more significant

emendations. I have done this particularly in the case of

transpositions, many of which appear absolutely necessary, and in the

indication of passages which appear to be interpolations.

THE VERSE-FORMS OF THE EDDIC POEMS

The many problems connected with the verse-forms found in the Eddic

poems have been analyzed in great detail by Sievers, Neckel, and

others. The three verse-forms exemplified in the poems need only a

brief comment here, however, in order to make clear the method used in

this translation. All of these forms group the lines normally in

four-line stanzas. In the so-called Fornyrthislag (“Old Verse”), for

convenience sometimes referred to in the notes as four-four measure,

these lines have all the same structure, each line being sharply

divided by a cæsural pause into two half-lines, and each half-line

having two accented syllables and two (sometimes three) unaccented

ones. The two half-lines forming a complete line are bound together by

the alliteration, or more properly initial-rhyme, of three (or two) of

the accented syllables. The following is an example of the

Fornyrthislag stanza, the accented syllables being in italics:

Vreiþr vas Vingþórr, | es vaknaþi

ok síns hamars | of saknaþi;

skegg nam hrista, | skǫr nam dýja,

réþ Jarþar burr | umb at þreifask.

In the second form, the Ljothahattr (“Song Measure”), the first and

third line of each stanza are as just described, but the second and

fourth are shorter, have no cæsural pause, have three accented

syllables, and regularly two initial-rhymed accented syllables, for

which reason I have occasionally referred to Ljothahattr as four-three

measure. The following is an example:

Ar skal rísa | sás annars vill

fé eþa fjǫr hafa;

liggjandi ulfr | sjaldan láer of getr

né sofandi maþr sigr.

In the third and least commonly used form, the Malahattr (“Speech

Measure”), a younger verse-form than either of the other two, each line

of the four-line stanza is divided into two half-lines by a cæsural

pause, each half-line having two accented syllables and three

(sometimes four) unaccented ones; the initial rhyme is as in the

Fornyrthislag. The following is an example:

Horsk vas húsfreyja, | hugþi at mannviti,

lag heyrþi orþa, | hvat á laun máeltu;

þá vas vant vitri, | vildi þeim hjalpa:

skyldu of sáe sigla, | en sjǫlf né kvamskat.

A poem in Fornyrthislag is normally entitled -kvitha (Thrymskvitha,

Guthrunarkvitha, etc.), which for convenience I have rendered as “lay,”

while a poem in Ljothahattr is entitled -mol (Grimnismol, Skirnismol,

etc.), which I have rendered as “ballad.” It is difficult to find any

distinction other than metrical between the two terms, although it is

clear that one originally existed.

Variations frequently appear in all three kinds of verse, and these I

have attempted to indicate through the rhythm of the translation. In

order to preserve so far as possible the effect of the Eddic verse, I

have adhered, in making the English version, to certain of the

fundamental rules governing the Norse line and stanza formations. The

number of lines to each stanza conforms to what seems the best guess as

to the original, and I have consistently retained the number of

accented syllables. In translating from a highly inflected language

into one depending largely on the use of subsidiary words, it has,

however, been necessary to employ considerable freedom as to the number

of unaccented syllables in a line. The initial-rhyme is generally

confined to two accented syllables in each line. As in the original,

all initial vowels are allowed to rhyme interchangeably, but I have

disregarded the rule which lets certain groups of consonants rhyme only

with themselves (e.g., I have allowed initial s or st to rhyme with sk

or sl). In general, I have sought to preserve the effect of the

original form whenever possible without an undue sacrifice of accuracy.

For purposes of comparison, the translations of the three stanzas just

given are here included:

Fornyrthislag:

Wild was Vingthor | when he awoke,

And when his mighty | hammer he missed;

He shook his beard, | his hair was bristling,

To groping set | the son of Jorth.

Ljothahattr:

He must early go forth | who fain the blood

Or the goods of another would get;

The wolf that lies idle | shall win little meat,

Or the sleeping man success.

Malahattr:

Wise was the woman, | she fain would use wisdom,

She saw well what meant | all they said in secret;

From her heart it was hid | how help she might render,

The sea they should sail, | while herself she should go not.

PROPER NAMES

The forms in which the proper names appear in this translation will

undoubtedly perplex and annoy those who have become accustomed to one

or another of the current methods of anglicising old Norse names. The

nominative ending -r it has seemed best to omit after consonants,

although it has been retained after vowels; in Baldr the final -r is a

part of the stem and is of course retained. I have rendered the Norse þ

by “th” throughout, instead of spasmodically by “d,” as in many texts:

e.g., Othin instead of Odin. For the Norse ø I have used its

equivalent, “ö,” e.g., Völund; for the ǫ I have used “o” and not “a,”

e.g., Voluspo, not Valuspa or Voluspa. To avoid confusion with accents

the long vowel marks of the Icelandic are consistently omitted, as

likewise in modern Icelandic proper names. The index at the end of the

book indicates the pronunciation in each case.

CONCLUSION

That this translation may be of some value to those who can read the

poems of the Edda in the original language I earnestly hope. Still more

do I wish that it may lead a few who hitherto have given little thought

to the Old Norse language and literature to master the tongue for

themselves. But far above either of these I place the hope that this

English version may give to some, who have known little of the ancient

traditions of what is after all their own race, a clearer insight into

the glories of that extraordinary past, and that I may through this

medium be able to bring to others a small part of the delight which I

myself have found in the poems of the Poetic Edda.

THE POETIC EDDA

VOLUME I

LAYS OF THE GODS

THE WISE-WOMAN’S PROPHECY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

At the beginning of the collection in the Codex Regius stands the

Voluspo, the most famous and important, as it is likewise the most

debated, of all the Eddic poems. Another version of it is found in a

huge miscellaneous compilation of about the year 1300, the Hauksbok,

and many stanzas are included in the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson.

The order of the stanzas in the Hauksbok version differs materially

from that in the Codex Regius, and in the published editions many

experiments have been attempted in further rearrangements. On the

whole, however, and allowing for certain interpolations, the order of

the stanzas in the Codex Regius seems more logical than any of the

wholesale “improvements” which have been undertaken.

The general plan of the Voluspo is fairly clear. Othin, chief of the

gods, always conscious of impending disaster and eager for knowledge,

calls on a certain “Volva,” or wise-woman, presumably bidding her rise

from the grave. She first tells him of the past, of the creation of the

world, the beginning of years, the origin of the dwarfs (at this point

there is a clearly interpolated catalogue of dwarfs’ names, stanzas

10–16), of the first man and woman, of the world-ash Yggdrasil, and of

the first war, between the gods and the Vanir, or, in Anglicized form,

the Wanes. Then, in stanzas 27–29, as a further proof of her wisdom,

she discloses some of Othin’s own secrets and the details of his search

for knowledge. Rewarded by Othin for what she has thus far told (stanza

30), she then turns to the real prophesy, the disclosure of the final

destruction of the gods. This final battle, in which fire and flood

overwhelm heaven and earth as the gods fight with their enemies, is the

great fact in Norse mythology; the phrase describing it, ragna rök,

“the fate of the gods,” has become familiar, by confusion with the word

rökkr, “twilight,” in the German Götterdämmerung. The wise-woman tells

of the Valkyries who bring the slain warriors to support Othin and the

other gods in the battle, of the slaying of Baldr, best and fairest of

the gods, through the wiles of Loki, of the enemies of the gods, of the

summons to battle on both sides, and of the mighty struggle, till Othin

is slain, and “fire leaps high about heaven itself” (stanzas 31–58).

But this is not all. A new and beautiful world is to rise on the ruins

of the old; Baldr comes back, and “fields unsowed bear ripened fruit”

(stanzas 59–66).

This final passage, in particular, has caused wide differences of

opinion as to the date and character of the poem. That the poet was

heathen and not Christian seems almost beyond dispute; there is an

intensity and vividness in almost every stanza which no archaizing

Christian could possibly have achieved. On the other hand, the

evidences of Christian influence are sufficiently striking to outweigh

the arguments of Finnur Jonsson, Müllenhoff and others who maintain

that the Voluspo is purely a product of heathendom. The roving Norsemen

of the tenth century, very few of whom had as yet accepted

Christianity, were nevertheless in close contact with Celtic races

which had already been converted, and in many ways the Celtic influence

was strongly felt. It seems likely, then, that the Voluspo was the work

of a poet living chiefly in Iceland, though possibly in the “Western

Isles,” in the middle of the tenth century, a vigorous believer in the

old gods, and yet with an imagination active enough to be touched by

the vague tales of a different religion emanating from his neighbor

Celts.

How much the poem was altered during the two hundred years between its

composition and its first being committed to writing is largely a

matter of guesswork, but, allowing for such an obvious interpolation as

the catalogue of dwarfs, and for occasional lesser errors, it seems

quite needless to assume such great changes as many editors do. The

poem was certainly not composed to tell a story with which its early

hearers were quite familiar; the lack of continuity which baffles

modern readers presumably did not trouble them in the least. It is, in

effect, a series of gigantic pictures, put into words with a directness

and sureness which bespeak the poet of genius. It is only after the

reader, with the help of the many notes, has familiarized himself with

the names and incidents involved that he can begin to understand the

effect which this magnificent poem must have produced on those who not

only understood but believed it.

1. Hearing I ask | from the holy races,

From Heimdall’s sons, | both high and low;

Thou wilt, Valfather, | that well I relate

Old tales I remember | of men long ago.

2. I remember yet | the giants of yore,

Who gave me bread | in the days gone by;

Nine worlds I knew, | the nine in the tree

With mighty roots | beneath the mold.

3. Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;

Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;

Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

4. Then Bur’s sons lifted | the level land,

Mithgarth the mighty | there they made;

The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,

And green was the ground | with growing leeks.

5. The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south

Her right hand cast | over heaven’s rim;

No knowledge she had | where her home should be,

The moon knew not | what might was his,

The stars knew not | where their stations were.

6. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held;

Names then gave they | to noon and twilight,

Morning they named, | and the waning moon,

Night and evening, | the years to number.

7. At Ithavoll met | the mighty gods,

Shrines and temples | they timbered high;

Forges they set, | and they smithied ore,

Tongs they wrought, | and tools they fashioned.

8. In their dwellings at peace | they played at tables,

Of gold no lack | did the gods then know,—

Till thither came up | giant-maids three,

Huge of might, | out of Jotunheim.

9. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held,

To find who should raise | the race of dwarfs

Out of Brimir’s blood | and the legs of Blain.

10. There was Motsognir | the mightiest made

Of all the dwarfs, | and Durin next;

Many a likeness | of men they made,

The dwarfs in the earth, | as Durin said.

11. Nyi and Nithi, | Northri and Suthri,

Austri and Vestri, | Althjof, Dvalin,

Nar and Nain, | Niping, Dain,

Bifur, Bofur, | Bombur, Nori,

An and Onar, | Ai, Mjothvitnir.

12. Vigg and Gandalf, | Vindalf, Thrain,

Thekk and Thorin, | Thror, Vit and Lit,

Nyr and Nyrath,— | now have I told—

Regin and Rathsvith— | the list aright.

13. Fili, Kili, | Fundin, Nali,

Heptifili, | Hannar, Sviur,

Frar, Hornbori, | Fræg and Loni,

Aurvang, Jari, | Eikinskjaldi.

14. The race of the dwarfs | in Dvalin’s throng

Down to Lofar | the list must I tell;

The rocks they left, | and through wet lands

They sought a home | in the fields of sand.

15. There were Draupnir | and Dolgthrasir,

Hor, Haugspori, | Hlevang, Gloin,

Dori, Ori, | Duf, Andvari,

Skirfir, Virfir, | Skafith, Ai.

16. Alf and Yngvi, | Eikinskjaldi,

Fjalar and Frosti, | Fith and Ginnar;

So for all time | shall the tale be known,

The list of all | the forbears of Lofar.

17. Then from the throng | did three come forth,

From the home of the gods, | the mighty and gracious;

Two without fate | on the land they found,

Ask and Embla, | empty of might.

18. Soul they had not, | sense they had not,

Heat nor motion, | nor goodly hue;

Soul gave Othin, | sense gave Hönir,

Heat gave Lothur | and goodly hue.

19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name,

With water white | is the great tree wet;

Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales,

Green by Urth’s well | does it ever grow.

20. Thence come the maidens | mighty in wisdom,

Three from the dwelling | down ’neath the tree;

Urth is one named, | Verthandi the next,—

On the wood they scored,— | and Skuld the third.

Laws they made there, | and life allotted

To the sons of men, | and set their fates.

21. The war I remember, | the first in the world,

When the gods with spears | had smitten Gollveig,

And in the hall | of Hor had burned her,—

Three times burned, | and three times born,

Oft and again, | yet ever she lives.

22. Heith they named her | who sought their home,

The wide-seeing witch, | in magic wise;

Minds she bewitched | that were moved by her magic,

To evil women | a joy she was.

23. On the host his spear | did Othin hurl,

Then in the world | did war first come;

The wall that girdled | the gods was broken,

And the field by the warlike | Wanes was trodden.

24. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held,

Whether the gods | should tribute give,

Or to all alike | should worship belong.

25. Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held,

To find who with venom | the air had filled,

Or had given Oth’s bride | to the giants’ brood.

26. In swelling rage | then rose up Thor,—

Seldom he sits | when he such things hears,—

And the oaths were broken, | the words and bonds,

The mighty pledges | between them made.

27. I know of the horn | of Heimdall, hidden

Under the high-reaching | holy tree;

On it there pours | from Valfather’s pledge

A mighty stream: | would you know yet more?

28. Alone I sat | when the Old One sought me,

The terror of gods, | and gazed in mine eyes:

“What hast thou to ask? | why comest thou hither?

Othin, I know | where thine eye is hidden.”

29. I know where Othin’s | eye is hidden,

Deep in the wide-famed | well of Mimir;

Mead from the pledge | of Othin each morn

Does Mimir drink: | would you know yet more?

30. Necklaces had I | and rings from Heerfather,

Wise was my speech | and my magic wisdom;

. . . . . . . . . .

Widely I saw | over all the worlds.

31. On all sides saw I | Valkyries assemble,

Ready to ride | to the ranks of the gods;

Skuld bore the shield, | and Skogul rode next,

Guth, Hild, Gondul, | and Geirskogul.

Of Herjan’s maidens | the list have ye heard,

Valkyries ready | to ride o’er the earth.

32. I saw for Baldr, | the bleeding god,

The son of Othin, | his destiny set:

Famous and fair | in the lofty fields,

Full grown in strength | the mistletoe stood.

33. From the branch which seemed | so slender and fair

Came a harmful shaft | that Hoth should hurl;

But the brother of Baldr | was born ere long,

And one night old | fought Othin’s son.

34. His hands he washed not, | his hair he combed not,

Till he bore to the bale-blaze | Baldr’s foe.

But in Fensalir | did Frigg weep sore

For Valhall’s need: | would you know yet more?

35. One did I see | in the wet woods bound,

A lover of ill, | and to Loki like;

By his side does Sigyn | sit, nor is glad

To see her mate: | would you know yet more?

36. From the east there pours | through poisoned vales

With swords and daggers | the river Slith.

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

37. Northward a hall | in Nithavellir

Of gold there rose | for Sindri’s race;

And in Okolnir | another stood,

Where the giant Brimir | his beer-hall had.

38. A hall I saw, | far from the sun,

On Nastrond it stands, | and the doors face north;

Venom drops | through the smoke-vent down,

For around the walls | do serpents wind.

39. I saw there wading | through rivers wild

Treacherous men | and murderers too,

And workers of ill | with the wives of men;

There Nithhogg sucked | the blood of the slain,

And the wolf tore men; | would you know yet more?

40. The giantess old | in Ironwood sat,

In the east, and bore | the brood of Fenrir;

Among these one | in monster’s guise

Was soon to steal | the sun from the sky.

41. There feeds he full | on the flesh of the dead,

And the home of the gods | he reddens with gore;

Dark grows the sun, | and in summer soon

Come mighty storms: | would you know yet more?

42. On a hill there sat, | and smote on his harp,

Eggther the joyous, | the giants’ warder;

Above him the cock | in the bird-wood crowed,

Fair and red | did Fjalar stand.

43. Then to the gods | crowed Gollinkambi,

He wakes the heroes | in Othin’s hall;

And beneath the earth | does another crow,

The rust-red bird | at the bars of Hel.

44. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

45. Brothers shall fight | and fell each other,

And sisters’ sons | shall kinship stain;

Hard is it on earth, | with mighty whoredom;

Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered,

Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls;

Nor ever shall men | each other spare.

46. Fast move the sons | of Mim, and fate

Is heard in the note | of the Gjallarhorn;

Loud blows Heimdall, | the horn is aloft,

In fear quake all | who on Hel-roads are.

47. Yggdrasil shakes, | and shiver on high

The ancient limbs, | and the giant is loose;

To the head of Mim | does Othin give heed,

But the kinsman of Surt | shall slay him soon.

48. How fare the gods? | how fare the elves?

All Jotunheim groans, | the gods are at council;

Loud roar the dwarfs | by the doors of stone,

The masters of the rocks: | would you know yet more?

49. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

50. From the east comes Hrym | with shield held high;

In giant-wrath | does the serpent writhe;

O’er the waves he twists, | and the tawny eagle

Gnaws corpses screaming; | Naglfar is loose.

51. O’er the sea from the north | there sails a ship

With the people of Hel, | at the helm stands Loki;

After the wolf | do wild men follow,

And with them the brother | of Byleist goes.

52. Surt fares from the south | with the scourge of branches,

The sun of the battle-gods | shone from his sword;

The crags are sundered, | the giant-women sink,

The dead throng Hel-way, | and heaven is cloven.

53. Now comes to Hlin | yet another hurt,

When Othin fares | to fight with the wolf,

And Beli’s fair slayer | seeks out Surt,

For there must fall | the joy of Frigg.

54. Then comes Sigfather’s | mighty son,

Vithar, to fight | with the foaming wolf;

In the giant’s son | does he thrust his sword

Full to the heart: | his father is avenged.

55. Hither there comes | the son of Hlothyn,

The bright snake gapes | to heaven above;

. . . . . . . . . .

Against the serpent | goes Othin’s son.

56. In anger smites | the warder of earth,—

Forth from their homes | must all men flee;—

Nine paces fares | the son of Fjorgyn,

And, slain by the serpent, | fearless he sinks.

57. The sun turns black, | earth sinks in the sea,

The hot stars down | from heaven are whirled;

Fierce grows the steam | and the life-feeding flame,

Till fire leaps high | about heaven itself.

58. Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, | and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.

59. Now do I see | the earth anew

Rise all green | from the waves again;

The cataracts fall, | and the eagle flies,

And fish he catches | beneath the cliffs.

60. The gods in Ithavoll | meet together,

Of the terrible girdler | of earth they talk,

And the mighty past | they call to mind,

And the ancient runes | of the Ruler of Gods.

61. In wondrous beauty | once again

Shall the golden tables | stand mid the grass,

Which the gods had owned | in the days of old,

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

62. Then fields unsowed | bear ripened fruit,

All ills grow better, | and Baldr comes back;

Baldr and Hoth dwell | in Hropt’s battle-hall,

And the mighty gods: | would you know yet more?

63. Then Hönir wins | the prophetic wand,

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

And the sons of the brothers | of Tveggi abide

In Vindheim now: | would you know yet more?

64. More fair than the sun, | a hall I see,

Roofed with gold, | on Gimle it stands;

There shall the righteous | rulers dwell,

And happiness ever | there shall they have.

65. There comes on high, | all power to hold,

A mighty lord, | all lands he rules.

. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . .

66. From below the dragon | dark comes forth,

Nithhogg flying | from Nithafjoll;

The bodies of men | on his wings he bears,

The serpent bright: | but now must I sink.

NOTES

1. A few editors, following Bugge, in an effort to clarify the poem,

place stanzas 22, 28 and 30 before stanzas 1–20, but the arrangement in

both manuscripts, followed here, seems logical. In stanza 1 the Volva,

or wise-woman, called upon by Othin, answers him and demands a hearing.

Evidently she belongs to the race of the giants (cf. stanza 2), and

thus speaks to Othin unwillingly, being compelled to do so by his magic

power. Holy: omitted in Regius; the phrase “holy races” probably means

little more than mankind in general. Heimdall: the watchman of the

gods; cf. stanza 46 and note. Why mankind should be referred to as

Heimdall’s sons is uncertain, and the phrase has caused much

perplexity. Heimdall seems to have had various attributes, and in the

Rigsthula, wherein a certain Rig appears as the ancestor of the three

great classes of men, a fourteenth century annotator identifies Rig

with Heimdall, on what authority we do not know, for the Rig of the

poem seems much more like Othin (cf. Rigsthula, introductory prose and

note). Valfather (“Father of the Slain”): Othin, chief of the gods, so

called because the slain warriors were brought to him at Valhall (“Hall

of the Slain”) by the Valkyries (“Choosers of the Slain”).

2. Nine worlds: the worlds of the gods (Asgarth), of the Wanes

(Vanaheim, cf. stanza 21 and note), of the elves (Alfheim), of men

(Mithgarth), of the giants (Jotunheim), of fire (Muspellsheim, cf.

stanza 47 and note), of the dark elves (Svartalfaheim), of the dead

(Niflheim), and presumably of the dwarfs (perhaps Nithavellir, cf.

stanza 37 and note, but the ninth world is uncertain). The tree: the

world-ash Yggdrasil, symbolizing the universe; cf. Grimnismol, 29–35

and notes, wherein Yggdrasil is described at length.

3. Ymir: the giant out of whose body the gods made the world; cf.

Vafthruthnismol, 21. In this stanza as quoted in Snorri’s Edda the

first line runs: “Of old was the age | ere aught there was.”

Yawning gap: this phrase, “Ginnunga-gap,” is sometimes used as a proper

name.

4. Bur’s sons: Othin, Vili, and Ve. Of Bur we know only that his wife

was Bestla, daughter of Bolthorn; cf. Hovamol, 141. Vili and Ve are

mentioned by name in the Eddic poems only in Lokasenna, 26. Mithgarth

(“Middle Dwelling”): the world of men. Leeks: the leek was often used

as the symbol of fine growth (cf. Guthrunarkvitha I, 17), and it was

also supposed to have magic power (cf. Sigrdrifumol, 7).

5. Various editors have regarded this stanza as interpolated; Hoffory

thinks it describes the northern summer night in which the sun does not

set. Lines 3–5 are quoted by Snorri. In the manuscripts line 4 follows

line 5. Regarding the sun and moon as daughter and son of Mundilferi,

cf. Vafthruthnismol, 23 and note, and Grimnismol, 37 and note.

6. Possibly an interpolation, but there seems no strong reason for

assuming this. Lines 1–2 are identical with lines 1–2 of stanza 9, and

line 2 may have been inserted here from that later stanza.

7. Ithavoll (“Field of Deeds”?): mentioned only here and in stanza 60

as the meeting-place of the gods; it appears in no other connection.

8. Tables: the exact nature of this game, and whether it more closely

resembled chess or checkers, has been made the subject of a 400-page

treatise, Willard Fiske’s “Chess in Iceland.” Giant-maids: perhaps the

three great Norns, corresponding to the three fates; cf. stanza 20 and

note. Possibly, however, something has been lost after this stanza, and

the missing passage, replaced by the catalogue of the dwarfs (stanzas

9–16), may have explained the “giant-maids” otherwise than as Norns. In

Vafthruthnismol, 49, the Norns (this time “three throngs” instead of

simply “three”) are spoken of as giant-maidens; Fafnismol, 13,

indicates the existence of many lesser Norns, belonging to various

races. Jotunheim: the world of the giants.

9. Here apparently begins the interpolated catalogue of the dwarfs,

running through stanza 16; possibly, however, the interpolated section

does not begin before stanza 11. Snorri quotes practically the entire

section, the names appearing in a somewhat changed order. Brimir and

Blain: nothing is known of these two giants, and it has been suggested

that both are names for Ymir (cf. stanza 3). Brimir, however, appears

in stanza 37 in connection with the home of the dwarfs. Some editors

treat the words as common rather than proper nouns, Brimir meaning “the

bloody moisture” and Blain being of uncertain significance.

10. Very few of the dwarfs named in this and the following stanzas are

mentioned elsewhere. It is not clear why Durin should have been singled

out as authority for the list. The occasional repetitions suggest that

not all the stanzas of the catalogue came from the same source. Most of

the names presumably had some definite significance, as Northri,

Suthri, Austri, and Vestri (“North,” “South,” “East,” and “West”),

Althjof (“Mighty Thief”), Mjothvitnir (“Mead-Wolf”), Gandalf (“Magic

Elf”), Vindalf (“Wind Elf”), Rathsvith (“Swift in Counsel”),

Eikinskjaldi (“Oak Shield”), etc., but in many cases the

interpretations are sheer guesswork.

12. The order of the lines in this and the succeeding four stanzas

varies greatly in the manuscripts and editions, and the names likewise

appear in many forms. Regin: probably not identical with Regin the son

of Hreithmar, who plays an important part in the Reginsmol and

Fafnismol, but cf. note on Reginsmol, introductory prose.

14. Dvalin: in Hovamol, 144, Dvalin seems to have given magic runes to

the dwarfs, probably accounting for their skill in craftsmanship, while

in Fafnismol, 13, he is mentioned as the father of some of the lesser

Norns. The story that some of the dwarfs left the rocks and mountains

to find a new home on the sands is mentioned, but unexplained, in

Snorri’s Edda; of Lofar we know only that he was descended from these

wanderers.

15. Andvari: this dwarf appears prominently in the Reginsmol, which

tells how the god Loki treacherously robbed him of his wealth; the

curse which he laid on his treasure brought about the deaths of

Sigurth, Gunnar, Atli, and many others.

17. Here the poem resumes its course after the interpolated section.

Probably, however, something has been lost, for there is no apparent

connection between the three giant-maids of stanza 8 and the three

gods, Othin, Hönir and Lothur, who in stanza 17 go forth to create man

and woman. The word “three” in stanzas 8 and 17 very likely confused

some early reciter, or perhaps the compiler himself. Ask and Embla: ash

and elm; Snorri gives them simply as the names of the first man and

woman, but says that the gods made this pair out of trees.

18. Hönir: little is known of this god, save that he occasionally

appears in the poems in company with Othin and Loki, and that he

survives the destruction, assuming in the new age the gift of prophesy

(cf. stanza 63). He was given by the gods as a hostage to the Wanes

after their war, in exchange for Njorth (cf. stanza 21 and note).

Lothur: apparently an older name for Loki, the treacherous but

ingenious son of Laufey, whose divinity Snorri regards as somewhat

doubtful. He was adopted by Othin, who subsequently had good reason to

regret it. Loki probably represents the blending of two originally

distinct figures, one of them an old fire-god, hence his gift of heat

to the newly created pair.

19. Yggdrasil: cf. stanza 2 and note, and Grimnismol, 29–35 and notes.

Urth (“The Past”): one of the three great Norns. The world-ash is kept

green by being sprinkled with the marvelous healing water from her

well.

20. The maidens: the three Norns; possibly this stanza should follow

stanza 8. Dwelling: Regius has “sæ” (sea) instead of “sal” (hall,

home), and many editors have followed this reading, although Snorri’s

prose paraphrase indicates “sal.” Urth, Verthandi and Skuld: “Past,”

“Present” and “Future.” Wood, etc.: the magic signs (runes) controlling

the destinies of men were cut on pieces of wood. Lines 3–4 are probably

interpolations from some other account of the Norns.

21. This follows stanza 20 in Regius; in the Hauksbok version stanzas

25, 26, 27, 40 and 41 come between stanzas 20 and 21. Editors have

attempted all sorts of rearrangements. The war: the first war was that

between the gods and the Wanes. The cult of the Wanes (Vanir) seems to

have originated among the seafaring folk of the Baltic and the southern

shores of the North Sea, and to have spread thence into Norway in

opposition to the worship of the older gods; hence the “war.” Finally

the two types of divinities were worshipped in common; hence the treaty

which ended the war with the exchange of hostages. Chief among the

Wanes were Njorth and his children, Freyr and Freyja, all of whom

became conspicuous among the gods. Beyond this we know little of the

Wanes, who seem originally to have been water-deities. I remember: the

manuscripts have “she remembers,” but the Volva is apparently still

speaking of her own memories, as in stanza 2. Gollveig (“Gold-Might”):

apparently the first of the Wanes to come among the gods, her

ill-treatment being the immediate cause of the war. Müllenhoff

maintains that Gollveig is another name for Freyja. Lines 5–6, one or

both of them probably interpolated, seem to symbolize the refining of

gold by fire. Hor (“The High One”): Othin.

22. Heith (“Shining One”?): a name often applied to wise-women and

prophetesses. The application of this stanza to Gollveig is far from

clear, though the reference may be to the magic and destructive power

of gold. It is also possible that the stanza is an interpolation. Bugge

maintains that it applies to the Volva who is reciting the poem, and

makes it the opening stanza, following it with stanzas 28 and 30, and

then going on with stanzas 1 ff. The text of line 2 is obscure, and has

been variously emended.

23. This stanza and stanza 24 have been transposed from the order in

the manuscripts, for the former describes the battle and the victory of

the Wanes, after which the gods took council, debating whether to pay

tribute to the victors, or to admit them, as was finally done, to equal

rights of worship.

25. Possibly, as Finn Magnusen long ago suggested, there is something

lost after stanza 24, but it was not the custom of the Eddic poets to

supply transitions which their hearers could generally be counted on to

understand. The story referred to in stanzas 25–26 (both quoted by

Snorri) is that of the rebuilding of Asgarth after its destruction by

the Wanes. The gods employed a giant as builder, who demanded as his

reward the sun and moon, and the goddess Freyja for his wife. The gods,

terrified by the rapid progress of the work, forced Loki, who had

advised the bargain, to delay the giant by a trick, so that the work

was not finished in the stipulated time (cf. Grimnismol, 44, note). The

enraged giant then threatened the gods, whereupon Thor slew him. Oth’s

bride: Freyja; of Oth little is known beyond the fact that Snorri

refers to him as a man who “went away on long journeys.”

26. Thor: the thunder-god, son of Othin and Jorth (Earth); cf.

particularly Harbarthsljoth and Thrymskvitha, passim. Oaths, etc.: the

gods, by violating their oaths to the giant who rebuilt Asgarth,

aroused the undying hatred of the giants’ race, and thus the giants

were among their enemies in the final battle.

27. Here the Volva turns from her memories of the past to a statement

of some of Othin’s own secrets in his eternal search for knowledge

(stanzas 27–29). Bugge puts this stanza after stanza 29. The horn of

Heimdall: the Gjallarhorn (“Shrieking Horn”), with which Heimdall,

watchman of the gods, will summon them to the last battle. Till that

time the horn is buried under Yggdrasil. Valfather’s pledge: Othin’s

eye (the sun?), which he gave to the water-spirit Mimir (or Mim) in

exchange for the latter’s wisdom. It appears here and in stanza 29 as a

drinking-vessel, from which Mimir drinks the magic mead, and from which

he pours water on the ash Yggdrasil. Othin’s sacrifice of his eye in

order to gain knowledge of his final doom is one of the series of

disasters leading up to the destruction of the gods. There were several

differing versions of the story of Othin’s relations with Mimir;

another one, quite incompatible with this, appears in stanza 47. In the

manuscripts I know and I see appear as “she knows” and “she sees” (cf.

note on 21).

28. The Hauksbok version omits all of stanzas 28–34, stanza 27 being

there followed by stanzas 40 and 41. Regius indicates stanzas 28 and 29

as a single stanza. Bugge puts stanza 28 after stanza 22, as the second

stanza of his reconstructed poem. The Volva here addresses Othin

directly, intimating that, although he has not told her, she knows why

he has come to her, and what he has already suffered in his search for

knowledge regarding his doom. Her reiterated “would you know yet more?”

seems to mean: “I have proved my wisdom by telling of the past and of

your own secrets; is it your will that I tell likewise of the fate in

store for you?” The Old One: Othin.

29. The first line, not in either manuscript, is a conjectural

emendation based on Snorri’s paraphrase. Bugge puts this stanza after

stanza 20.

30. This is apparently the transitional stanza, in which the Volva,

rewarded by Othin for her knowledge of the past (stanzas 1–29), is

induced to proceed with her real prophecy (stanzas 31–66). Some editors

turn the stanza into the third person, making it a narrative link.

Bugge, on the other hand, puts it after stanza 28 as the third stanza

of the poem. No lacuna is indicated in the manuscripts, and editors

have attempted various emendations. Heerfather (“Father of the Host”):

Othin.

31. Valkyries: these “Choosers of the Slain” (cf. stanza 1, note) bring

the bravest warriors killed in battle to Valhall, in order to

re-enforce the gods for their final struggle. They are also called

“Wish-Maidens,” as the fulfillers of Othin’s wishes. The conception of

the supernatural warrior-maiden was presumably brought to Scandinavia

in very early times from the South-Germanic races, and later it was

interwoven with the likewise South-Germanic tradition of the

swan-maiden. A third complication developed when the originally quite

human women of the hero-legends were endowed with the qualities of both

Valkyries and swan-maidens, as in the cases of Brynhild (cf. Gripisspo,

introductory note), Svava (cf. Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar, prose after

stanza 5 and note) and Sigrun (cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 17 and

note). The list of names here given may be an interpolation; a quite

different list is given in Grimnismol, 36. Ranks of the gods: some

editors regard the word thus translated as a specific place name.

Herjan (“Leader of Hosts”): Othin. It is worth noting that the name

Hild (“Warrior”) is the basis of Bryn-hild (“Warrior in Mail-Coat”).

32. Baldr: The death of Baldr, the son of Othin and Frigg, was the

first of the great disasters to the gods. The story is fully told by

Snorri. Frigg had demanded of all created things, saving only the

mistletoe, which she thought too weak to be worth troubling about, an

oath that they would not harm Baldr. Thus it came to be a sport for the

gods to hurl weapons at Baldr, who, of course, was totally unharmed

thereby. Loki, the trouble-maker, brought the mistletoe to Baldr’s

blind brother, Hoth, and guided his hand in hurling the twig. Baldr was

slain, and grief came upon all the gods. Cf. Baldrs Draumar.

33. The lines in this and the following stanza have been combined in

various ways by editors, lacunæ having been freely conjectured, but the

manuscript version seems clear enough. The brother of Baldr: Vali, whom

Othin begot expressly to avenge Baldr’s death. The day after his birth

he fought and slew Hoth.

34. Frigg: Othin’s wife. Some scholars have regarded her as a solar

myth, calling her the sun-goddess, and pointing out that her home in

Fensalir (“the sea-halls”) symbolizes the daily setting of the sun

beneath the ocean horizon.

35. The translation here follows the Regius version. The Hauksbok has

the same final two lines, but in place of the first pair has, “I know

that Vali | his brother gnawed, / With his bowels then | was

Loki bound.” Many editors have followed this version of the whole

stanza or have included these two lines, often marking them as

doubtful, with the four from Regius. After the murder of Baldr, the

gods took Loki and bound him to a rock with the bowels of his son

Narfi, who had just been torn to pieces by Loki’s other son, Vali. A

serpent was fastened above Loki’s head, and the venom fell upon his

face. Loki’s wife, Sigyn, sat by him with a basin to catch the venom,

but whenever the basin was full, and she went away to empty it, then

the venom fell on Loki again, till the earth shook with his struggles.

“And there he lies bound till the end.” Cf. Lokasenna, concluding

prose.

36. Stanzas 36–39 describe the homes of the enemies of the gods: the

giants (36), the dwarfs (37), and the dead in the land of the goddess

Hel (38–39). The Hauksbok version omits stanzas 36 and 37. Regius

unites 36 with 37, but most editors have assumed a lacuna. Slith (“the

Fearful”): a river in the giants’ home. The “swords and daggers” may

represent the icy cold.

37. Nithavellir (“the Dark Fields”): a home of the dwarfs. Perhaps the

word should be “Nithafjoll” (“the Dark Crags”). Sindri: the great

worker in gold among the dwarfs. Okolnir (“the Not Cold”): possibly a

volcano. Brimir: the giant (possibly Ymir) out of whose blood,

according to stanza 9, the dwarfs were made; the name here appears to

mean simply the leader of the dwarfs.

38. Stanzas 38 and 39 follow stanza 43 in the Hauksbok version. Snorri

quotes stanzas 38, 39, 40 and 41, though not consecutively. Nastrond

(“Corpse-Strand”): the land of the dead, ruled by the goddess Hel. Here

the wicked undergo tortures. Smoke-vent: the phrase gives a picture of

the Icelandic house, with its opening in the roof serving instead of a

chimney.

39. The stanza is almost certainly in corrupt form. The third line is

presumably an interpolation, and is lacking in most of the late paper

manuscripts. Some editors, however, have called lines 1–3 the remains

of a full stanza, with the fourth line lacking, and lines 4–5 the

remains of another. The stanza depicts the torments of the two worst

classes of criminals known to Old Norse morality—oath-breakers and

murderers. Nithhogg (“the Dread Biter”): the dragon that lies beneath

the ash Yggdrasil and gnaws at its roots, thus symbolizing the

destructive elements in the universe; cf. Grimnismol, 32, 35. The wolf:

presumably the wolf Fenrir, one of the children of Loki and the

giantess Angrbotha (the others being Mithgarthsorm and the goddess

Hel), who was chained by the gods with the marvelous chain Gleipnir,

fashioned by a dwarf “out of six things: the noise of a cat’s step, the

beards of women, the roots of mountains, the nerves of bears, the

breath of fishes, and the spittle of birds.” The chaining of Fenrir

cost the god Tyr his right hand; cf. stanza 44.

40. The Hauksbok version inserts after stanza 39 the refrain-stanza

(44), and puts stanzas 40 and 41 between 27 and 21. With this stanza

begins the account of the final struggle itself. The giantess: her name

is nowhere stated, and the only other reference to Ironwood is in

Grimnismol, 39, in this same connection. The children of this giantess

and the wolf Fenrir are the wolves Skoll and Hati, the first of whom

steals the sun, the second the moon. Some scholars naturally see here

an eclipse-myth.

41. In the third line many editors omit the comma after “sun,” and put

one after “soon,” making the two lines run: “Dark grows the sun |

in summer soon, / Mighty storms—” etc. Either phenomenon in summer

would be sufficiently striking.

42. In the Hauksbok version stanzas 42 and 43 stand between stanzas 44

and 38. Eggther: this giant, who seems to be the watchman of the

giants, as Heimdall is that of the gods and Surt of the dwellers in the

fire-world, is not mentioned elsewhere in the poems. Fjalar, the cock

whose crowing wakes the giants for the final struggle.

43. Gollinkambi (“Gold-Comb”): the cock who wakes the gods and heroes,

as Fjalar does the giants. The rust-red bird: the name of this bird,

who wakes the people of Hel’s domain, is nowhere stated.

44. This is a refrain-stanza. In Regius it appears in full only at this

point, but is repeated in abbreviated form before stanzas 50 and 59. In

the Hauksbok version the full stanza comes first between stanzas 35 and

42, then, in abbreviated form, it occurs four times: before stanzas 45,

50, 55, and 59. In the Hauksbok line 3 runs: “Farther I see | and

more can say.” Garm: the dog who guards the gates of Hel’s kingdom; cf.

Baldrs Draumar, 2 ff, and Grimnismol, 44. Gnipahellir (“the

Cliff-Cave”): the entrance to the world of the dead. The wolf: Fenrir;

cf. stanza 39 and note.

45. From this point on through stanza 57 the poem is quoted by Snorri,

stanza 49 alone being omitted. There has been much discussion as to the

status of stanza 45. Lines 4 and 5 look like an interpolation. After

line 5 the Hauksbok has a line running: “The world resounds, | the

witch is flying.” Editors have arranged these seven lines in various

ways, with lacunæ freely indicated. Sisters’ sons: in all Germanic

countries the relations between uncle and nephew were felt to be

particularly close.

46. Regius combines the first three lines of this stanza with lines 3,

2, and 1 of stanza 47 as a single stanza. Line 4, not found in Regius,

is introduced from the Hauksbok version, where it follows line 2 of

stanza 47. The sons of Mim: the spirits of the water. On Mim (or Mimir)

cf. stanza 27 and note. Gjallarhorn: the “Shrieking Horn” with which

Heimdall, the watchman of the gods, calls them to the last battle.

47. In Regius lines 3, 2, and 1, in that order, follow stanza 46

without separation. Line 4 is not found in Regius, but is introduced

from the Hauksbok version. Yggdrasil: cf. stanza 19 and note, and

Grimnismol, 29–35. The giant: Fenrir. The head of Mim: various myths

were current about Mimir. This stanza refers to the story that he was

sent by the gods with Hönir as a hostage to the Wanes after their war

(cf. stanza 21 and note), and that the Wanes cut off his head and

returned it to the gods. Othin embalmed the head, and by magic gave it

the power of speech, thus making Mimir’s noted wisdom always available.

Of course this story does not fit with that underlying the references

to Mimir in stanzas 27 and 29. The kinsman of Surt: the wolf Fenrir,

who slays Othin in the final struggle; cf. stanza 53. Surt is the giant

who rules the fire-world, Muspellsheim; cf. stanza 52.

48. This stanza in Regius follows stanza 51; in the Hauksbok it stands,

as here, after 47. Jotunheim: the land of the giants.

49. Identical with stanza 44. In the manuscripts it is here

abbreviated.

50. Hrym: the leader of the giants, who comes as the helmsman of the

ship Naglfar (line 4). The serpent: Mithgarthsorm, one of the children

of Loki and Angrbotha (cf. stanza 39, note). The serpent was cast into

the sea, where he completely encircles the land; cf. especially

Hymiskvitha, passim. The eagle: the giant Hræsvelg, who sits at the

edge of heaven in the form of an eagle, and makes the winds with his

wings; cf. Vafthruthnismol, 37, and Skirnismol, 27. Naglfar: the ship

which was made out of dead men’s nails to carry the giants to battle.

51. North: a guess; the manuscripts have “east,” but there seems to be

a confusion with stanza 50, line 1. People of Hel: the manuscripts have

“people of Muspell,” but these came over the bridge Bifrost (the

rainbow), which broke beneath them, whereas the people of Hel came in a

ship steered by Loki. The wolf: Fenrir. The brother of Byleist: Loki.

Of Byleist (or Byleipt) no more is known.

52. Surt: the ruler of the fire-world. The scourge of branches: fire.

This is one of the relatively rare instances in the Eddic poems of the

type of poetic diction which characterizes the skaldic verse.

53. Hlin: apparently another name for Frigg, Othin’s wife. After losing

her son Baldr, she is fated now to see Othin slain by the wolf Fenrir.

Beli’s slayer: the god Freyr, who killed the giant Beli with his fist;

cf. Skirnismol, 16 and note. On Freyr, who belonged to the race of the

Wanes, and was the brother of Freyja, see especially Skirnismol,

passim. The joy of Frigg: Othin.

54. As quoted by Snorri the first line of this stanza runs: “Fares

Othin’s son | to fight with the wolf.” Sigfather (“Father of

Victory”): Othin. His son, Vithar, is the silent god, famed chiefly for

his great shield, and his strength, which is little less than Thor’s.

He survives the destruction. The giant’s son: Fenrir.

55. This and the following stanza are clearly in bad shape. In Regius

only lines 1 and 4 are found, combined with stanza 56 as a single

stanza. Line 1 does not appear in the Hauksbok version, the stanza

there beginning with line 2. Snorri, in quoting these two stanzas,

omits 55, 2–4, and 56, 3, making a single stanza out of 55, 1, and 56,

4, 2, 1, in that order. Moreover, the Hauksbok manuscript at this point

is practically illegible. The lacuna (line 3) is, of course, purely

conjectural, and all sorts of arrangements of the lines have been

attempted by editors. Hlothyn: another name for Jorth (“Earth”), Thor’s

mother; his father was Othin. The snake: Mithgarthsorm; cf. stanza 5c

and note. Othin’s son: Thor. The fourth line in Regius reads “against

the wolf,” but if this line refers to Thor at all, and not to Vithar,

the Hauksbok reading, “serpent,” is correct.

56. The warder of earth: Thor. The son of Fjorgyn: again Thor, who,

after slaying the serpent, is overcome by his venomous breath, and

dies. Fjorgyn appears in both a masculine and a feminine form. In the

masculine it is a name for Othin; in the feminine, as here and in

Harbarthsljoth, 56, it apparently refers to Jorth.

57. With this stanza ends the account of the destruction.

58. Again the refrain-stanza (cf. stanza 44 and note), abbreviated in

both manuscripts, as in the case of stanza 49. It is probably misplaced

here.

59. Here begins the description of the new world which is to rise out

of the wreck of the old one. It is on this passage that a few critics

have sought to base their argument that the poem is later than the

introduction of Christianity (circa 1000), but this theory has never

seemed convincing (cf. introductory note).

60. The third line of this stanza is not found in Regius. Ithavoll: cf.

stanza 7 and note. The girdler of earth: Mithgarthsorm, who, lying in

the sea, surrounded the land. The Ruler of Gods: Othin. The runes were

both magic signs, generally carved on wood, and sung or spoken charms.

61. The Hauksbok version of the first two lines runs:

“The gods shall find there, | wondrous fair,

The golden tables | amid the grass.”

No lacuna (line 4) is indicated in the manuscripts. Golden tables: cf.

stanza 8 and note.

62. Baldr: cf. stanza 32 and note. Baldr and his brother, Hoth, who

unwittingly slew him at Loki’s instigation, return together, their

union being a symbol of the new age of peace. Hropt: another name for

Othin. His “battle-hall” is Valhall.

63. No lacuna (line 2) indicated in the manuscripts. Hönir: cf. stanza

18 and note. In this new age he has the gift of foretelling the future.

Tveggi (“The Twofold”): another name for Othin. His brothers are Vili

and Ve (cf. Lokasenna, 26, and note). Little is known of them, and

nothing, beyond this reference, of their sons. Vindheim (“Home of the

Wind”): heaven.

64. This stanza is quoted by Snorri. Gimle: Snorri makes this the name

of the hall itself, while here it appears to refer to a mountain on

which the hall stands. It is the home of the happy, as opposed to

another hall, not here mentioned, for the dead. Snorri’s description of

this second hall is based on Voluspo, 38, which he quotes, and perhaps

that stanza properly belongs after 64.

65. This stanza is not found in Regius, and is probably spurious. No

lacuna is indicated in the Hauksbok version, but late paper manuscripts

add two lines, running:

“Rule he orders, | and rights he fixes,

Laws he ordains | that ever shall live.”

The name of this new ruler is nowhere given, and of course the

suggestion of Christianity is unavoidable. It is not certain, however,

that even this stanza refers to Christianity, and if it does, it may

have been interpolated long after the rest of the poem was composed.

66. This stanza, which fits so badly with the preceding ones, may well

have been interpolated. It has been suggested that the dragon, making a

last attempt to rise, is destroyed, this event marking the end of evil

in the world. But in both manuscripts the final half-line does not

refer to the dragon, but, as the gender shows, to the Volva herself,

who sinks into the earth; a sort of conclusion to the entire prophecy.

Presumably the stanza (barring the last half-line, which was probably

intended as the conclusion of the poem) belongs somewhere in the

description of the great struggle. Nithhogg: the dragon at the roots of

Yggdrasil; cf. stanza 39 and note. Nithafjoll (“the Dark Crags”);

nowhere else mentioned. Must I: the manuscripts have “must she.”

HOVAMOL

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

This poem follows the Voluspo in the Codex Regius, but is preserved in

no other manuscript. The first stanza is quoted by Snorri, and two

lines of stanza 84 appear in one of the sagas.

In its present shape it involves the critic of the text in more puzzles

than any other of the Eddic poems. Without going in detail into the

various theories, what happened seems to have been somewhat as follows.

There existed from very early times a collection of proverbs and wise

counsels, which were attributed to Othin just as the Biblical proverbs

were to Solomon. This collection, which presumably was always elastic

in extent, was known as “The High One’s Words,” and forms the basis of

the present poem. To it, however, were added other poems and fragments

dealing with wisdom which seemed by their nature to imply that the

speaker was Othin. Thus a catalogue of runes, or charms, was tacked on,

and also a set of proverbs, differing essentially in form from those

comprising the main collection. Here and there bits of verse more

nearly narrative crept in; and of course the loose structure of the

poem made it easy for any reciter to insert new stanzas almost at will.

This curious miscellany is what we now have as the Hovamol.

Five separate elements are pretty clearly recognizable: (1) the Hovamol

proper (stanzas 1–80), a collection of proverbs and counsels for the

conduct of life; (2) the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111–138), a collection

somewhat similar to the first, but specifically addressed to a certain

Loddfafnir; (3) the Ljothatal (stanzas 147–165), a collection of

charms; (4) the love-story of Othin and Billing’s daughter (stanzas

96–102), with an introductory dissertation on the faithlessness of

women in general (stanzas 81–95), which probably crept into the poem

first, and then pulled the story, as an apt illustration, after it; (5)

the story of how Othin got the mead of poetry—the draught which gave

him the gift of tongues—from the maiden Gunnloth (stanzas 103–110).

There is also a brief passage (stanzas 139–146) telling how Othin won

the runes, this passage being a natural introduction to the Ljothatal,

and doubtless brought into the poem for that reason.

It is idle to discuss the authorship or date of such a series of

accretions as this. Parts of it are doubtless among the oldest relics

of ancient Germanic poetry; parts of it may have originated at a

relatively late period. Probably, however, most of its component

elements go pretty far back, although we have no way of telling how or

when they first became associated.

It seems all but meaningless to talk about “interpolations” in a poem

which has developed almost solely through the process of piecing

together originally unrelated odds and ends. The notes, therefore, make

only such suggestions as are needed to keep the main divisions of the

poem distinct.

Few gnomic collections in the world’s literary history present sounder

wisdom more tersely expressed than the Hovamol. Like the Book of

Proverbs it occasionally rises to lofty heights of poetry. If it

presents the worldly wisdom of a violent race, it also shows noble

ideals of loyalty, truth, and unfaltering courage.

1. Within the gates | ere a man shall go,

(Full warily let him watch,)

Full long let him look about him;

For little he knows | where a foe may lurk,

And sit in the seats within.

2. Hail to the giver! | a guest has come;

Where shall the stranger sit?

Swift shall he be | who with swords shall try

The proof of his might to make.

3. Fire he needs | who with frozen knees

Has come from the cold without;

Food and clothes | must the farer have,

The man from the mountains come.

4. Water and towels | and welcoming speech

Should he find who comes to the feast;

If renown he would get, | and again be greeted,

Wisely and well must he act.

5. Wits must he have | who wanders wide,

But all is easy at home;

At the witless man | the wise shall wink

When among such men he sits.

6. A man shall not boast | of his keenness of mind,

But keep it close in his breast;

To the silent and wise | does ill come seldom

When he goes as guest to a house;

(For a faster friend | one never finds

Than wisdom tried and true.)

7. The knowing guest | who goes to the feast,

In silent attention sits;

With his ears he hears, | with his eyes he watches,

Thus wary are wise men all.

8. Happy the one | who wins for himself

Favor and praises fair;

Less safe by far | is the wisdom found

That is hid in another’s heart.

9. Happy the man | who has while he lives

Wisdom and praise as well,

For evil counsel | a man full oft

Has from another’s heart.

10. A better burden | may no man bear

For wanderings wide than wisdom;

It is better than wealth | on unknown ways,

And in grief a refuge it gives.

11. A better burden | may no man bear

For wanderings wide than wisdom;

Worse food for the journey | he brings not afield

Than an over-drinking of ale.

12. Less good there lies | than most believe

In ale for mortal men;

For the more he drinks | the less does man

Of his mind the mastery hold.

13. Over beer the bird | of forgetfulness broods,

And steals the minds of men;

With the heron’s feathers | fettered I lay

And in Gunnloth’s house was held.

14. Drunk I was, | I was dead-drunk,

When with Fjalar wise I was;

’Tis the best of drinking | if back one brings

His wisdom with him home.

15. The son of a king | shall be silent and wise,

And bold in battle as well;

Bravely and gladly | a man shall go,

Till the day of his death is come.

16. The sluggard believes | he shall live forever,

If the fight he faces not;

But age shall not grant him | the gift of peace,

Though spears may spare his life.

17. The fool is agape | when he comes to the feast,

He stammers or else is still;

But soon if he gets | a drink is it seen

What the mind of the man is like.

18. He alone is aware | who has wandered wide,

And far abroad has fared,

How great a mind | is guided by him

That wealth of wisdom has.

19. Shun not the mead, | but drink in measure;

Speak to the point or be still;

For rudeness none | shall rightly blame thee

If soon thy bed thou seekest.

20. The greedy man, | if his mind be vague,

Will eat till sick he is;

The vulgar man, | when among the wise,

To scorn by his belly is brought.

21. The herds know well | when home they shall fare,

And then from the grass they go;

But the foolish man | his belly’s measure

Shall never know aright.

22. A paltry man | and poor of mind

At all things ever mocks;

For never he knows, | what he ought to know,

That he is not free from faults.

23. The witless man | is awake all night,

Thinking of many things;

Care-worn he is | when the morning comes,

And his woe is just as it was.

24. The foolish man | for friends all those

Who laugh at him will hold;

When among the wise | he marks it not

Though hatred of him they speak.

25. The foolish man | for friends all those

Who laugh at him will hold;

But the truth when he comes | to the council he learns,

That few in his favor will speak.

26. An ignorant man | thinks that all he knows,

When he sits by himself in a corner;

But never what answer | to make he knows,

When others with questions come.

27. A witless man, | when he meets with men,

Had best in silence abide;

For no one shall find | that nothing he knows,

If his mouth is not open too much.

(But a man knows not, | if nothing he knows,

When his mouth has been open too much.)

28. Wise shall he seem | who well can question,

And also answer well;

Nought is concealed | that men may say

Among the sons of men.

29. Often he speaks | who never is still

With words that win no faith;

The babbling tongue, | if a bridle it find not,

Oft for itself sings ill.

30. In mockery no one | a man shall hold,

Although he fare to the feast;

Wise seems one oft, | if nought he is asked,

And safely he sits dry-skinned.

31. Wise a guest holds it | to take to his heels,

When mock of another he makes;

But little he knows | who laughs at the feast,

Though he mocks in the midst of his foes.

32. Friendly of mind | are many men,

Till feasting they mock at their friends;

To mankind a bane | must it ever be

When guests together strive.

33. Oft should one make | an early meal,

Nor fasting come to the feast;

Else he sits and chews | as if he would choke,

And little is able to ask.

34. Crooked and far | is the road to a foe,

Though his house on the highway be;

But wide and straight | is the way to a friend,

Though far away he fare.

35. Forth shall one go, | nor stay as a guest

In a single spot forever;

Love becomes loathing | if long one sits

By the hearth in another’s home.

36. Better a house, | though a hut it be,

A man is master at home;

A pair of goats | and a patched-up roof

Are better far than begging.

37. Better a house, | though a hut it be,

A man is master at home;

His heart is bleeding | who needs must beg

When food he fain would have.

38. Away from his arms | in the open field

A man should fare not a foot;

For never he knows | when the need for a spear

Shall arise on the distant road.

39. If wealth a man | has won for himself,

Let him never suffer in need;

Oft he saves for a foe | what he plans for a friend,

For much goes worse than we wish.

40. None so free with gifts | or food have I found

That gladly he took not a gift,

Nor one who so widely | scattered his wealth

That of recompense hatred he had.

41. Friends shall gladden each other | with arms and garments,

As each for himself can see;

Gift-givers’ friendships | are longest found,

If fair their fates may be.

42. To his friend a man | a friend shall prove,

And gifts with gifts requite;

But men shall mocking | with mockery answer,

And fraud with falsehood meet.

43. To his friend a man | a friend shall prove,

To him and the friend of his friend;

But never a man | shall friendship make

With one of his foeman’s friends.

44. If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,

And good from him wouldst get,

Thy thoughts with his mingle, | and gifts shalt thou make,

And fare to find him oft.

45. If another thou hast | whom thou hardly wilt trust,

Yet good from him wouldst get,

Thou shalt speak him fair, | but falsely think,

And fraud with falsehood requite.

46. So is it with him | whom thou hardly wilt trust,

And whose mind thou mayst not know;

Laugh with him mayst thou, | but speak not thy mind,

Like gifts to his shalt thou give.

47. Young was I once, | and wandered alone,

And nought of the road I knew;

Rich did I feel | when a comrade I found,

For man is man’s delight.

48. The lives of the brave | and noble are best,

Sorrows they seldom feed;

But the coward fear | of all things feels,

And not gladly the niggard gives.

49. My garments once | in a field I gave

To a pair of carven poles;

Heroes they seemed | when clothes they had,

But the naked man is nought.

50. On the hillside drear | the fir-tree dies,

All bootless its needles and bark;

It is like a man | whom no one loves,—

Why should his life be long?

51. Hotter than fire | between false friends

Does friendship five days burn;

When the sixth day comes | the fire cools,

And ended is all the love.

52. No great thing needs | a man to give,

Oft little will purchase praise;

With half a loaf | and a half-filled cup

A friend full fast I made.

53. A little sand | has a little sea,

And small are the minds of men;

Though all men are not | equal in wisdom,

Yet half-wise only are all.

54. A measure of wisdom | each man shall have,

But never too much let him know;

The fairest lives | do those men live

Whose wisdom wide has grown.

55. A measure of wisdom | each man shall have,

But never too much let him know;

For the wise man’s heart | is seldom happy,

If wisdom too great he has won.

56. A measure of wisdom | each man shall have,

But never too much let him know;

Let no man the fate | before him see,

For so is he freest from sorrow.

57. A brand from a brand | is kindled and burned,

And fire from fire begotten;

And man by his speech | is known to men,

And the stupid by their stillness.

58. He must early go forth | who fain the blood

Or the goods of another would get;

The wolf that lies idle | shall win little meat,

Or the sleeping man success.

59. He must early go forth | whose workers are few,

Himself his work to seek;

Much remains undone | for the morning-sleeper,

For the swift is wealth half won.

60. Of seasoned shingles | and strips of bark

For the thatch let one know his need,

And how much of wood | he must have for a month,

Or in half a year he will use.

61. Washed and fed | to the council fare,

But care not too much for thy clothes;

Let none be ashamed | of his shoes and hose,

Less still of the steed he rides,

(Though poor be the horse he has.)

62. When the eagle comes | to the ancient sea,

He snaps and hangs his head;

So is a man | in the midst of a throng,

Who few to speak for him finds.

63. To question and answer | must all be ready

Who wish to be known as wise;

Tell one thy thoughts, | but beware of two,—

All know what is known to three.

64. The man who is prudent | a measured use

Of the might he has will make;

He finds when among | the brave he fares

That the boldest he may not be.

65. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Oft for the words | that to others one speaks

He will get but an evil gift.

66. Too early to many | a meeting I came,

And some too late have I sought;

The beer was all drunk, | or not yet brewed;

Little the loathed man finds.

67. To their homes men would bid me | hither and yon,

If at meal-time I needed no meat,

Or would hang two hams | in my true friend’s house,

Where only one I had eaten.

68. Fire for men | is the fairest gift,

And power to see the sun;

Health as well, | if a man may have it,

And a life not stained with sin.

69. All wretched is no man, | though never so sick;

Some from their sons have joy,

Some win it from kinsmen, | and some from their wealth,

And some from worthy works.

70. It is better to live | than to lie a corpse,

The live man catches the cow;

I saw flames rise | for the rich man’s pyre,

And before his door he lay dead.

71. The lame rides a horse, | the handless is herdsman,

The deaf in battle is bold;

The blind man is better | than one that is burned,

No good can come of a corpse.

72. A son is better, | though late he be born,

And his father to death have fared;

Memory-stones | seldom stand by the road

Save when kinsman honors his kin.

73. Two make a battle, | the tongue slays the head;

In each furry coat | a fist I look for.

74. He welcomes the night | whose fare is enough.

(Short are the yards of a ship,)

Uneasy are autumn nights;

Full oft does the weather | change in a week,

And more in a month’s time.

75. A man knows not, | if nothing he knows,

That gold oft apes begets;

One man is wealthy | and one is poor,

Yet scorn for him none should know.

76. Among Fitjung’s sons | saw I well-stocked folds,—

Now bear they the beggar’s staff;

Wealth is as swift | as a winking eye,

Of friends the falsest it is.

77. Cattle die, | and kinsmen die,

And so one dies one’s self;

But a noble name | will never die,

If good renown one gets.

78. Cattle die, | and kinsmen die,

And so one dies one’s self;

One thing I know | that never dies,

The fame of a dead man’s deeds.

79. Certain is that | which is sought from runes,

That the gods so great have made,

And the Master-Poet painted;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . of the race of gods:

Silence is safest and best.

80. An unwise man, | if a maiden’s love

Or wealth he chances to win,

His pride will wax, | but his wisdom never,

Straight forward he fares in conceit.

* * * * * *

81. Give praise to the day at evening, | to a woman on her pyre,

To a weapon which is tried, | to a maid at wedlock,

To ice when it is crossed, | to ale that is drunk.

82. When the gale blows hew wood, | in fair winds seek the water;

Sport with maidens at dusk, | for day’s eyes are many;

From the ship seek swiftness, | from the shield protection,

Cuts from the sword, | from the maiden kisses.

83. By the fire drink ale, | over ice go on skates;

Buy a steed that is lean, | and a sword when tarnished,

The horse at home fatten, | the hound in thy dwelling.

* * * * * *

84. A man shall trust not | the oath of a maid,

Nor the word a woman speaks;

For their hearts on a whirling | wheel were fashioned,

And fickle their breasts were formed.

* * * * * *

85. In a breaking bow | or a burning flame,

A ravening wolf | or a croaking raven,

In a grunting boar, | a tree with roots broken,

In billowy seas | or a bubbling kettle,

86. In a flying arrow | or falling waters,

In ice new formed | or the serpent’s folds,

In a bride’s bed-speech | or a broken sword,

In the sport of bears | or in sons of kings,

87. In a calf that is sick | or a stubborn thrall,

A flattering witch | or a foe new slain.

88. In a brother’s slayer, | if thou meet him abroad,

In a half-burned house, | in a horse full swift—

One leg is hurt | and the horse is useless—

None had ever such faith | as to trust in them all.

* * * * * *

89. Hope not too surely | for early harvest,

Nor trust too soon in thy son;

The field needs good weather, | the son needs wisdom,

And oft is either denied.

* * * * * *

90. The love of women | fickle of will

Is like starting o’er ice | with a steed unshod,

A two-year-old restive | and little tamed,

Or steering a rudderless | ship in a storm,

Or, lame, hunting reindeer | on slippery rocks.

* * * * * *

91. Clear now will I speak, | for I know them both,

Men false to women are found;

When fairest we speak, | then falsest we think,

Against wisdom we work with deceit.

92. Soft words shall he speak | and wealth shall he offer

Who longs for a maiden’s love,

And the beauty praise | of the maiden bright;

He wins whose wooing is best.

93. Fault for loving | let no man find

Ever with any other;

Oft the wise are fettered, | where fools go free,

By beauty that breeds desire.

94. Fault with another | let no man find

For what touches many a man;

Wise men oft | into witless fools

Are made by mighty love.

95. The head alone knows | what dwells near the heart,

A man knows his mind alone;

No sickness is worse | to one who is wise

Than to lack the longed-for joy.

96. This found I myself, | when I sat in the reeds,

And long my love awaited;

As my life the maiden | wise I loved,

Yet her I never had.

97. Billing’s daughter | I found on her bed,

In slumber bright as the sun;

Empty appeared | an earl’s estate

Without that form so fair.

98. “Othin, again | at evening come,

If a woman thou wouldst win;

Evil it were | if others than we

Should know of such a sin.”

99. Away I hastened, | hoping for joy,

And careless of counsel wise;

Well I believed | that soon I should win

Measureless joy with the maid.

100. So came I next | when night it was,

The warriors all were awake;

With burning lights | and waving brands

I learned my luckless way.

101. At morning then, | when once more I came,

And all were sleeping still,

A dog I found | in the fair one’s place,

Bound there upon her bed.

102. Many fair maids, | if a man but tries them,

False to a lover are found;

That did I learn | when I longed to gain

With wiles the maiden wise;

Foul scorn was my meed | from the crafty maid,

And nought from the woman I won.

* * * * * *

103. Though glad at home, | and merry with guests,

A man shall be wary and wise;

The sage and shrewd, | wide wisdom seeking,

Must see that his speech be fair;

A fool is he named | who nought can say,

For such is the way of the witless.

104. I found the old giant, | now back have I fared,

Small gain from silence I got;

Full many a word, | my will to get,

I spoke in Suttung’s hall.

105. The mouth of Rati | made room for my passage,

And space in the stone he gnawed;

Above and below | the giants’ paths lay,

So rashly I risked my head.

106. Gunnloth gave | on a golden stool

A drink of the marvelous mead;

A harsh reward | did I let her have

For her heroic heart,

And her spirit troubled sore.

107. The well-earned beauty | well I enjoyed,

Little the wise man lacks;

So Othrörir now | has up been brought

To the midst of the men of earth.

108. Hardly, methinks, | would I home have come,

And left the giants’ land,

Had not Gunnloth helped me, | the maiden good,

Whose arms about me had been.

109. The day that followed, | the frost-giants came,

Some word of Hor to win,

(And into the hall of Hor;)

Of Bolverk they asked, | were he back midst the gods,

Or had Suttung slain him there?

110. On his ring swore Othin | the oath, methinks;

Who now his troth shall trust?

Suttung’s betrayal | he sought with drink,

And Gunnloth to grief he left.

* * * * * *

111. It is time to chant | from the chanter’s stool;

By the wells of Urth I was,

I saw and was silent, | I saw and thought,

And heard the speech of Hor.

(Of runes heard I words, | nor were counsels wanting,

At the hall of Hor,

In the hall of Hor;

Such was the speech I heard.)

112. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Rise not at night, | save if news thou seekest,

Or fain to the outhouse wouldst fare.

113. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Beware of sleep | on a witch’s bosom,

Nor let her limbs ensnare thee.

114. Such is her might | that thou hast no mind

For the council or meeting of men;

Meat thou hatest, | joy thou hast not,

And sadly to slumber thou farest.

115. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Seek never to win | the wife of another,

Or long for her secret love.

116. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

If o’er mountains or gulfs | thou fain wouldst go,

Look well to thy food for the way.

117. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

An evil man | thou must not let

Bring aught of ill to thee;

For an evil man | will never make

Reward for a worthy thought.

118. I saw a man | who was wounded sore

By an evil woman’s word;

A lying tongue | his death-blow launched,

And no word of truth there was.

119. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,

Then fare to find him oft;

For brambles grow | and waving grass

On the rarely trodden road.

120. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

A good man find | to hold in friendship,

And give heed to his healing charms.

121. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Be never the first | to break with thy friend

The bond that holds you both;

Care eats the heart | if thou canst not speak

To another all thy thought.

122. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Exchange of words | with a witless ape

Thou must not ever make.

123. For never thou mayst | from an evil man

A good requital get;

But a good man oft | the greatest love

Through words of praise will win thee.

124. Mingled is love | when a man can speak

To another all his thought;

Nought is so bad | as false to be,

No friend speaks only fair.

125. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

With a worse man speak not | three words in dispute,

Ill fares the better oft

When the worse man wields a sword.

126. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

A shoemaker be, | or a maker of shafts,

For only thy single self;

If the shoe is ill made, | or the shaft prove false,

Then evil of thee men think.

127. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

If evil thou knowest, | as evil proclaim it,

And make no friendship with foes.

128. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

In evil never | joy shalt thou know,

But glad the good shall make thee.

129. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Look not up | when the battle is on,—

(Like madmen the sons | of men become,—)

Lest men bewitch thy wits.

130. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

If thou fain wouldst win | a woman’s love,

And gladness get from her,

Fair be thy promise | and well fulfilled;

None loathes what good he gets.

131. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

I bid thee be wary, | but be not fearful;

(Beware most with ale | or another’s wife,

And third beware | lest a thief outwit thee.)

132. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Scorn or mocking | ne’er shalt thou make

Of a guest or a journey-goer.

133. Oft scarcely he knows | who sits in the house

What kind is the man who comes;

None so good is found | that faults he has not,

Nor so wicked that nought he is worth.

134. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Scorn not ever | the gray-haired singer,

Oft do the old speak good;

(Oft from shrivelled skin | come skillful counsels,

Though it hang with the hides,

And flap with the pelts,

And is blown with the bellies.)

135. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

Curse not thy guest, | nor show him thy gate,

Deal well with a man in want.

136. Strong is the beam | that raised must be

To give an entrance to all;

Give it a ring, | or grim will be

The wish it would work on thee.

137. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—

Profit thou hast if thou hearest,

Great thy gain if thou learnest:

When ale thou drinkest, | seek might of earth,

(For earth cures drink, | and fire cures ills,

The oak cures tightness, | the ear cures magic,

Rye cures rupture, | the moon cures rage,

Grass cures the scab, | and runes the sword-cut;)

The field absorbs the flood.

138. Now are Hor’s words | spoken in the hall,

Kind for the kindred of men,

Cursed for the kindred of giants:

Hail to the speaker, | and to him who learns!

Profit be his who has them!

Hail to them who hearken

* * * * * *

139. I ween that I hung | on the windy tree,

Hung there for nights full nine;

With the spear I was wounded, | and offered I was

To Othin, myself to myself,

On the tree that none | may ever know

What root beneath it runs.

140. None made me happy | with loaf or horn,

And there below I looked;

I took up the runes, | shrieking I took them,

And forthwith back I fell.

141. Nine mighty songs | I got from the son

Of Bolthorn, Bestla’s father;

And a drink I got | of the goodly mead

Poured out from Othrörir.

142. Then began I to thrive, | and wisdom to get,

I grew and well I was;

Each word led me on | to another word,

Each deed to another deed.

143. Runes shalt thou find, | and fateful signs,

That the king of singers colored,

And the mighty gods have made;

Full strong the signs, | full mighty the signs

That the ruler of gods doth write.

144. Othin for the gods, | Dain for the elves,

And Dvalin for the dwarfs,

Alsvith for giants | and all mankind,

And some myself I wrote.

145. Knowest how one shall write, | knowest how one shall rede?

Knowest how one shall tint, | knowest how one makes trial?

Knowest how one shall ask, | knowest how one shall offer?

Knowest how one shall send, | knowest how one shall sacrifice?

146. Better no prayer | than too big an offering,

By thy getting measure thy gift;

Better is none | than too big a sacrifice,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So Thund of old wrote | ere man’s race began,

Where he rose on high | when home he came.

* * * * * *

147. The songs I know | that king’s wives know not,

Nor men that are sons of men;

The first is called help, | and help it can bring thee

In sorrow and pain and sickness.

148. A second I know, | that men shall need

Who leechcraft long to use;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149. A third I know, | if great is my need

Of fetters to hold my foe;

Blunt do I make | mine enemy’s blade,

Nor bites his sword or staff.

150. A fourth I know, | if men shall fasten

Bonds on my bended legs;

So great is the charm | that forth I may go,

The fetters spring from my feet,

Broken the bonds from my hands.

151. A fifth I know, | if I see from afar

An arrow fly ’gainst the folk;

It flies not so swift | that I stop it not,

If ever my eyes behold it.

152. A sixth I know, | if harm one seeks

With a sapling’s roots to send me;

The hero himself | who wreaks his hate

Shall taste the ill ere I.

153. A seventh I know, | if I see in flames

The hall o’er my comrades’ heads;

It burns not so wide | that I will not quench it,

I know that song to sing.

154. An eighth I know, | that is to all

Of greatest good to learn;

When hatred grows | among heroes’ sons,

I soon can set it right.

155. A ninth I know, | if need there comes

To shelter my ship on the flood;

The wind I calm | upon the waves,

And the sea I put to sleep.

156. A tenth I know, | what time I see

House-riders flying on high;

So can I work | that wildly they go,

Showing their true shapes,

Hence to their own homes.

157. An eleventh I know, | if needs I must lead

To the fight my long-loved friends;

I sing in the shields, | and in strength they go

Whole to the field of fight,

Whole from the field of fight,

And whole they come thence home.

158. A twelfth I know, | if high on a tree

I see a hanged man swing;

So do I write | and color the runes

That forth he fares,

And to me talks.

159. A thirteenth I know, | if a thane full young

With water I sprinkle well;

He shall not fall, | though he fares mid the host,

Nor sink beneath the swords.

160. A fourteenth I know, | if fain I would name

To men the mighty gods;

All know I well | of the gods and elves,—

Few be the fools know this.

161. A fifteenth I know, | that before the doors

Of Delling sang Thjothrörir the dwarf;

Might he sang for the gods, | and glory for elves,

And wisdom for Hroptatyr wise.

162. A sixteenth I know, | if I seek delight

To win from a maiden wise;

The mind I turn | of the white-armed maid,

And thus change all her thoughts.

163. A seventeenth I know, | so that seldom shall go

A maiden young from me;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

164. Long these songs | thou shalt, Loddfafnir,

Seek in vain to sing;

Yet good it were | if thou mightest get them,

Well, if thou wouldst them learn,

Help, if thou hadst them.

165. An eighteenth I know, | that ne’er will I tell

To maiden or wife of man,—

The best is what none | but one’s self doth know,

So comes the end of the songs,—

Save only to her | in whose arms I lie,

Or who else my sister is.

NOTES

1. This stanza is quoted by Snorri, the second line being omitted in

most of the Prose Edda manuscripts.

2. Probably the first and second lines had originally nothing to do

with the third and fourth, the last two not referring to host or guest,

but to the general danger of backing one’s views with the sword.

6. Lines 5 and 6 appear to have been added to the stanza.

12. Some editors have combined this stanza in various ways with the

last two lines of stanza 11, as in the manuscript the first two lines

of the latter are abbreviated, and, if they belong there at all, are

presumably identical with the first two lines of stanza 10.

13. The heron: the bird of forgetfulness, referred to in line 1.

Gunnloth: the daughter of the giant Suttung, from whom Othin won the

mead of poetry. For this episode see stanzas 104–110.

14. Fjalar: apparently another name for Suttung. This stanza, and

probably 13, seem to have been inserted as illustrative.

25. The first two lines are abbreviated in the manuscript, but are

doubtless identical with the first two lines of stanza 24.

27. The last two lines were probably added as a commentary on lines 3

and 4.

36. The manuscript has “little” in place of “a hut” in line 1, but this

involves an error in the initial-rhymes, and the emendation has been

generally accepted.

37. Lines 1 and 2 are abbreviated in the manuscript, but are doubtless

identical with the first two lines of stanza 36.

39. In the manuscript this stanza follows stanza 40.

40. The key-word in line 3 is missing in the manuscript, but editors

have agreed in inserting a word meaning “generous.”

41. In line 3 the manuscript adds “givers again” to “gift-givers.”

55–56. The first pairs of lines are abbreviated in the manuscript.

61. The fifth line is probably a spurious addition.

62. This stanza follows stanza 63 in the manuscript, but there are

marks therein indicating the transposition.

65. The manuscript indicates no lacuna (lines 1 and 2). Many editors

have filled out the stanza with two lines from late paper manuscripts,

the passage running:

“A man must be watchful | and wary as well,

And fearful of trusting a friend.”

70. The manuscript has “and a worthy life” in place of “than to lie a

corpse” in line 1, but Rask suggested the emendation as early as 1818,

and most editors have followed him.

73–74. These seven lines are obviously a jumble. The two lines of

stanza 73 not only appear out of place, but the verse-form is unlike

that of the surrounding stanzas. In 74, the second line is clearly

interpolated, and line 1 has little enough connection with lines 3, 4

and 5. It looks as though some compiler (or copyist) had inserted here

various odds and ends for which he could find no better place.

75. The word “gold” in line 2 is more or less conjectural, the

manuscript being obscure. The reading in line 4 is also doubtful.

76. In the manuscript this stanza follows 78, the order being: 77, 78,

76, 80, 79, 81. Fitjung (“the Nourisher”): Earth.

79. This stanza is certainly in bad shape, and probably out of place

here. Its reference to runes as magic signs suggests that it properly

belongs in some list of charms like the Ljothatal (stanzas 147–165).

The stanza-form is so irregular as to show either that something has

been lost or that there have been interpolations. The manuscript

indicates no lacuna; Gering fills out the assumed gap as follows:

“Certain is that | which is sought from runes,

The runes—,” etc.

81. With this stanza the verse-form, as indicated in the translation,

abruptly changes to Malahattr. What has happened seems to have been

something like this. Stanza 80 introduces the idea of man’s love for

woman. Consequently some reciter or compiler (or possibly even a

copyist) took occasion to insert at this point certain stanzas

concerning the ways of women. Thus stanza 80 would account for the

introduction of stanzas 81 and 82, which, in turn, apparently drew

stanza 83 in with them. Stanza 84 suggests the fickleness of women, and

is immediately followed—again with a change of verse-form—by a list of

things equally untrustworthy (stanzas 85–90). Then, after a few more

stanzas on love in the regular measure of the Hovamol (stanzas 91–95),

is introduced, by way of illustration, Othin’s story of his adventure

with Billing’s daughter (stanzas 96–102). Some such process of growth,

whatever its specific stages may have been, must be assumed to account

for the curious chaos of the whole passage from stanza 81 to stanza

102.

84. Lines 3 and 4 are quoted in the Fostbræthrasaga.

85. Stanzas 85–88 and 90 are in Fornyrthislag, and clearly come from a

different source from the rest of the Hovamol.

87. The stanza is doubtless incomplete. Some editors add from a late

paper manuscript two lines running:

“In a light, clear sky | or a laughing throng,

In the howl of a dog | or a harlot’s grief.”

88. This stanza follows stanza 89 in the manuscript. Many editors have

changed the order, for while stanza 89 is pretty clearly an

interpolation wherever it stands, it seriously interferes with the

sense if it breaks in between 87 and 88.

96. Here begins the passage (stanzas 96–102) illustrating the falseness

of woman by the story of Othin’s unsuccessful love-affair with

Billing’s daughter. Of this person we know nothing beyond what is here

told, but the story needs little comment.

102. Rask adds at the beginning of this stanza two lines from a late

paper manuscript, running:

“Few are so good | that false they are never

To cheat the mind of a man.”

He makes these two lines plus lines 1 and 2 a full stanza, and lines 3,

4, 5, and 6 a second stanza.

103. With this stanza the subject changes abruptly, and apparently the

virtues of fair speech, mentioned in the last three lines, account for

the introduction, from what source cannot be known, of the story of

Othin and the mead of song (stanzas 104–110).

104. The giant Suttung (“the old giant”) possessed the magic mead, a

draught of which conferred the gift of poetry. Othin, desiring to

obtain it, changed himself into a snake, bored his way through a

mountain into Suttung’s home, made love to the giant’s daughter,

Gunnloth, and by her connivance drank up all the mead. Then he flew

away in the form of an eagle, leaving Gunnloth to her fate. While with

Suttung he assumed the name of Bolverk (“the Evil-Doer”).

105. Rati (“the Traveller”): the gimlet with which Othin bored through

the mountain to reach Suttung’s home.

106. Probably either the fourth or the fifth line is a spurious

addition.

107. Othrörir: here the name of the magic mead itself, whereas in

stanza 141 it is the name of the vessel containing it. Othin had no

intention of bestowing any of the precious mead upon men, but as he was

flying over the earth, hotly pursued by Suttung, he spilled some of it

out of his mouth, and in this way mankind also won the gift of poetry.

109. Hor: Othin (“the High One”). The frost-giants, Suttung’s kinsmen,

appear not to have suspected Othin of being identical with Bolverk,

possibly because the oath referred to in stanza 110 was an oath made by

Othin to Suttung that there was no such person as Bolverk among the

gods. The giants, of course, fail to get from Othin the information

they seek concerning Bolverk, but Othin is keenly conscious of having

violated the most sacred of oaths, that sworn on his ring.

111. With this stanza begins the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111–138).

Loddfafnir is apparently a wandering singer, who, from his “chanter’s

stool,” recites the verses which he claims to have received from Othin.

Wells of Urth: cf. Voluspo, 19 and note. Urth (“the Past”) is one of

the three Norns. This stanza is apparently in corrupt form, and editors

have tried many experiments with it, both in rejecting lines as

spurious and in rearranging the words and punctuation. It looks rather

as though the first four lines formed a complete stanza, and the last

four had crept in later. The phrase translated “the speech of Hor” is

“Hova mol,” later used as the title for the entire poem.

112. Lines 1–3 are the formula, repeated (abbreviated in the

manuscript) in most of the stanzas, with which Othin prefaces his

counsels to Loddfafnir, and throughout this section, except in stanzas

111 and 138, Loddfafnir represents himself as simply quoting Othin’s

words. The material is closely analogous to that contained in the first

eighty stanzas of the poem. In some cases (e.g., stanzas 117, 119, 121,

126 and 130) the formula precedes a full four-line stanza instead of

two (or three) lines.

129. Line 5 is apparently interpolated.

131. Lines 5–6 probably were inserted from a different poem.

133. Many editors reject the last two lines of this stanza as spurious,

putting the first two lines at the end of the preceding stanza. Others,

attaching lines 3 and 4 to stanza 132, insert as the first two lines of

stanza 133 two lines from a late paper manuscript, running:

“Evil and good | do men’s sons ever

Mingled bear in their breasts.”

134. Presumably the last four lines have been added to this stanza, for

the parallelism in the last three makes it probable that they belong

together. The wrinkled skin of the old man is compared with the dried

skins and bellies of animals kept for various purposes hanging in an

Icelandic house.

136. This stanza suggests the dangers of too much hospitality. The beam

(bolt) which is ever being raised to admit guests becomes weak thereby.

It needs a ring to help it in keeping the door closed, and without the

ability at times to ward off guests a man becomes the victim of his own

generosity.

137. The list of “household remedies” in this stanza is doubtless

interpolated. Their nature needs no comment here.

138. In the manuscript this stanza comes at the end of the entire poem,

following stanza 165. Most recent editors have followed Müllenhoff in

shifting it to this position, as it appears to conclude the passage

introduced by the somewhat similar stanza III.

139. With this stanza begins the most confusing part of the Hovamol:

the group of eight stanzas leading up to the Ljothatal, or list of

charms. Certain paper manuscripts have before this stanza a title:

“Othin’s Tale of the Runes.” Apparently stanzas 139, 140 and 142 are

fragments of an account of how Othin obtained the runes; 141 is

erroneously inserted from some version of the magic mead story (cf.

stanzas 104–110); and stanzas 143, 144, 145, and 146 are from

miscellaneous sources, all, however, dealing with the general subject

of runes. With stanza 147 a clearly continuous passage begins once

more. The windy tree: the ash Yggdrasil (literally “the Horse of

Othin,” so called because of this story), on which Othin, in order to

win the magic runes, hanged himself as an offering to himself, and

wounded himself with his own spear. Lines 5 and 6 have presumably been

borrowed from Svipdagsmol, 30.

141. This stanza, interrupting as it does the account of Othin’s

winning the runes, appears to be an interpolation. The meaning of the

stanza is most obscure. Bolthorn was Othin’s grandfather, and Bestla

his mother. We do not know the name of the uncle here mentioned, but it

has been suggested that this son of Bolthorn was Mimir (cf. Voluspo, 27

and note, and 47 and note). In any case, the nine magic songs which he

learned from his uncle seem to have enabled him to win the magic mead

(cf. stanzas 104–110). Concerning Othrörir, here used as the name of

the vessel containing the mead, cf. stanza 107 and note.

143. This and the following stanza belong together, and in many

editions appear as a single stanza. They presumably come from some lost

poem on the authorship of the runes. Lines 2 and 3 follow line 4 in the

manuscript; the transposition was suggested by Bugge. The king of

singers: Othin. The magic signs (runes) were commonly carved in wood,

then colored red.

144. Dain and Dvalin: dwarfs; cf. Voluspo, 14, and note. Dain, however,

may here be one of the elves rather than the dwarf of that name. The

two names also appear together in Grimnismol, 33, where they are

applied to two of the four harts that nibble at the topmost twigs of

Yggdrasil. Alsvith (“the All-Wise”) appears nowhere else as a giant’s

name. Myself: Othin. We have no further information concerning the list

of those who wrote the runes for the various races, and these four

lines seem like a confusion of names in the rather hazy mind of some

reciter.

145. This Malahattr stanza appears to be a regular religious formula,

concerned less with the runes which one “writes” and “tints” (cf.

stanza 79) than with the prayers which one “asks” and the sacrifices

which one “offers” and “sends.” Its origin is wholly uncertain, but it

is clearly an interpolation here. In the manuscript the phrase

“knowest?” is abbreviated after the first line.

146. This stanza as translated here follows the manuscript reading,

except in assuming a gap between lines 3 and 5. In Vigfusson and

Powell’s Corpus Poeticum Boreale the first three lines have somehow

been expanded into eight. The last two lines are almost certainly

misplaced; Bugge suggests that they belong at the end of stanza 144.

Thund: another name for Othin. When home he came: presumably after

obtaining the runes as described in stanzas 139 and 140.

147. With this stanza begins the Ljothatal, or list of charms. The

magic songs themselves are not given, but in each case the peculiar

application of the charm is explained. The passage, which is certainly

approximately complete as far as it goes, runs to the end of the poem.

In the manuscript and in most editions line 4 falls into two

half-lines, running:

“In sickness and pain | and every sorrow.”

148. Second, etc., appear in the manuscript as Roman numerals. The

manuscript indicates no gap after line 2.

152. The sending of a root with runes written thereon was an excellent

way of causing death. So died the Icelandic hero Grettir the Strong.

156. House-riders: witches, who ride by night on the roofs of houses,

generally in the form of wild beasts. Possibly one of the last two

lines is spurious.

157. The last line looks like an unwarranted addition, and line 4 may

likewise be spurious.

158. Lines 4–5 are probably expanded from a single line.

159. The sprinkling of a child with water was an established custom

long before Christianity brought its conception of baptism.

161. This stanza, according to Müllenhoff, was the original conclusion

of the poem, the phrase “a fifteenth” being inserted only after stanzas

162–165 had crept in. Delling: a seldom mentioned god who married Not

(Night). Their son was Dag (Day). Thjothrörir: not mentioned elsewhere.

Hroptatyr: Othin.

163. Some editors have combined these two lines with stanza 164. Others

have assumed that the gap follows the first half-line, making “so

that—from me” the end of the stanza.

164. This stanza is almost certainly an interpolation, and seems to

have been introduced after the list of charms and the Loddfafnismol

(stanzas 111–138) were combined in a single poem, for there is no other

apparent excuse for the reference to Loddfafnir at this point. The

words “if thou mightest get them” are a conjectural emendation.

165. This stanza is almost totally obscure. The third and fourth lines

look like interpolations.

VAFTHRUTHNISMOL

THE BALLAD OF VAFTHRUTHNIR

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Vafthruthnismol follows the Hovamol in the Codex Regius. From

stanza 20 on it is also included in the Arnamagnæan Codex, the first

part evidently having appeared on a leaf now lost. Snorri quotes eight

stanzas of it in the Prose Edda, and in his prose text closely

paraphrases many others.

The poem is wholly in dialogue form except for a single narrative

stanza (stanza 5). After a brief introductory discussion between Othin

and his wife, Frigg, concerning the reputed wisdom of the giant

Vafthruthnir, Othin, always in quest of wisdom, seeks out the giant,

calling himself Gagnrath. The giant immediately insists that they shall

demonstrate which is the wiser of the two, and propounds four questions

(stanzas 11, 13, 15, and 17), each of which Othin answers. It is then

the god’s turn to ask, and he begins with a series of twelve numbered

questions regarding the origins and past history of life. These

Vafthruthnir answers, and Othin asks five more questions, this time

referring to what is to follow the destruction of the gods, the last

one asking the name of his own slayer. Again Vafthruthnir answers, and

Othin finally propounds the unanswerable question: “What spake Othin

himself in the ears of his son, ere in the bale-fire he burned?”

Vafthruthnir, recognizing his questioner as Othin himself, admits his

inferiority in wisdom, and so the contest ends.

The whole poem is essentially encyclopædic in character, and thus was

particularly useful to Snorri in his preparation of the Prose Edda. The

encyclopædic poem with a slight narrative outline seems to have been

exceedingly popular; the Grimnismol and the much later Alvissmol

represent different phases of the same type. The Vafthruthnismol and

Grimnismol together, indeed, constitute a fairly complete dictionary of

Norse mythology. There has been much discussion as to the probable date

of the Vafthruthnismol, but it appears to belong to about the same

period as the Voluspo: in other words, the middle of the tenth century.

While there may be a few interpolated passages in the poem as we now

have it, it is clearly a united whole, and evidently in relatively good

condition.

Othin spake:

1. “Counsel me, Frigg, | for I long to fare,

And Vafthruthnir fain would find;

In wisdom old | with the giant wise

Myself would I seek to match.”

Frigg spake:

2. “Heerfather here | at home would I keep,

Where the gods together dwell;

Amid all the giants | an equal in might

To Vafthruthnir know I none.”

Othin spake:

3. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got from the gods;

And fain would I know | how Vafthruthnir now

Lives in his lofty hall.”

Frigg spake:

4. “Safe mayst thou go, | safe come again,

And safe be the way thou wendest!

Father of men, | let thy mind be keen

When speech with the giant thou seekest.”

5. The wisdom then | of the giant wise

Forth did he fare to try;

He found the hall | of the father of Im,

And in forthwith went Ygg.

Othin spake:

6. “Vafthruthnir, hail! | to thy hall am I come,

For thyself I fain would see;

And first would I ask | if wise thou art,

Or, giant, all wisdom hast won.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

7. “Who is the man | that speaks to me,

Here in my lofty hall?

Forth from our dwelling | thou never shalt fare,

Unless wiser than I thou art.”

Othin spake:

8. “Gagnrath they call me, | and thirsty I come

From a journey hard to thy hall;

Welcome I look for, | for long have I fared,

And gentle greeting, giant.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

9. “Why standest thou there | on the floor whilst thou

speakest?

A seat shalt thou have in my hall;

Then soon shall we know | whose knowledge is more,

The guest’s or the sage’s gray.”

Othin spake:

10. “If a poor man reaches | the home of the rich,

Let him wisely speak or be still;

For to him who speaks | with the hard of heart

Will chattering ever work ill.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

11. “Speak forth now, Gagnrath, | if there from the floor

Thou wouldst thy wisdom make known:

What name has the steed | that each morn anew

The day for mankind doth draw?”

Othin spake:

12. “Skinfaxi is he, | the steed who for men

The glittering day doth draw;

The best of horses | to heroes he seems,

And brightly his mane doth burn.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

13. “Speak forth now, Gagnrath, | if there from the floor

Thou wouldst thy wisdom make known:

What name has the steed | that from East anew

Brings night for the noble gods?”

Othin spake:

14. “Hrimfaxi name they | the steed that anew

Brings night for the noble gods;

Each morning foam | from his bit there falls,

And thence come the dews in the dales.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

15. “Speak forth now, Gagnrath, | if there from the floor

Thou wouldst thy wisdom make known:

What name has the river | that ’twixt the realms

Of the gods and the giants goes?”

Othin spake:

16. “Ifing is the river | that ’twixt the realms

Of the gods and the giants goes;

For all time ever | open it flows,

No ice on the river there is.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

17. “Speak forth now, Gagnrath, | if there from the floor

Thou wouldst thy wisdom make known:

What name has the field | where in fight shall meet

Surt and the gracious gods?”

Othin spake:

18. “Vigrith is the field | where in fight shall meet

Surt and the gracious gods;

A hundred miles | each way does it measure,

And so are its boundaries set.”

Vafthruthnir spake:

19. “Wise art thou, guest! | To my bench shalt thou go,

In our seats let us speak together;

Here in the hall | our heads, O guest,

hall we wager our wisdom upon.”

Othin spake:

20. “First answer me well, | if thy wisdom avails,

And thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

In earliest time | whence came the earth,

Or the sky, thou giant sage?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

21. “Out of Ymir’s flesh | was fashioned the earth,

And the mountains were made of his bones;

The sky from the frost-cold | giant’s skull,

And the ocean out of his blood.”

Othin spake:

22. “Next answer me well, | if thy wisdom avails,

And thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

Whence came the moon, | o’er the world of men

That fares, and the flaming sun?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

23. “Mundilferi is he | who begat the moon,

And fathered the flaming sun;

The round of heaven | each day they run,

To tell the time for men.”

Othin spake:

24. “Third answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

Whence came the day, | o’er mankind that fares,

Or night with the narrowing moon?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

25. “The father of day | is Delling called,

And the night was begotten by Nor;

Full moon and old | by the gods were fashioned,

To tell the time for men.”

Othin spake:

26. “Fourth answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

Whence did winter come, | or the summer warm,

First with the gracious gods?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

27. “Vindsval he was | who was winter’s father,

And Svosuth summer begat;”

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Othin spake:

28. “Fifth answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

What giant first | was fashioned of old,

And the eldest of Ymir’s kin?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

29. “Winters unmeasured | ere earth was made

Was the birth of Bergelmir;

Thruthgelmir’s son | was the giant strong,

And Aurgelmir’s grandson of old.”

Othin spake:

30. “Sixth answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

Whence did Aurgelmir come | with the giants’ kin,

Long since, thou giant sage?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

31. “Down from Elivagar | did venom drop,

And waxed till a giant it was;

And thence arose | our giants’ race,

And thus so fierce are we found.”

Othin spake:

32. “Seventh answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

How begat he children, | the giant grim,

Who never a giantess knew?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

33. “They say ’neath the arms | of the giant of ice

Grew man-child and maid together;

And foot with foot | did the wise one fashion

A son that six heads bore.”

Othin spake:

34. “Eighth answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

What farthest back | dost thou bear in mind?

For wide is thy wisdom, giant!”

Vafthruthnir spake:

35. “Winters unmeasured | ere earth was made

Was the birth of Bergelmir;

This first knew I well, | when the giant wise

In a boat of old was borne.”

Othin spake:

36. “Ninth answer me well, | if wise thou art called,

If thou knowest it, Vafthruthnir, now:

Whence comes the wind | that fares o’er the waves

Yet never itself is seen?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

37. “In an eagle’s guise | at the end of heaven

Hræsvelg sits, they say;

And from his wings | does the wind come forth

To move o’er the world of men.”

Othin spake:

38. “Tenth answer me now, | if thou knowest all

The fate that is fixed for the gods:

Whence came up Njorth | to the kin of the gods,—

(Rich in temples | and shrines he rules,—)

Though of gods he was never begot?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

39. “In the home of the Wanes | did the wise ones create him,

And gave him as pledge to the gods;

At the fall of the world | shall he fare once more

Home to the Wanes so wise.”

Othin spake:

40. “Eleventh answer me well, | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

What men . . . . . . | in . . . . . . home

Each day to fight go forth?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

41. “The heroes all | in Othin’s hall

Each day to fight go forth;

They fell each other, | and fare from the fight

All healed full soon to sit.”

Othin spake:

42. “Twelfth answer me now | how all thou knowest

Of the fate that is fixed for the gods;

Of the runes of the gods | and the giants’ race

The truth indeed dost thou tell,

(And wide is thy wisdom, giant!)”

Vafthruthnir spake:

43. “Of the runes of the gods | and the giants’ race

The truth indeed can I tell,

(For to every world have I won;)

To nine worlds came I, | to Niflhel beneath,

The home where dead men dwell.”

Othin spake:

44. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got of the gods:

What shall live of mankind | when at last there comes

The mighty winter to men?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

45. “In Hoddmimir’s wood | shall hide themselves

Lif and Lifthrasir then;

The morning dews | for meat shall they have,

Such food shall men then find.”

Othin spake:

46. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got of the gods:

Whence comes the sun | to the smooth sky back,

When Fenrir has snatched it forth?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

47. “A daughter bright | Alfrothul bears

Ere Fenrir snatches her forth;

Her mother’s paths | shall the maiden tread

When the gods to death have gone.”

Othin spake:

48. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got of the gods:

What maidens are they, | so wise of mind,

That forth o’er the sea shall fare?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

49. “O’er Mogthrasir’s hill | shall the maidens pass,

And three are their throngs that come;

They all shall protect | the dwellers on earth,

Though they come of the giants’ kin.”

Othin spake:

50. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got of the gods:

Who then shall rule | the realm of the gods,

When the fires of Surt have sunk?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

51. “In the gods’ home Vithar | and Vali shall dwell,

When the fires of Surt have sunk;

Mothi and Magni | shall Mjollnir have

When Vingnir falls in fight.”

Othin spake:

52. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got of the gods:

What shall bring the doom | of death to Othin,

When the gods to destruction go?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

53. “The wolf shall fell | the father of men,

And this shall Vithar avenge;

The terrible jaws | shall he tear apart,

And so the wolf shall he slay.”

Othin spake:

54. “Much have I fared, | much have I found,

Much have I got from the gods:

What spake Othin himself | in the ears of his son,

Ere in the bale-fire he burned?”

Vafthruthnir spake:

55. “No man can tell | what in olden time

Thou spak’st in the ears of thy son;

With fated mouth | the fall of the gods

And mine olden tales have I told;

With Othin in knowledge | now have I striven,

And ever the wiser thou art.”

NOTES

1. The phrases “Othin spake,” “Frigg spake,” etc., appear in

abbreviated form in both manuscripts. Frigg: Othin’s wife; cf. Voluspo,

34 and note. Vafthruthnir (“the Mighty in Riddles”): nothing is known

of this giant beyond what is told in this poem.

2. Heerfather (“Father of the Host”): Othin.

5. This single narrative stanza is presumably a later interpolation.

Im: the name appears to be corrupt, but we know nothing of any son of

Vafthruthnir. Ygg (“the Terrible”): Othin.

8. Gagnrath (“the Gain-Counsellor”): Othin on his travels always

assumes a name other than his own.

10. This stanza sounds very much like many of those in the first part

of the Hovamol, and may have been introduced here from some such

source.

12. Skinfaxi: “Shining-Mane.”

13. Here, and in general throughout the poem, the two-line introductory

formulæ are abbreviated in the manuscripts.

14. Hrimfaxi: “Frosty-Mane.”

16. Ifing: there is no other reference to this river, which never

freezes, so that the giants cannot cross it.

17. Surt: the ruler of the fire-world (Muspellsheim), who comes to

attack the gods in the last battle; cf. Voluspo, 52.

18. Vigrith: “the Field of Battle.” Snorri quotes this stanza. A

hundred miles: a general phrase for a vast distance.

19. With this stanza Vafthruthnir, sufficiently impressed with his

guest’s wisdom to invite him to share his own seat, resigns the

questioning to Othin.

20. The fragmentary version of this poem in the Arnamagnæan Codex

begins in the middle of the first line of this stanza.

21. Ymir: the giant out of whose body the gods made the world; cf.

Voluspo, 3 and note.

22. In this and in Othin’s following questions, both manuscripts

replace the words “next,” “third,” “fourth,” etc., by Roman numerals.

23. Mundilferi (“the Turner”?): known only as the father of Mani (the

Moon) and Sol (the Sun). Note that, curiously enough, Mani is the boy

and Sol the girl. According to Snorri, Sol drove the horses of the sun,

and Mani those of the moon, for the gods, indignant that they should

have been given such imposing names, took them from their father to

perform these tasks. Cf. Grimnismol, 37.

25. Delling (“the Dayspring”? Probably another form of the name,

Dogling, meaning “Son of the Dew” is more correct): the husband of Not

(Night); their son was Dag (Day); cf. Hovamol, 161. Nor: Snorri calls

the father of Night Norvi or Narfi, and puts him among the giants.

Lines 3–4: cf. Voluspo, 6.

27. Neither the Regius nor the Arnamagnæan Codex indicates a lacuna.

Most editors have filled out the stanza with two lines from late paper

manuscripts: “And both of these | shall ever be, / Till the gods to

destruction go.” Bugge ingeniously paraphrases Snorri’s prose:

“Vindsval’s father | was Vosuth called, / And rough is all his

race.” Vindsval: “the Wind-Cold,” also called Vindljoni, “the

Wind-Man.” Svosuth: “the Gentle.”

28. Ymir’s kin: the giants.

29. Bergelmir: when the gods slew Ymir in order to make the world out

of his body, so much blood flowed from him that all the frost-giants

were drowned except Bergelmir and his wife, who escaped in a boat; cf.

stanza 35. Of Thruthgelmir (“the Mightily Burning”) we know nothing,

but Aurgelmir was the frost-giants’ name for Ymir himself. Thus Ymir

was the first of the giants, and so Othin’s question is answered.

31. Snorri quotes this stanza, and the last two lines are taken from

his version, as both of the manuscripts omit them. Elivagar (“Stormy

Waves”): Mogk suggests that this river may have been the Milky Way. At

any rate, the venom carried in its waters froze into ice-banks over

Ginnunga-gap (the “yawning gap” referred to in Voluspo, 3), and then

dripped down to make the giant Ymir.

33. Snorri gives, without materially elaborating on it, the same

account of how Ymir’s son and daughter were born under his left arm,

and how his feet together created a son. That this offspring should

have had six heads is nothing out of the ordinary, for various giants

had more than the normal number, and Hymir’s mother is credited with a

little matter of nine hundred heads; cf. Hymiskvitha, 8. Of the career

of Ymir’s six-headed son we know nothing; he may have been the

Thruthgelmir of stanza 29.

35. Snorri quotes this stanza. Bergelmir: on him and his boat cf.

stanza 29 and note.

37. Snorri quotes this stanza. Hræsvelg (“the Corpse-Eater”): on this

giant in eagle’s form cf. Voluspo, 50, and Skirnismol, 27.

38. With this stanza the question-formula changes, and Othin’s

questions from this point on concern more or less directly the great

final struggle. Line 4 is presumably spurious. Njorth: on Njorth and

the Wanes, who gave him as a hostage to the gods at the end of their

war, cf. Voluspo, 21 and note.

40. In both manuscripts, apparently through the carelessness of some

older copyist, stanzas 40 and 41 are run together: “Eleventh answer me

well, what men in the home mightily battle each day? They fell each

other, and fare from the fight all healed full soon to sit.” Luckily

Snorri quotes stanza 41 in full, and the translation is from his

version. Stanza 40 should probably run something like this: “Eleventh

answer me well, | if thou knowest all / The fate that is fixed for

the gods: / What men are they | who in Othin’s home / Each day to

fight go forth?”

41. The heroes: those brought to Valhall by the Valkyries. After the

day’s fighting they are healed of their wounds and all feast together.

43. Nine worlds: cf. Voluspo, 2. Niflhel: “Dark-Hell.”

44. The mighty winter: Before the final destruction three winters

follow one another with no intervening summers.

45. Snorri quotes this stanza. Hoddmimir’s wood: probably this is the

ash-tree Yggdrasil, which is sometimes referred to as “Mimir’s Tree,”

because Mimir waters it from his well; cf. Voluspo, 27 and note, and

Svipdagsmol, 30 and note. Hoddmimir is presumably another name for

Mimir. Lif (“Life”) and Lifthrasir (“Sturdy of Life”?): nothing further

is known of this pair, from whom the new race of men is to spring.

46. Fenrir: there appears to be a confusion between the wolf Fenrir

(cf. Voluspo, 39 and note) and his son, the wolf Skoll, who steals the

sun (cf. Voluspo, 40 and note).

47. Snorri quotes this stanza. Alfrothul (“the Elf-Beam”): the sun.

49. Mogthrasir (“Desiring Sons”): not mentioned elsewhere in the Eddic

poems, or by Snorri. The maidens: apparently Norns, like the

“giant-maids” in Voluspo, 8. These Norns, however, are kindly to men.

50. Surt: cf. Voluspo, 52 and note.

51. Vithar: a son of Othin, who slays the wolf Fenrir; cf. Voluspo, 54

and note. Vali: the son whom Othin begot to avenge Baldr’s death; cf.

Voluspo, 33 and note. Mothi (“Wrath”) and Magni (“Might”): the sons of

the god Thor, who after his death inherit his famous hammer, Mjollnir.

Concerning this hammer cf. especially Thrymskvitha, passim. Vingnir

(“the Hurler”): Thor. Concerning his death cf. Voluspo, 56. This stanza

is quoted by Snorri.

53. The wolf: Fenrir; cf. Voluspo, 53 and 54.

54. His son: Baldr. Bugge changes lines 3–4 to run: “What did Othin

speak | in the ear of Baldr, / When to the bale-fire they bore

him?” For Baldr’s death cf. Voluspo, 32 and note. The question is, of

course, unanswerable save by Othin himself, and so the giant at last

recognizes his guest.

55. Fated: in stanza 19 Vafthruthnir was rash enough to wager his head

against his guest’s on the outcome of the contest of wisdom, so he

knows that his defeat means his death.

THE BALLAD OF GRIMNIR

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Grimnismol follows the Vafthruthnismol in the Codex Regius and is

also found complete in the Arnamagnæan Codex, where also it follows the

Vafthruthnismol. Snorri quotes over twenty of its stanzas.

Like the preceding poem, the Grimnismol is largely encyclopædic in

nature, and consists chiefly of proper names, the last forty-seven

stanzas containing no less than two hundred and twenty-five of these.

It is not, however, in dialogue form. As Müllenhoff pointed out, there

is underneath the catalogue of mythological names a consecutive and

thoroughly dramatic story. Othin, concealed under the name of Grimnir,

is through an error tortured by King Geirröth. Bound between two

blazing fires, he begins to display his wisdom for the benefit of the

king’s little son, Agnar, who has been kind to him. Gradually he works

up to the great final moment, when he declares his true name, or rather

names, to the terrified Geirröth, and the latter falls on his sword and

is killed.

For much of this story we do not have to depend on guesswork, for in

both manuscripts the poem itself is preceded by a prose narrative of

considerable length, and concluded by a brief prose statement of the

manner of Geirröth’s death. These prose notes, of which there are many

in the Eddic manuscripts, are of considerable interest to the student

of early literary forms. Presumably they were written by the compiler

to whom we owe the Eddic collection, who felt that the poems needed

such annotation in order to be clear. Linguistic evidence shows that

they were written in the twelfth or thirteenth century, for they

preserve none of the older word-forms which help us to date many of the

poems two or three hundred years earlier.

Without discussing in detail the problems suggested by these prose

passages, it is worth noting, first, that the Eddic poems contain

relatively few stanzas of truly narrative verse; and second, that all

of them are based on narratives which must have been more or less

familiar to the hearers of the poems. In other words, the poems seldom

aimed to tell stories, although most of them followed a narrative

sequence of ideas. The stories themselves appear to have lived in oral

prose tradition, just as in the case of the sagas; and the prose notes

of the manuscripts, in so far as they contain material not simply drawn

from the poems themselves, are relics of this tradition. The early

Norse poets rarely conceived verse as a suitable means for direct

story-telling, and in some of the poems even the simplest action is

told in prose “links” between dialogue stanzas.

The applications of this fact, which has been too often overlooked, are

almost limitless, for it suggests a still unwritten chapter in the

history of ballad poetry and the so-called “popular” epic. It implies

that narrative among early peoples may frequently have had a period of

prose existence before it was made into verse, and thus puts, for

example, a long series of transitional stages before such a poem as the

Iliad. In any case, the prose notes accompanying the Eddic poems prove

that in addition to the poems themselves there existed in the twelfth

century a considerable amount of narrative tradition, presumably in

prose form, on which these notes were based by the compiler.

Interpolations in such a poem as the Grimnismol could have been made

easily enough, and many stanzas have undoubtedly crept in from other

poems, but the beginning and end of the poem are clearly marked, and

presumably it has come down to us with the same essential outline it

had when it was composed, probably in the first half of the tenth

century.

King Hrauthung had two sons: one was called Agnar, and the other

Geirröth. Agnar was ten winters old, and Geirröth eight. Once they both

rowed in a boat with their fishing-gear to catch little fish; and the

wind drove them out into the sea. In the darkness of the night they

were wrecked on the shore; and going up, they found a poor peasant,

with whom they stayed through the winter. The housewife took care of

Agnar, and the peasant cared for Geirröth, and taught him wisdom. In

the spring the peasant gave him a boat; and when the couple led them to

the shore, the peasant spoke secretly with Geirröth. They had a fair

wind, and came to their father’s landing-place. Geirröth was forward in

the boat; he leaped up on land, but pushed out the boat and said, “Go

thou now where evil may have thee!” The boat drifted out to sea.

Geirröth, however, went up to the house, and was well received, but his

father was dead. Then Geirröth was made king, and became a renowned

man.

Othin and Frigg sat in Hlithskjolf and looked over all the worlds.

Othin said: “Seest thou Agnar, thy fosterling, how he begets children

with a giantess in the cave? But Geirröth, my fosterling, is a king,

and now rules over his land.” Frigg said: “He is so miserly that he

tortures his guests if he thinks that too many of them come to him.”

Othin replied that this was the greatest of lies; and they made a wager

about this matter. Frigg sent her maid-servant, Fulla, to Geirröth. She

bade the king beware lest a magician who was come thither to his land

should bewitch him, and told this sign concerning him, that no dog was

so fierce as to leap at him. Now it was a very great slander that King

Geirröth was not hospitable; but nevertheless he had them take the man

whom the dogs would not attack. He wore a dark-blue mantle and called

himself Grimnir, but said no more about himself, though he was

questioned. The king had him tortured to make him speak, and set him

between two fires, and he sat there eight nights. King Geirröth had a

son ten winters old, and called Agnar after his father’s brother. Agnar

went to Grimnir, and gave him a full horn to drink from, and said that

the king did ill in letting him be tormented without cause. Grimnir

drank from the horn; the fire had come so near that the mantle burned

on Grimnir’s back. He spake:

1. Hot art thou, fire! | too fierce by far;

Get ye now gone, ye flames!

The mantle is burnt, | though I bear it aloft,

And the fire scorches the fur.

2. ’Twixt the fires now | eight nights have I sat,

And no man brought meat to me,

Save Agnar alone, | and alone shall rule

Geirröth’s son o’er the Goths.

3. Hail to thee, Agnar! | for hailed thou art

By the voice of Veratyr;

For a single drink | shalt thou never receive

A greater gift as reward.

4. The land is holy | that lies hard by

The gods and the elves together;

And Thor shall ever | in Thruthheim dwell,

Till the gods to destruction go.

5. Ydalir call they | the place where Ull

A hall for himself hath set;

And Alfheim the gods | to Freyr once gave

As a tooth-gift in ancient times.

6. A third home is there, | with silver thatched

By the hands of the gracious gods:

Valaskjolf is it, | in days of old

Set by a god for himself.

7. Sökkvabekk is the fourth, | where cool waves flow,

And amid their murmur it stands;

There daily do Othin | and Saga drink

In gladness from cups of gold.

8. The fifth is Glathsheim, | and gold-bright there

Stands Valhall stretching wide;

And there does Othin | each day choose

The men who have fallen in fight.

9. Easy is it to know | for him who to Othin

Comes and beholds the hall;

Its rafters are spears, | with shields is it roofed,

On its benches are breastplates strewn.

10. Easy is it to know | for him who to Othin

Comes and beholds the hall;

There hangs a wolf | by the western door,

And o’er it an eagle hovers.

11. The sixth is Thrymheim, | where Thjazi dwelt,

The giant of marvelous might;

Now Skathi abides, | the god’s fair bride,

In the home that her father had.

12. The seventh is Breithablik; | Baldr has there

For himself a dwelling set,

In the land I know | that lies so fair,

And from evil fate is free.

13. Himinbjorg is the eighth, | and Heimdall there

O’er men holds sway, it is said;

In his well-built house | does the warder of heaven

The good mead gladly drink.

14. The ninth is Folkvang, | where Freyja decrees

Who shall have seats in the hall;

The half of the dead | each day does she choose,

And half does Othin have.

15. The tenth is Glitnir; | its pillars are gold,

And its roof with silver is set;

There most of his days | does Forseti dwell,

And sets all strife at end.

16. The eleventh is Noatun; | there has Njorth

For himself a dwelling set;

The sinless ruler | of men there sits

In his temple timbered high.

17. Filled with growing trees | and high-standing grass

Is Vithi, Vithar’s land;

But there did the son | from his steed leap down,

When his father he fain would avenge.

18. In Eldhrimnir | Andhrimnir cooks

Sæhrimnir’s seething flesh,—

The best of food, | but few men know

On what fare the warriors feast.

19. Freki and Geri | does Heerfather feed,

The far-famed fighter of old:

But on wine alone | does the weapon-decked god,

Othin, forever live.

20. O’er Mithgarth Hugin | and Munin both

Each day set forth to fly;

For Hugin I fear | lest he come not home,

But for Munin my care is more.

21. Loud roars Thund, | and Thjothvitnir’s fish

Joyously fares in the flood;

Hard does it seem | to the host of the slain

To wade the torrent wild.

22. There Valgrind stands, | the sacred gate,

And behind are the holy doors;

Old is the gate, | but few there are

Who can tell how it tightly is locked.

23. Five hundred doors | and forty there are,

I ween, in Valhall’s walls;

Eight hundred fighters | through one door fare

When to war with the wolf they go.

24. Five hundred rooms | and forty there are

I ween, in Bilskirnir built;

Of all the homes | whose roofs I beheld,

My son’s the greatest meseemed.

25. Heithrun is the goat | who stands by Heerfather’s hall,

And the branches of Lærath she bites;

The pitcher she fills | with the fair, clear mead,

Ne’er fails the foaming drink.

26. Eikthyrnir is the hart | who stands by Heerfather’s hall

And the branches of Lærath he bites;

From his horns a stream | into Hvergelmir drops,

Thence all the rivers run.

27. Sith and Vith, | Sækin and Ækin,

Svol and Fimbulthul, | Gunnthro and Fjorm,

Rin and Rinnandi,

Gipul and Gopul, | Gomul and Geirvimul,

That flow through the fields of the gods;

Thyn and Vin, | Thol and Hol,

Groth and Gunnthorin.

28. Vino is one, | Vegsvin another,

And Thjothnuma a third;

Nyt and Not, | Non and Hron,

Slith and Hrith, | Sylg and Ylg,

Vith and Von, | Vond and Strond,

Gjol and Leipt, | that go among men,

And hence they fall to Hel.

29. Kormt and Ormt | and the Kerlaugs twain

Shall Thor each day wade through,

(When dooms to give | he forth shall go

To the ash-tree Yggdrasil;)

For heaven’s bridge | burns all in flame,

And the sacred waters seethe.

30. Glath and Gyllir, | Gler and Skeithbrimir,

Silfrintopp and Sinir,

Gisl and Falhofnir, | Golltopp and Lettfeti,

On these steeds the gods shall go

When dooms to give | each day they ride

To the ash-tree Yggdrasil.

31. Three roots there are | that three ways run

’Neath the ash-tree Yggdrasil;

’Neath the first lives Hel, | ’neath the second the

frost-giants,

’Neath the last are the lands of men.

32. Ratatosk is the squirrel | who there shall run

On the ash-tree Yggdrasil;

From above the words | of the eagle he bears,

And tells them to Nithhogg beneath.

33. Four harts there are, | that the highest twigs

Nibble with necks bent back;

Dain and Dvalin, | . . . . . . . .

Duneyr and Dyrathror.

34. More serpents there are | beneath the ash

Than an unwise ape would think;

Goin and Moin, | Grafvitnir’s sons,

Grabak and Grafvolluth,

Ofnir and Svafnir | shall ever, methinks,

Gnaw at the twigs of the tree.

35. Yggdrasil’s ash | great evil suffers,

Far more than men do know;

The hart bites its top, | its trunk is rotting,

And Nithhogg gnaws beneath.

36. Hrist and Mist | bring the horn at my will,

Skeggjold and Skogul;

Hild and Thruth, | Hlokk and Herfjotur,

Gol and Geironul,

Randgrith and Rathgrith | and Reginleif

Beer to the warriors bring.

37. Arvak and Alsvith | up shall drag

Weary the weight of the sun;

But an iron cool | have the kindly gods

Of yore set under their yokes.

38. In front of the sun | does Svalin stand,

The shield for the shining god;

Mountains and sea | would be set in flames

If it fell from before the sun.

39. Skoll is the wolf | that to Ironwood

Follows the glittering god,

And the son of Hrothvitnir, | Hati, awaits

The burning bride of heaven.

40. Out of Ymir’s flesh | was fashioned the earth,

And the ocean out of his blood;

Of his bones the hills, | of his hair the trees,

Of his skull the heavens high.

41. Mithgarth the gods | from his eyebrows made,

And set for the sons of men;

And out of his brain | the baleful clouds

They made to move on high.

42. His the favor of Ull | and of all the gods

Who first in the flames will reach;

For the house can be seen | by the sons of the gods

If the kettle aside were cast.

43. In days of old | did Ivaldi’s sons

Skithblathnir fashion fair,

The best of ships | for the bright god Freyr,

The noble son of Njorth.

44. The best of trees | must Yggdrasil be,

Skithblathnir best of boats;

Of all the gods | is Othin the greatest,

And Sleipnir the best of steeds;

Bilrost of bridges, | Bragi of skalds,

Hobrok of hawks, | and Garm of hounds.

45. To the race of the gods | my face have I raised,

And the wished-for aid have I waked;

For to all the gods | has the message gone

That sit in Ægir’s seats,

That drink within Ægir’s doors.

46. Grim is my name, | Gangleri am I,

Herjan and Hjalmberi,

Thekk and Thrithi, | Thuth and Uth,

Helblindi and Hor;

47. Sath and Svipal | and Sanngetal,

Herteit and Hnikar,

Bileyg, Baleyg, | Bolverk, Fjolnir,

Grim and Grimnir, | Glapsvith, Fjolsvith.

48. Sithhott, Sithskegg, | Sigfather, Hnikuth,

Allfather, Valfather, | Atrith, Farmatyr:

A single name | have I never had

Since first among men I fared.

49. Grimnir they call me | in Geirröth’s hall,

With Asmund Jalk am I;

Kjalar I was | when I went in a sledge,

At the council Thror am I called,

As Vithur I fare to the fight;

Oski, Biflindi, | Jafnhor and Omi,

Gondlir and Harbarth midst gods.

50. I deceived the giant | Sokkmimir old

As Svithur and Svithrir of yore;

Of Mithvitnir’s son | the slayer I was

When the famed one found his doom.

51. Drunk art thou, Geirröth, | too much didst thou drink,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Much hast thou lost, | for help no more

From me or my heroes thou hast.

52. Small heed didst thou take | to all that I told,

And false were the words of thy friends;

For now the sword | of my friend I see,

That waits all wet with blood.

53. Thy sword-pierced body | shall Ygg have soon,

For thy life is ended at last;

The maids are hostile; | now Othin behold!

Now come to me if thou canst!

54. Now am I Othin, | Ygg was I once,

Ere that did they call me Thund;

Vak and Skilfing, | Vofuth and Hroptatyr,

Gaut and Jalk midst the gods;

Ofnir and Svafnir, | and all, methinks,

Are names for none but me.

King Geirröth sat and had his sword on his knee, half drawn from its

sheath. But when he heard that Othin was come thither, then he rose up

and sought to take Othin from the fire. The sword slipped from his

hand, and fell with the hilt down. The king stumbled and fell forward,

and the sword pierced him through, and slew him. Then Othin vanished,

but Agnar long ruled there as king.

NOTES

Prose. The texts of the two manuscripts differ in many minor details.

Hrauthung: this mythical king is not mentioned elsewhere. Geirröth: the

manuscripts spell his name in various ways. Frigg: Othin’s wife. She

and Othin nearly always disagreed in some such way as the one outlined

in this story. Hlithskjolf (“Gate-Shelf”): Othin’s watch-tower in

heaven, whence he can overlook all the nine worlds; cf. Skirnismol,

introductory prose. Grimnir: “the Hooded One.”

2. In the original lines 2 and 4 are both too long for the meter, and

thus the true form of the stanza is doubtful. For line 4 both

manuscripts have “the land of the Goths” instead of simply “the Goths.”

The word “Goths” apparently was applied indiscriminately to any

South-Germanic people, including the Burgundians as well as the actual

Goths, and thus here has no specific application; cf. Gripisspo, 35 and

note.

3. Veratyr (“Lord of Men”): Othin. The “gift” which Agnar receives is

Othin’s mythological lore.

4. Thruthheim (“the Place of Might”): the place where Thor, the

strongest of the gods, has his hall, Bilskirnir, described in stanza

24.

5. Ydalir (“Yew-Dales”): the home of Ull, the archer among the gods, a

son of Thor’s wife, Sif, by another marriage. The wood of the yew-tree

was used for bows in the North just as it was long afterwards in

England. Alfheim: the home of the elves. Freyr: cf. Skirnismol,

introductory prose and note. Tooth-gift: the custom of making a present

to a child when it cuts its first tooth is, according to Vigfusson,

still in vogue in Iceland.

6. Valaskjolf (“the Shelf of the Slain”): Othin’s home, in which is his

watch-tower, Hlithskjolf. Gering identifies this with Valhall, and as

that is mentioned in stanza 8, he believes stanza 6 to be an

interpolation.

7. Sökkvabekk (“the Sinking Stream”): of this spot and of Saga, who is

said to live there, little is known. Saga may be an hypostasis of

Frigg, but Snorri calls her a distinct goddess, and the name suggests

some relation to history or story-telling.

8. Glathsheim (“the Place of Joy”): Othin’s home, the greatest and most

beautiful hall in the world. Valhall (“Hall of the Slain”): cf.

Voluspo, 31 and note. Valhall is not only the hall whither the slain

heroes are brought by the Valkyries, but also a favorite home of Othin.

10. The opening formula is abbreviated in both manuscripts. A wolf:

probably the wolf and the eagle were carved figures above the door.

11. Thrymheim (“the Home of Clamor”): on this mountain the giant Thjazi

built his home. The god, or rather Wane, Njorth (cf. Voluspo, 21, note)

married Thjazi’s daughter, Skathi. She wished to live in her father’s

hall among the mountains, while Njorth loved his home, Noatun, by the

sea. They agreed to compromise by spending nine nights at Thrymheim and

then three at Noatun, but neither could endure the surroundings of the

other’s home, so Skathi returned to Thrymheim, while Njorth stayed at

Noatun. Snorri quotes stanzas 11–15.

12. Breithablik (“Wide-Shining”): the house in heaven, free from

everything unclean, in which Baldr (cf. Voluspo, 32, note), the fairest

and best of the gods, lived.

13. Himinbjorg (“Heaven’s Cliffs”): the dwelling at the end of the

bridge Bifrost (the rainbow), where Heimdall (cf. Voluspo, 27) keeps

watch against the coming of the giants. In this stanza the two

functions of Heimdall—as father of mankind (cf. Voluspo, 1 and note,

and Rigsthula, introductory prose and note) and as warder of the

gods—seem both to be mentioned, but the second line in the manuscripts

is apparently in bad shape, and in the editions is more or less

conjectural.

14. Folkvang (“Field of the Folk”): here is situated Freyja’s hall,

Sessrymnir (“Rich in Seats”). Freyja, the sister of Freyr, is the

fairest of the goddesses, and the most kindly disposed to mankind,

especially to lovers. Half of the dead: Mogk has made it clear that

Freyja represents a confusion between two originally distinct

divinities: the wife of Othin (Frigg) and the northern goddess of love.

This passage appears to have in mind her attributes as Othin’s wife.

Snorri has this same confusion, but there is no reason why the Freyja

who was Freyr’s sister should share the slain with Othin.

15. Glitnir (“the Shining”): the home of Forseti, a god of whom we know

nothing beyond what Snorri tells us: “Forseti is the son of Baldr and

Nanna, daughter of Nep. All those who come to him with hard cases to

settle go away satisfied; he is the best judge among gods and men.”

16. Noatun (“Ships’-Haven”): the home of Njorth, who calms the waves;

cf. stanza 11 and Voluspo, 21.

17. Vithi: this land is not mentioned elsewhere. Vithar avenged his

father, Othin, by slaying the wolf Fenrir.

18. Stanzas 18–20 appear also in Snorri’s Edda. Very possibly they are

an interpolation here. Eldhrimnir (“Sooty with Fire”): the great kettle

in Valhall, wherein the gods’ cook, Andhrimnir (“The Sooty-Faced”)

daily cooks the flesh of the boar Sæhrimnir (“The Blackened”). His

flesh suffices for all the heroes there gathered, and each evening he

becomes whole again, to be cooked the next morning.

19. Freki (“The Greedy”) and Geri (“The Ravenous”): the two wolves who

sit by Othin’s side at the feast, and to whom he gives all the food set

before him, since wine is food and drink alike for him. Heerfather:

Othin.

20. Mithgarth (“The Middle Home”): the earth. Hugin (“Thought”) and

Munin (“Memory”): the two ravens who sit on Othin’s shoulders, and fly

forth daily to bring him news of the world.

21. Thund (“The Swollen” or “The Roaring”): the river surrounding

Valhall. Thjothvitnir’s fish: presumably the sun, which was caught by

the wolf Skoll (cf. Voluspo, 40), Thjothvitnir meaning “the mighty

wolf.” Such a phrase, characteristic of all Skaldic poetry, is rather

rare in the Edda. The last two lines refer to the attack on Valhall by

the people of Hel; cf. Voluspo, 51.

22. Valgrind (“The Death-Gate”): the outer gate of Valhall; cf.

Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 68 and note.

23. This and the following stanza stand in reversed order in Regius.

Snorri quotes stanza 23 as a proof of the vast size of Valhall. The

last two lines refer to the final battle with Fenrir and the other

enemies.

24. This stanza is almost certainly an interpolation, brought in

through a confusion of the first two lines with those of stanza 23. Its

description of Thor’s house, Bilskirnir (cf. stanza 4 and note) has

nothing to do with that of Valhall. Snorri quotes the stanza in his

account of Thor.

25. The first line in the original is, as indicated in the translation,

too long, and various attempts to amend it have been made. Heithrun:

the she-goat who lives on the twigs of the tree Lærath (presumably the

ash Yggdrasil), and daily gives mead which, like the boar’s flesh,

suffices for all the heroes in Valhall. In Snorri’s Edda Gangleri

foolishly asks whether the heroes drink water, whereto Har replies, “Do

you imagine that Othin invites kings and earls and other noble men, and

then gives them water to drink?”

26. Eikthyrnir (“The Oak-Thorned,” i.e., with antlers, “thorns,” like

an oak): this animal presumably represents the clouds. The first line,

like that of stanza 25, is too long in the original. Lærath: cf. stanza

25, note. Hvergelmir: according to Snorri, this spring, “the

Cauldron-Roaring,” was in the midst of Niflheim, the world of darkness

and the dead, beneath the third root of the ash Yggdrasil. Snorri gives

a list of the rivers flowing thence nearly identical with the one in

the poem.

27. The entire passage from stanza 27 through stanza 35 is confused.

The whole thing may well be an interpolation. Bugge calls stanzas 27–30

an interpolation, and editors who have accepted the passage as a whole

have rejected various lines. The spelling of the names of the rivers

varies greatly in the manuscripts and editions. It is needless here to

point out the many attempted emendations of this list. For a passage

presenting similar problems, cf. Voluspo, 10–16. Snorri virtually

quotes stanzas 27–28 in his prose, though not consecutively. The name

Rin, in line 3, is identical with that for the River Rhine which

appears frequently in the hero poems, but the similarity is doubtless

purely accidental.

28. Slith may possibly be the same river as that mentioned in Voluspo,

36, as flowing through the giants’ land. Leipt: in Helgakvitha

Hundingsbana II, 29, this river is mentioned as one by which a solemn

oath is sworn, and Gering points the parallel to the significance of

the Styx among the Greeks. The other rivers here named are not

mentioned elsewhere in the poems.

29. This stanza looks as though it originally had had nothing to do

with the two preceding it. Snorri quotes it in his description of the

three roots of Yggdrasil, and the three springs beneath them. “The

third root of the ash stands in heaven and beneath this root is a

spring which is very holy, and is called Urth’s well.” (Cf. Voluspo,

19) “There the gods have their judgment-seat, and thither they ride

each day over Bifrost, which is also called the Gods’ Bridge.” Thor has

to go on foot in the last days of the destruction, when the bridge is

burning. Another interpretation, however, is that when Thor leaves the

heavens (i.e., when a thunder-storm is over) the rainbow-bridge becomes

hot in the sun. Nothing more is known of the rivers named in this

stanza. Lines 3–4 are almost certainly interpolated from stanza 30.

30. This stanza, again possibly an interpolation, is closely

paraphrased by Snorri following the passage quoted in the previous

note. Glath (“Joyous”): identified in the Skaldskaparmal with Skinfaxi,

the horse of day; cf. Vafthruthnismol, 12. Gyllir: “Golden.” Gler:

“Shining.” Skeithbrimir: “Swift-Going.” Silfrintopp: “Silver-Topped.”

Sinir: “Sinewy.” Gisl: the meaning is doubtful; Gering suggests

“Gleaming.” Falhofnir: “Hollow-Hoofed.” Golltopp (“Gold-Topped”): this

horse belonged to Heimdall (cf. Voluspo, 1 and 46). It is noteworthy

that gold was one of the attributes of Heimdall’s belongings, and,

because his teeth were of gold, he was also called Gullintanni

(“Gold-Toothed”). Lettfeti: “Light-Feet.” Othin’s eight-footed horse,

Sleipnir, is not mentioned in this list.

31. The first of these roots is the one referred to in stanza 26; the

second in stanza 29 (cf. notes). Of the third root there is nothing

noteworthy recorded. After this stanza it is more than possible that

one has been lost, paraphrased in the prose of Snorri’s Edda thus: “An

eagle sits in the branches of the ash-tree, and he is very wise; and

between his eyes sits the hawk who is called Vethrfolnir.”

32. Ratatosk (“The Swift-Tusked”): concerning this squirrel, the Prose

Edda has to add only that he runs up and down the tree conveying the

abusive language of the eagle (see note on stanza 31) and the dragon

Nithhogg (cf. Voluspo, 39 and note) to each other. The hypothesis that

Ratatosk “represents the undying hatred between the sustaining and the

destroying elements—the gods and the giants,” seems a trifle

far-fetched.

33. Stanzas 33–34 may well be interpolated, and are certainly in bad

shape in the Mss. Bugge points out that they are probably of later

origin than those surrounding them. Snorri closely paraphrases stanza

33, but without elaboration, and nothing further is known of the four

harts. It may be guessed, however, that they are a late multiplication

of the single hart mentioned in stanza 26, just as the list of dragons

in stanza 34 seems to have been expanded out of Nithhogg, the only

authentic dragon under the root of the ash. Highest twigs: a guess; the

Mss. words are baffling. Something has apparently been lost from lines

3–4, but there is no clue as to its nature.

34. Cf. note on previous stanza. Nothing further is known of any of the

serpents here listed, and the meanings of many of the names are

conjectural. Snorri quotes this stanza. Editors have altered it in

various ways in an attempt to regularize the meter. Goin and Moin:

meaning obscure. Grafvitnir: “The Gnawing Wolf.” Grabak: “Gray-Back.”

Grafvolluth: “The Field-Gnawer.” Ofnir and Svafnir (“The Bewilderer”

and “The Sleep-Bringer”): it is noteworthy that in stanza 54 Othin

gives himself these two names.

35. Snorri quotes this stanza, which concludes the passage, beginning

with stanza 25, describing Yggdrasil. If we assume that stanzas 27–34

are later interpolations—possibly excepting 32—this section of the poem

reads clearly enough.

36. Snorri quotes this list of the Valkyries, concerning whom cf.

Voluspo, 31 and note, where a different list of names is given. Hrist:

“Shaker.” Mist: “Mist.” Skeggjold: “Ax-Time.” Skogul: “Raging” (?).

Hild: “Warrior.” Thruth: “Might.” Hlokk: “Shrieking.” Herfjotur:

“Host-Fetter.” Gol: “Screaming.” Geironul: “Spear-Bearer.” Randgrith:

“Shield-Bearer.” Rathgrith: Gering guesses “Plan-Destroyer.” Reginleif:

“Gods’-Kin.” Manuscripts and editions vary greatly in the spelling of

these names, and hence in their significance.

37. Müllenhoff suspects stanzas 37–41 to have been interpolated, and

Edzardi thinks they may have come from the Vafthruthnismol. Snorri

closely paraphrases stanzas 37–39, and quotes 40–41. Arvak (“Early

Waker”) and Alsvith (“All-Swift”): the horses of the sun, named also in

Sigrdrifumol, 15. According to Snorri: “There was a man called

Mundilfari, who had two children; they were so fair and lovely that he

called his son Mani and his daughter Sol. The gods were angry at this

presumption, and took the children and set them up in heaven; and they

bade Sol drive the horses that drew the car of the sun which the gods

had made to light the world from the sparks which flew out of

Muspellsheim. The horses were called Alsvith and Arvak, and under their

yokes the gods set two bellows to cool them, and in some songs these

are called ‘the cold iron.’”

38. Svalin (“The Cooling”): the only other reference to this shield is

in Sigrdrifumol, 15.

39. Skoll and Hati: the wolves that devour respectively the sun and

moon. The latter is the son of Hrothvitnir (“The Mighty Wolf,” i.e.

Fenrir); cf. Voluspo, 40, and Vafthruthnismol, 46–47, in which Fenrir

appears as the thief. Ironwood: a conjectural emendation of an obscure

phrase; cf. Voluspo, 40.

40. This and the following stanza are quoted by Snorri. They seem to

have come from a different source from the others of this poem; Edzardi

suggests an older version of the Vafthruthnismol. This stanza is

closely parallel to Vafthruthnismol, 21, which see, as also Voluspo, 3.

Snorri, following this account, has a few details to add. The stones

were made out of Ymir’s teeth and such of his bones as were broken.

Mithgarth was a mountain-wall made out of Ymir’s eyebrows, and set

around the earth because of the enmity of the giants.

42. With this stanza Othin gets back to his immediate situation, bound

as he is between two fires. He calls down a blessing on the man who

will reach into the fire and pull aside the great kettle which, in

Icelandic houses, hung directly under the smoke-vent in the roof, and

thus kept any one above from looking down into the interior. On Ull,

the archer-god, cf. stanza 5 and note. He is specified here apparently

for no better reason than that his name fits the initial-rhyme.

43. This and the following stanza are certainly interpolated, for they

have nothing to do with the context, and stanza 45 continues the

dramatic conclusion of the poem begun in stanza 42. This stanza is

quoted by Snorri. Ivaldi (“The Mighty”): he is known only as the father

of the craftsmen-dwarfs who made not only the ship Skithblathnir, but

also Othin’s spear Gungnir, and the golden hair for Thor’s wife, Sif,

after Loki had maliciously cut her own hair off. Skithblathnir: this

ship (“Wooden-Bladed”) always had a fair wind, whenever the sail was

set; it could be folded up at will and put in the pocket. Freyr:

concerning him and his father, see Voluspo, 21, note, and Skirnismol,

introductory prose and note.

44. Snorri quotes this stanza. Like stanza 43 an almost certain

interpolation, it was probably drawn in by the reference to

Skithblathnir in the stanza interpolated earlier. It is presumably in

faulty condition. One Ms. has after the fifth line half of a

sixth,—“Brimir of swords.” Yggdrasil: cf. stanzas 25–35. Skithblathnir:

cf. stanza 43, note. Sleipnir: Othin’s eight-legged horse, one of

Loki’s numerous progeny, borne by him to the stallion Svathilfari. This

stallion belonged to the giant who built a fortress for the gods, and

came so near to finishing it, with Svathilfari’s aid, as to make the

gods fear he would win his promised reward—Freyja and the sun and moon.

To delay the work, Loki turned himself into a mare, whereupon the

stallion ran away, and the giant failed to complete his task within the

stipulated time. Bilrost: probably another form of Bifrost (which

Snorri has in his version of the stanza), on which cf. stanza 29.

Bragi: the god of poetry. He is one of the later figures among the

gods, and is mentioned only three times in the poems of the Edda. In

Snorri’s Edda, however, he is of great importance. His wife is Ithun,

goddess of youth. Perhaps the Norwegian skald Bragi Boddason, the

oldest recorded skaldic poet, had been traditionally apotheosized as

early as the tenth century. Hobrok: nothing further is known of him.

Garm: cf. Voluspo, 44.

45. With this stanza the narrative current of the poem is resumed.

Ægir: the sea-god; cf. Lokasenna, introductory prose.

46. Concerning the condition of stanzas 46–50, quoted by Snorri,

nothing definite can be said. Lines and entire stanzas of this

“catalogue” sort undoubtedly came and went with great freedom all

through the period of oral transmission. Many of the names are not

mentioned elsewhere, and often their significance is sheer guesswork.

As in nearly every episode Othin appeared in disguise, the number of

his names was necessarily almost limitless. Grim: “The Hooded.”

Gangleri: “The Wanderer.” Herjan: “The Ruler.” Hjalmberi: “The

Helmet-Bearer.” Thekk: “The Much-Loved.” Thrithi: “The Third” (in

Snorri’s Edda the stories are all told in the form of answers to

questions, the speakers being Har, Jafnhar and Thrithi. Just what this

tripartite form of Othin signifies has been the source of endless

debate. Probably this line is late enough to betray the somewhat

muddled influence of early Christianity.) Thuth and Uth: both names

defy guesswork. Helblindi: “Hel-Blinder” (two manuscripts have

Herblindi—“Host-Blinder”). Hor: “The High One.”

47. Sath: “The Truthful.” Svipal: “The Changing.” Sanngetal: “The

Truth-Teller.” Herteit: “Glad of the Host.” Hnikar: “The Overthrower.”

Bileyg: “The Shifty-Eyed.” Baleyg: “The Flaming-Eyed.” Bolverk: “Doer

of Ill” (cf. Hovamol, 104 and note). Fjolnir: “The Many-Shaped.”

Grimnir: “The Hooded.” Glapsvith: “Swift in Deceit.” Fjolsvith: “Wide

of Wisdom.”

48. Sithhott: “With Broad Hat.” Sithskegg: “Long-Bearded.” Sigfather:

“Father of Victory.” Hnikuth: “Overthrower.” Valfather: “Father of the

Slain.” Atrith: “The Rider.” Farmatyr: “Helper of Cargoes” (i.e., god

of sailors).

49. Nothing is known of Asmund, of Othin’s appearance as Jalk, or of

the occasion when he “went in a sledge” as Kjalar (“Ruler of Keels”?).

Thror and Vithur are also of uncertain meaning. Oski: “God of Wishes.”

Biflindi: the manuscripts vary widely in the form of this name.

Jafnhor: “Equally High” (cf. note on stanza 46). Omi: “The Shouter.”

Gondlir: “Wand-Bearer.” Harbarth: “Graybeard” (cf. Harbarthsljoth,

introduction).

50. Nothing further is known of the episode here mentioned. Sokkmimir

is presumably Mithvitnir’s son. Snorri quotes the names Svithur and

Svithrir, but omits all the remainder of the stanza.

51. Again the poem returns to the direct action, Othin addressing the

terrified Geirröth. The manuscripts show no lacuna. Some editors supply

a second line from paper manuscripts: “Greatly by me art beguiled.”

53. Ygg: Othin (“The Terrible”). The maids: the three Norns.

54. Possibly out of place, and probably more or less corrupt. Thund:

“The Thunderer.” Vak: “The Wakeful.” Skilfing: “The Shaker.” Vofuth:

“The Wanderer.” Hroptatyr: “Crier of the Gods.” Gaut: “Father.” Ofnir

and Svafnir: cf. stanza 34.

THE BALLAD OF SKIRNIR

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Skirnismol is found complete in the Codex Regius, and through

stanza 27 in the Arnamagnæan Codex. Snorri quotes the concluding

stanza. In Regius the poem is entitled “For Scirnis” (“Skirnir’s

Journey”).

The Skirnismol differs sharply from the poems preceding it, in that it

has a distinctly ballad quality. As a matter of fact, however, its

verse is altogether dialogue, the narrative being supplied in the prose

“links,” concerning which cf. introductory note to the Grimnismol. The

dramatic effectiveness and vivid characterization of the poem seem to

connect it with the Thrymskvitha, and the two may possibly have been

put into their present form by the same man. Bugge’s guess that the

Skirnismol was the work of the author of the Lokasenna is also

possible, though it has less to support it.

Critics have generally agreed in dating the poem as we now have it as

early as the first half of the tenth century; Finnur Jonsson puts it as

early as 900, and claims it, as usual, for Norway. Doubtless it was

current in Norway, in one form or another, before the first Icelandic

settlements, but his argument that the thistle (stanza 31) is not an

Icelandic plant has little weight, for such curse-formulas must have

traveled freely from place to place. In view of the evidence pointing

to a western origin for many or all of the Eddic poems, Jonsson’s

reiterated “Digtet er sikkert norsk og ikke islandsk” is somewhat

exasperating. Wherever the Skirnismol was composed, it has been

preserved in exceptionally good condition, and seems to be practically

devoid of interpolations or lacunæ.

Freyr, the son of Njorth, had sat one day in Hlithskjolf, and looked

over all the worlds. He looked into Jotunheim, and saw there a fair

maiden, as she went from her father’s house to her bower. Forthwith he

felt a mighty love-sickness. Skirnir was the name of Freyr’s servant;

Njorth bade him ask speech of Freyr. He said:

1. “Go now, Skirnir! | and seek to gain

Speech from my son;

And answer to win, | for whom the wise one

Is mightily moved.”

Skirnir spake:

2. “Ill words do I now | await from thy son,

If I seek to get speech with him,

And answer to win, | for whom the wise one

Is mightily moved.”

Skirnir spake:

3. “Speak prithee, Freyr, | foremost of the gods,

For now I fain would know;

Why sittest thou here | in the wide halls,

Days long, my prince, alone?”

Freyr spake:

4. “How shall I tell thee, | thou hero young,

Of all my grief so great?

Though every day | the elfbeam dawns,

It lights my longing never.”

Skirnir spake:

5. “Thy longings, methinks, | are not so large

That thou mayst not tell them to me;

Since in days of yore | we were young together,

We two might each other trust.”

Freyr spake:

6. “From Gymir’s house | I beheld go forth

A maiden dear to me;

Her arms glittered, | and from their gleam

Shone all the sea and sky.

7. “To me more dear | than in days of old

Was ever maiden to man;

But no one of gods | or elves will grant

That we both together should be.”

Skirnir spake:

8. “Then give me the horse | that goes through the dark

And magic flickering flames;

And the sword as well | that fights of itself

Against the giants grim.”

Freyr spake:

9. “The horse will I give thee | that goes through the dark

And magic flickering flames,

And the sword as well | that will fight of itself

If a worthy hero wields it.”

Skirnir spake to the horse:

10. “Dark is it without, | and I deem it time

To fare through the wild fells,

(To fare through the giants’ fastness;)

We shall both come back, | or us both together

The terrible giant will take.”

Skirnir rode into Jotunheim to Gymir’s house. There were fierce dogs

bound before the gate of the fence which was around Gerth’s hall. He

rode to where a herdsman sat on a hill, and said:

11. “Tell me, herdsman, | sitting on the hill,

And watching all the ways,

How may I win | a word with the maid

Past the hounds of Gymir here?”

The herdsman spake:

12. “Art thou doomed to die | or already dead,

Thou horseman that ridest hither?

Barred from speech | shalt thou ever be

With Gymir’s daughter good.”

Skirnir spake:

13. “Boldness is better | than plaints can be

For him whose feet must fare;

To a destined day | has mine age been doomed,

And my life’s span thereto laid.”

Gerth spake:

14. “What noise is that | which now so loud

I hear within our house?

The ground shakes, | and the home of Gymir

Around me trembles too.”

The Serving-Maid spake:

15. “One stands without | who has leapt from his steed,

And lets his horse loose to graze;”

. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Gerth spake:

16. “Bid the man come in, | and drink good mead

Here within our hall;

Though this I fear, | that there without

My brother’s slayer stands.

17. “Art thou of the elves | or the offspring of gods,

Or of the wise Wanes?

How camst thou alone | through the leaping flame

Thus to behold our home?”

Skirnir spake:

18. “I am not of the elves, | nor the offspring of gods,

Nor of the wise Wanes;

Though I came alone | through the leaping flame

Thus to behold thy home.

19. “Eleven apples, | all of gold,

Here will I give thee, Gerth,

To buy thy troth | that Freyr shall be

Deemed to be dearest to you.”

Gerth spake:

20. “I will not take | at any man’s wish

These eleven apples ever;

Nor shall Freyr and I | one dwelling find

So long as we two live.”

Skirnir spake:

21. “Then do I bring thee | the ring that was burned

Of old with Othin’s son;

From it do eight | of like weight fall

On every ninth night.”

Gerth spake:

22. “The ring I wish not, | though burned it was

Of old with Othin’s son;

In Gymir’s home | is no lack of gold

In the wealth my father wields.”

Skirnir spake:

23. “Seest thou, maiden, | this keen, bright sword

That I hold here in my hand?

Thy head from thy neck | shall I straightway hew,

If thou wilt not do my will.”

Gerth spake:

24. “For no man’s sake | will I ever suffer

To be thus moved by might;

But gladly, methinks, | will Gymir seek

To fight if he finds thee here.”

Skirnir spake:

25. “Seest thou, maiden, | this keen, bright sword

That I hold here in my hand?

Before its blade | the old giant bends,—

Thy father is doomed to die.

26. “I strike thee, maid, | with my magic staff,

To tame thee to work my will;

There shalt thou go | where never again

The sons of men shall see thee.

27. “On the eagle’s hill | shalt thou ever sit,

And gaze on the gates of Hel;

More loathsome to thee | than the light-hued snake

To men, shall thy meat become.

28. “Fearful to see, | if thou comest forth,

Hrimnir will stand and stare,

(Men will marvel at thee;)

More famed shalt thou grow | than the watchman of the gods!

Peer forth, then, from thy prison.

29. “Rage and longing, | fetters and wrath,

Tears and torment are thine;

Where thou sittest down | my doom is on thee

Of heavy heart

And double dole.

30. “In the giants’ home | shall vile things harm thee

Each day with evil deeds;

Grief shalt thou get | instead of gladness,

And sorrow to suffer with tears.

31. “With three-headed giants | thou shalt dwell ever,

Or never know a husband;

(Let longing grip thee, | let wasting waste thee,—)

Be like to the thistle | that in the loft

Was cast and there was crushed.

32. “I go to the wood, | and to the wet forest,

To win a magic wand;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

I won a magic wand.

33. “Othin grows angry, | angered is the best of the gods,

Freyr shall be thy foe,

Most evil maid, | who the magic wrath

Of gods hast got for thyself.

34. “Give heed, frost-rulers, | hear it, giants,

Sons of Suttung,

And gods, ye too,

How I forbid | and how I ban

The meeting of men with the maid,

(The joy of men with the maid.)

35. “Hrimgrimnir is he, | the giant who shall have thee

In the depth by the doors of Hel;

To the frost-giants’ halls | each day shalt thou fare,

Crawling and craving in vain,

(Crawling and having no hope.)

36. “Base wretches there | by the root of the tree

Will hold for thee horns of filth;

A fairer drink | shalt thou never find,

Maid, to meet thy wish,

(Maid, to meet my wish.)

37. “I write thee a charm | and three runes therewith,

Longing and madness and lust;

But what I have writ | I may yet unwrite

If I find a need therefor.”

Gerth spake:

38. “Find welcome rather, | and with it take

The frost-cup filled with mead;

Though I did not believe | that I should so love

Ever one of the Wanes.”

Skirnir spake:

39. “My tidings all | must I truly learn

Ere homeward hence I ride:

How soon thou wilt | with the mighty son

Of Njorth a meeting make.”

Gerth spake:

40. “Barri there is, | which we both know well,

A forest fair and still;

And nine nights hence | to the son of Njorth

Will Gerth there grant delight.”

Then Skirnir rode home. Freyr stood without, and spoke to him, and

asked for tidings:

41. “Tell me, Skirnir, | ere thou take off the saddle,

Or farest forward a step:

What hast thou done | in the giants’ dwelling

To make glad thee or me?”

Skirnir spake:

42. “Barri there is, | which we both know well,

A forest fair and still;

And nine nights hence | to the son of Njorth

Will Gerth there grant delight.”

Freyr spake:

43. “Long is one night, | longer are two;

How then shall I bear three?

Often to me | has a month seemed less

Than now half a night of desire.”

NOTES

Prose. Freyr: concerning his father, Njorth, and the race of the Wanes

in general, cf. Voluspo, 21 and note. Snorri thus describes Njorth’s

family: “Njorth begat two children in Noatun; the son was named Freyr,

and the daughter Freyja; they were fair of aspect and mighty. Freyr is

the noblest of the gods; he rules over rain and sunshine, and therewith

the fruitfulness of the earth; it is well to call upon him for plenty

and welfare, for he rules over wealth for mankind. Freyja is the

noblest of the goddesses. When she rides to the fight, she has one-half

of the slain, and Othin has half. When she goes on a journey, she

drives her two cats, and sits in a cart. Love-songs please her well,

and it is good to call on her in love-matters.” Hlithskjolf: Othin’s

watch-tower; cf. Grimnismol, introductory prose. He said: both

manuscripts have “Then Skathi said:” (Skathi was Njorth’s wife), but

Bugge’s emendation, based on Snorri’s version, is doubtless correct.

1. My son: both manuscripts, and many editors, have “our son,” which,

of course, goes with the introduction of Skathi in the prose. As the

stanza is clearly addressed to Skirnir, the change of pronouns seems

justified. The same confusion occurs in stanza 2, where Skirnir in the

manuscripts is made to speak of Freyr as “your son” (plural). The

plural pronoun in the original involves a metrical error, which is

corrected by the emendation.

4. Elfbeam: the sun, so called because its rays were fatal to elves and

dwarfs; cf. Alvissmol, 35.

6. Gymir: a mountain-giant, husband of Aurbotha, and father of Gerth,

fairest among women. This is all Snorri tells of him in his paraphrase

of the story.

7. Snorri’s paraphrase of the poem is sufficiently close so that his

addition of another sentence to Freyr’s speech makes it probable that a

stanza has dropped out between 7 and 8. This has been tentatively

reconstructed, thus: “Hither to me | shalt thou bring the maid, /

And home shalt thou lead her here, / If her father wills it | or

wills it not, / And good reward shalt thou get.” Finn Magnusen detected

the probable omission of a stanza here as early as 1821.

8. The sword: Freyr’s gift of his sword to Skirnir eventually proves

fatal, for at the last battle, when Freyr is attacked by Beli, whom he

kills bare-handed, and later when the fire-demon, Surt, slays him in

turn, he is weaponless; cf. Voluspo, 53 and note. Against the giants

grim: the condition of this line makes it seem like an error in

copying, and it is possible that it should be identical with the fourth

line of the next stanza.

10. Some editors reject line 3 as spurious.

12. Line 2 is in neither manuscript, and no gap is indicated. I have

followed Grundtvig’s conjectural emendation.

13. This stanza is almost exactly like many in the first part of the

Hovamol, and may well have been a separate proverb. After this stanza

the scene shifts to the interior of the house.

15. No gap indicated in either manuscript. Bugge and Niedner have

attempted emendations, while Hildebrand suggests that the last two

lines of stanza 14 are spurious, 14, 1–2, and 15 thus forming a single

stanza, which seems doubtful.

16. Brother’s slayer: perhaps the brother is Beli, slain by Freyr; the

only other references are in Voluspo, 53, and in Snorri’s paraphrase of

the Skirnismol, which merely says that Freyr’s gift of his sword to

Skirnir “was the reason why he was weaponless when he met Beli, and he

killed him bare-handed.” Skirnir himself seems never to have killed

anybody.

17. Wise Wanes: cf. Voluspo, 21 and note.

18. The Arnamagnæan Codex omits this stanza.

19. Apples: the apple was the symbol of fruitfulness, and also of

eternal youth. According to Snorri, the goddess Ithun had charge of the

apples which the gods ate whenever they felt themselves growing old.

21. Ring: the ring Draupnir (“Dropper”) was made by the dwarfs for

Othin, who laid it on Baldr’s pyre when the latter’s corpse was burned

(cf. Voluspo, 32 and note, and Baldrs Draumar). Baldr, however, sent

the ring back to Othin from hell. How Freyr obtained it is nowhere

stated. Andvari’s ring (Andvaranaut) had a similar power of creating

gold; cf. Reginsmol, prose after stanza 4 and note. Lines 3 and 4 of

this stanza, and the first two of stanza 22, are missing in the

Arnamagnæan Codex.

25. The first two lines are abbreviated in both manuscripts.

26. With this stanza, bribes and threats having failed, Skirnir begins

a curse which, by the power of his magic staff, is to fall on Gerth if

she refuses Freyr.

27. Eagle’s hill: the hill at the end of heaven, and consequently

overlooking hell, where the giant Hræsvelg sits “in an eagle’s guise,”

and makes the winds with his wings; cf. Vafthruthnismol, 37, also

Voluspo, 50. The second line is faulty in both manuscripts;

Hildebrand’s emendation corrects the error, but omits an effective

touch; the manuscript line may be rendered “And look and hanker for

hell.” The Arnamagnæan Codex breaks off with the fourth line of this

stanza.

28. Hrimnir: a frost-giant, mentioned elsewhere only in Hyndluljoth,

33. Line 3 is probably spurious. Watchman of the gods: Heimdall; cf.

Voluspo, 46.

29. Three nouns of doubtful meaning, which I have rendered rage,

longing, and heart respectively, make the precise force of this stanza

obscure. Niedner and Sijmons mark the entire stanza as interpolated,

and Jonsson rejects line 5.

30. In Regius and in nearly all the editions the first two lines of

this stanza are followed by lines 3–5 of stanza 35. I have followed

Niedner, Sijmons, and Gering. The two words here translated vile things

are obscure; Gering renders the phrase simply “Kobolde.”

31. The confusion noted as to the preceding stanza, and a metrical

error in the third line, have led to various rearrangements and

emendations; line 3 certainly looks like an interpolation. Three-headed

giants: concerning giants with numerous heads, cf. Vafthruthnismol, 33,

and Hymiskvitha, 8.

32. No gap indicated in the manuscript; Niedner makes the line here

given as 4 the first half of line 3, and fills out the stanza thus:

“with which I will tame you, / Maid, to work my will.” The whole stanza

seems to be either interpolated or out of place; it would fit better

after stanza 25.

33. Jonsson marks this stanza as interpolated. The word translated most

evil is another case of guesswork.

34. Most editors reject line 3 as spurious, and some also reject line

6. Lines 2 and 3 may have been expanded out of a single line running

approximately “Ye gods and Suttung’s sons.” Suttung: concerning this

giant cf. Hovamol, 104 and note.

35. Most editors combine lines 1–2 with stanza 36 (either with the

first two lines thereof or the whole stanza), as lines 3–5 stand in the

manuscript after line 2 of stanza 30. Hrimgrimnir (“The

Frost-Shrouded”): a giant not elsewhere mentioned. Line 5, as a

repetition of line 4, is probably a later addition.

36. For the combination of this stanza with the preceding one, cf. note

on stanza 35. The scribe clearly did not consider that the stanza began

with line 1, as the first word thereof in the manuscript does not begin

with a capital letter and has no period before it. The first word of

line 3, however, is so marked. Line 5 may well be spurious.

37. Again the scribe seems to have been uncertain as to the stanza

divisions. This time the first line is preceded by a period, but begins

with a small letter. Many editors have made line 2 into two half-lines.

A charm: literally, the rune Thurs (þ); the runic letters all had magic

attributes; cf. Sigrdrifumol, 6–7 and notes.

40. Barri: “The Leafy.”

42. Abbreviated to initial letters in the manuscript.

43. The superscription is lacking in Regius. Snorri quotes this one

stanza in his prose paraphrase, Gylfaginning, chapter 37. The two

versions are substantially the same, except that Snorri makes the first

line read, “Long is one night, | long is the second.”

THE POEM OF HARBARTH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Harbarthsljoth is found complete in the Codex Regius, where it

follows the Skirnismol, and from the fourth line of stanza 19 to the

end of the poem in the Arnamagnæan Codex, of which it occupies the

first page and a half.

The poem differs sharply from those which precede it in the Codex

Regius, both in metrical form and in spirit. It is, indeed, the most

nearly formless of all the Eddic poems. The normal metre is the

Malahattr (cf. Introduction, where an example is given). The name of

this verse-form means “in the manner of conversation,” and the

Harbarthsljoth’s verse fully justifies the term. The Atli poems

exemplify the conventional use of Malahattr, but in the Harbarthsljoth

the form is used with extraordinary freedom, and other metrical forms

are frequently employed. A few of the speeches of which the poem is

composed cannot be twisted into any known Old Norse metre, and appear

to be simply prose.

How far this confusion is due to interpolations and faulty transmission

of the original poem is uncertain. Finnur Jonsson has attempted a

wholesale purification of the poem, but his arbitrary condemnation of

words, lines, and entire stanzas as spurious is quite unjustified by

any positive evidence. I have accepted Mogk’s theory that the author

was “a first-rate psychologist, but a poor poet,” and have translated

the poem as it stands in the manuscripts. I have preserved the metrical

confusion of the original by keeping throughout so far as possible to

the metres found in the poem; if the rhythm of the translation is often

hard to catch, the difficulty is no less with the original Norse.

The poem is simply a contest of abuse, such as the early Norwegian and

Icelander delighted in, the opposing figures being Thor and Othin, the

latter appearing in the disguise of the ferryman Harbarth. Such

billingsgate lent itself readily to changes, interpolations and

omissions, and it is little wonder that the poem is chaotic. It

consists mainly of boasting and of references, often luckily obscure,

to disreputable events in the life of one or the other of the

disputants. Some editors have sought to read a complex symbolism into

it, particularly by representing it as a contest between the noble or

warrior class (Othin) and the peasant (Thor). But it seems a pity to

take such a vigorous piece of broad farce too seriously.

Verse-form, substance, and certain linguistic peculiarities, notably

the suffixed articles, point to a relatively late date (eleventh

century) for the poem in its present form. Probably it had its origin

in the early days, but its colloquial nature and its vulgarity made it

readily susceptible to changes.

Owing to the chaotic state of the text, and the fact that none of the

editors or commentators have succeeded in improving it much, I have not

in this case attempted to give all the important emendations and

suggestions. The stanza-divisions are largely arbitrary.

Thor was on his way back from a journey in the East, and came to a

sound; on the other side of the sound was a ferryman with a boat. Thor

called out:

1. “Who is the fellow yonder, | on the farther shore of the

sound?”

The ferryman spake:

2. “What kind of a peasant is yon, | that calls o’er the bay?”

Thor spake:

3. “Ferry me over the sound; | I will feed thee therefor in the

morning;

A basket I have on my back, | and food therein, none better;

At leisure I ate, | ere the house I left,

Of herrings and porridge, | so plenty I had.”

The ferryman spake:

4. “Of thy morning feats art thou proud, | but the future thou

knowest not wholly;

Doleful thine home-coming is: | thy mother, methinks, is dead.”

Thor spake:

5. “Now hast thou said | what to each must seem

The mightiest grief, | that my mother is dead.”

The ferryman spake:

6. “Three good dwellings, | methinks, thou hast not;

Barefoot thou standest, | and wearest a beggar’s dress;

Not even hose dost thou have.”

Thor spake:

7. “Steer thou hither the boat; | the landing here shall I show

thee;

But whose the craft | that thou keepest on the shore?”

The ferryman spake:

8. “Hildolf is he | who bade me have it,

A hero wise; | his home is at Rathsey’s sound.

He bade me no robbers to steer, | nor stealers of steeds,

But worthy men, | and those whom well do I know.

Say now thy name, | if over the sound thou wilt fare.”

Thor spake:

9. “My name indeed shall I tell, | though in danger I am,

And all my race; | I am Othin’s son,

Meili’s brother, | and Magni’s father,

The strong one of the gods; | with Thor now speech canst thou

get.

And now would I know | what name thou hast.”

The ferryman spake:

10. “Harbarth am I, | and seldom I hide my name.”

Thor spake:

11. “Why shouldst thou hide thy name, | if quarrel thou hast

not?”

Harbarth spake:

12. “And though I had a quarrel, | from such as thou art

Yet none the less | my life would I guard,

Unless I be doomed to die.”

Thor spake:

13. “Great trouble, methinks, | would it be to come to thee,

To wade the waters across, | and wet my middle;

Weakling, well shall I pay | thy mocking words,

If across the sound I come.”

Harbarth spake:

14. “Here shall I stand | and await thee here;

Thou hast found since Hrungnir died | no fiercer man.”

Thor spake:

15. “Fain art thou to tell | how with Hrungnir I fought,

The haughty giant, | whose head of stone was made;

And yet I felled him, | and stretched him before me.

What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:

16. “Five full winters | with Fjolvar was I,

And dwelt in the isle | that is Algrön called;

There could we fight, | and fell the slain,

Much could we seek, | and maids could master.”

Thor spake:

17. “How won ye success with your women?”

Harbarth spake:

18. “Lively women we had, | if they wise for us were;

Wise were the women we had, | if they kind for us were;

For ropes of sand | they would seek to wind,

And the bottom to dig | from the deepest dale.

Wiser than all | in counsel I was,

And there I slept | by the sisters seven,

And joy full great | did I get from each.

What, Thor, didst thou the while?”

Thor spake:

19. “Thjazi I felled, | the giant fierce,

And I hurled the eyes | of Alvaldi’s son

To the heavens hot above;

Of my deeds the mightiest | marks are these,

That all men since can see.

What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:

20. “Much love-craft I wrought | with them who ride by night,

When I stole them by stealth from their husbands;

A giant hard | was Hlebarth, methinks:

His wand he gave me as gift,

And I stole his wits away.”

Thor spake:

21. “Thou didst repay good gifts with evil mind.”

Harbarth spake:

22. “The oak must have | what it shaves from another;

In such things each for himself.

What, Thor, didst thou the while?”

Thor spake:

23. “Eastward I fared, | of the giants I felled

Their ill-working women | who went to the mountain;

And large were the giants’ throng | if all were

alive;

No men would there be | in Mithgarth more.

What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:

24. “In Valland I was, | and wars I raised,

Princes I angered, | and peace brought never;

The noble who fall | in the fight hath Othin,

And Thor hath the race of the thralls.”

Thor spake:

25. “Unequal gifts | of men wouldst thou give to the gods,

If might too much thou shouldst have.”

Harbarth spake:

26. “Thor has might enough, | but never a heart;

For cowardly fear | in a glove wast thou fain to crawl,

And there forgot thou wast Thor;

Afraid there thou wast, | thy fear was such,

To fart or sneeze | lest Fjalar should hear.”

Thor spake:

27. “Thou womanish Harbarth, | to hell would I smite thee

straight,

Could mine arm reach over the sound.”

Harbarth spake:

28. “Wherefore reach over the sound, | since strife we have

none?

What, Thor, didst thou do then?”

Thor spake:

29. “Eastward I was, | and the river I guarded well,

Where the sons of Svarang | sought me there;

Stones did they hurl; | small joy did they have of winning;

Before me there | to ask for peace did they fare.

What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:

30. “Eastward I was, | and spake with a certain one,

I played with the linen-white maid, | and met her by stealth;

I gladdened the gold-decked one, | and she granted me joy.”

Thor spake:

31. “Full fair was thy woman-finding.”

Harbarth spake:

32. “Thy help did I need then, Thor, | to hold the white maid

fast.”

Thor spake:

33. “Gladly, had I been there, | my help to thee had been

given.”

Harbarth spake:

34. “I might have trusted thee then, | didst thou not betray

thy troth.”

Thor spake:

35. “No heel-biter am I, in truth, | like an old leather shoe

in spring.”

Harbarth spake:

36. “What, Thor, didst thou the while?”

Thor spake:

37. “In Hlesey the brides | of the Berserkers slew I;

Most evil they were, | and all they betrayed.”

Harbarth spake:

38. “Shame didst thou win, | that women thou slewest, Thor.”

Thor spake:

39. “She-wolves they were like, | and women but little;

My ship, which well | I had trimmed, did they shake;

With clubs of iron they threatened, | and Thjalfi they drove

off.

What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:

40. “In the host I was | that hither fared,

The banners to raise, | and the spear to redden.”

Thor spake:

41. “Wilt thou now say | that hatred thou soughtest to bring

us?”

Harbarth spake:

42. “A ring for thy hand | shall make all right for thee,

As the judge decides | who sets us two at peace.”

Thor spake:

43. “Where foundest thou | so foul and scornful a speech?

More foul a speech | I never before have heard.”

Harbarth spake:

44. “I learned it from men, | the men so old,

Who dwell in the hills of home.”

Thor spake:

45. “A name full good | to heaps of stones thou givest

When thou callest them hills of home.”

Harbarth spake:

46. “Of such things speak I so.”

Thor spake:

47. “Ill for thee comes | thy keenness of tongue,

If the water I choose to wade;

Louder, I ween, | than a wolf thou cryest,

If a blow of my hammer thou hast.”

Harbarth spake:

48. “Sif has a lover at home, | and him shouldst thou meet;

More fitting it were | on him to put forth thy strength.”

Thor spake:

49. “Thy tongue still makes thee say | what seems most ill to

me,

Thou witless man! Thou liest, I ween.”

Harbarth spake:

50. “Truth do I speak, | but slow on thy way thou art;

Far hadst thou gone | if now in the boat thou hadst fared.”

Thor spake:

51. “Thou womanish Harbarth! | here hast thou held me too

long.”

Harbarth spake:

52. “I thought not ever | that Asathor would be hindered

By a ferryman thus from faring.”

Thor spake:

53. “One counsel I bring thee now: | row hither thy boat;

No more of scoffing; | set Magni’s father across.”

Harbarth spake:

54. “From the sound go hence; | the passage thou hast not.”

Thor spake:

55. “The way now show me, | since thou takest me not o’er the

water.”

Harbarth spake:

56. “To refuse it is little, | to fare it is long;

A while to the stock, | and a while to the stone;

Then the road to thy left, | till Verland thou reachest;

And there shall Fjorgyn | her son Thor find,

And the road of her children | she shows him to Othin’s realm.”

Thor spake:

57. “May I come so far in a day?”

Harbarth spake:

58. “With toil and trouble perchance,

While the sun still shines, | or so I think.”

Thor spake:

59. “Short now shall be our speech, | for thou speakest in

mockery only;

The passage thou gavest me not | I shall pay thee if ever we

meet.”

Harbarth spake:

60. “Get hence where every evil thing shall have thee!”

NOTES

Prose. Harbarth (“Gray-Beard”): Othin. On the nature of the prose notes

found in the manuscripts, cf. Grimnismol, introduction. Thor: the

journeys of the thunder-god were almost as numerous as those of Othin;

cf. Thrymskvitha and Hymiskvitha. Like the Robin Hood of the British

ballads, Thor was often temporarily worsted, but always managed to come

out ahead in the end. His “Journey in the East” is presumably the

famous episode, related in full by Snorri, in the course of which he

encountered the giant Skrymir, and in the house of Utgartha-Loki lifted

the cat which turned out to be Mithgarthsorm. The Hymiskvitha relates a

further incident of this journey.

2. The superscriptions to the speeches are badly confused in the

manuscripts, but editors have agreed fairly well as to where they

belong.

3. From the fact that in Regius line 3 begins with a capital letter, it

is possible that lines 3–4 constitute the ferryman’s reply, with

something lost before stanza 4.

4. Thy mother: Jorth (Earth).

5. Some editors assume a lacuna after this stanza.

6. Three good dwellings: this has been generally assumed to mean three

separate establishments, but it may refer simply to the three parts of

a single farm, the dwelling proper, the cattle-barn and the storehouse;

i.e., Thor is not even a respectable peasant.

8. Hildolf (“slaughtering wolf”): not elsewhere mentioned in the Edda.

Rathsey (“Isle of Counsel”): likewise not mentioned elsewhere.

9. In danger: Thor is “sekr,” i.e., without the protection of any law,

so long as he is in the territory of his enemies, the giants. Meili: a

practically unknown son of Othin, mentioned here only in the Edda.

Magni: son of Thor and the giantess Jarnsaxa; after Thor’s fight with

Hrungnir (cf. stanza 14, note) Magni, though but three days old, was

the only one of the gods strong enough to lift the dead giant’s foot

from Thor’s neck. After rescuing his father, Magni said to him: “There

would have been little trouble, father, had I but come sooner; I think

I should have sent this giant to hell with my fist if I had met him

first.” Magni and his brother, Mothi, inherit Thor’s hammer.

12. This stanza is hopelessly confused as to form, but none of the

editorial rearrangements have materially altered the meaning. Doomed to

die: the word “feigr” occurs constantly in the Old Norse poems and

sagas; the idea of an inevitable but unknown fate seems to have been

practically universal throughout the pre-Christian period. On the

concealment of names from enemies, cf. Fafnismol, prose after stanza 1.

13. This stanza, like the preceding one, is peculiarly chaotic in the

manuscript, and has been variously emended.

14. Hrungnir: this giant rashly wagered his head that his horse,

Gullfaxi, was swifter than Othin’s Sleipnir. In the race, which

Hrungnir lost, he managed to dash uninvited into the home of the gods,

where he became very drunk. Thor ejected him, and accepted his

challenge to a duel. Hrungnir, terrified, had a helper made for him in

the form of a dummy giant nine miles high and three miles broad.

Hrungnir himself had a three-horned heart of stone and a head of stone;

his shield was of stone and his weapon was a grindstone. But Thjalfi,

Thor’s servant, told him the god would attack him out of the ground,

wherefore Hrungnir laid down his shield and stood on it. The hammer

Mjollnir shattered both the grindstone and Hrungnir’s head, but part of

the grindstone knocked Thor down, and the giant fell with his foot on

Thor’s neck (cf. note on stanza 9). Meanwhile Thjalfi dispatched the

dummy giant without trouble.

16. Fjolvar: not elsewhere mentioned in the poems; perhaps the father

of the “seven sisters” referred to in stanza 18. Algrön “The

All-Green”: not mentioned elsewhere in the Edda.

17. Thor is always eager for stories of this sort; cf. stanzas 31 and

33.

18. Lines 1–2 are obscure, but apparently Harbarth means that the women

were wise to give in to him cheerfully, resistance to his power being

as impossible as (lines 3–4) making ropes of sand or digging the

bottoms out of the valleys. Nothing further is known of these unlucky

“seven sisters.”

19. Thjazi: this giant, by a trick, secured possession of the goddess

Ithun and her apples (cf. Skirnismol, 19, note), and carried her off

into Jotunheim. Loki, through whose fault she had been betrayed, was

sent after her by the gods. He went in Freyja’s “hawk’s-dress” (cf.

Thrymskvitha, 3), turned Ithun into a nut, and flew back with her.

Thjazi, in the shape of an eagle, gave chase. But the gods kindled a

fire which burnt the eagle’s wings, and then they killed him. Snorri’s

prose version does not attribute this feat particularly to Thor.

Thjazi’s daughter was Skathi, whom the gods permitted to marry Njorth

as a recompense for her father’s death. Alvaldi: of him we know only

that he was the father of Thjazi, Ithi and Gang, who divided his

wealth, each taking a mouthful of gold. The name is variously spelled.

It is not known which stars were called “Thjazi’s Eyes.” In the middle

of line 4 begins the fragmentary version of the poem found in the

Arnamagnæan Codex.

20. Riders by night: witches, who were supposed to ride on wolves in

the dark. Nothing further is known of this adventure.

22. The oak, etc.: this proverb is found elsewhere (e.g., Grettissaga)

in approximately the same words. Its force is much like our “to the

victor belong the spoils.”

23. Thor killed no women of the giants’ race on the “journey to the

East” so fully described by Snorri, his great giant-killing adventure

being the one narrated in the Thrymskvitha.

24. Valland: this mythical place (“Land of Slaughter”) is elsewhere

mentioned, but not further characterized; cf. prose introduction to

Völundarkvitha, and Helreith Brynhildar, 2. On the bringing of slain

heroes to Othin, cf. Voluspo, 31 and note, and, for a somewhat

different version, Grimnismol, 14. Nowhere else is it indicated that

Thor has an asylum for dead peasants.

26. The reference here is to one of the most familiar episodes in

Thor’s eastward journey. He and his companions came to a house in the

forest, and went in to spend the night. Being disturbed by an

earthquake and a terrific noise, they all crawled into a smaller room

opening from the main one. In the morning, however, they discovered

that the earthquake had been occasioned by the giant Skrymir’s lying

down near them, and the noise by his snoring. The house in which they

had taken refuge was his glove, the smaller room being the thumb.

Skrymir was in fact Utgartha-Loki himself. That he is in this stanza

called Fjalar (the name occurs also in Hovamol, 14) is probably due to

a confusion of the names by which Utgartha-Loki went. Loki taunts Thor

with this adventure in Lokasenna, 60 and 62, line 3 of this stanza

being perhaps interpolated from Lokasenna, 60, 4.

29. The river: probably Ifing, which flows between the land of the gods

and that of the giants; cf. Vafthruthnismol, 16. Sons of Svarang:

presumably the giants; Svarang is not elsewhere mentioned in the poems,

nor is there any other account of Thor’s defense of the passage.

30. Othin’s adventures of this sort were too numerous to make it

possible to identify this particular person. By stealth: so the

Arnamagnæan Codex; Regius, followed by several editors, has “long

meeting with her.”

35. Heel-biter: this effective parallel to our “back-biter” is not

found elsewhere in Old Norse.

37. Hlesey: “the Island of the Sea-God” (Hler = Ægir), identified with

the Danish island Läsö, in the Kattegat. It appears again, much out of

place, in Oddrunargratr, 28. Berserkers: originally men who could turn

themselves into bears, hence the name, “bear-shirts”; cf. the werewolf

or loupgarou. Later the name was applied to men who at times became

seized with a madness for bloodshed; cf. Hyndluljoth, 23 and note. The

women here mentioned are obviously of the earlier type.

39. Thjalfi: Thor’s servant; cf. note on stanza 14.

40. To what expedition this refers is unknown, but apparently Othin

speaks of himself as allied to the foes of the gods.

41. Hatred: so Regius; the other manuscript has, apparently,

“sickness.”

42. Just what Othin means, or why his words should so have enraged

Thor, is not evident, though he may imply that Thor is open to bribery.

Perhaps a passage has dropped out before stanza 43.

44. Othin refers to the dead, from whom he seeks information through

his magic power.

48. Sif: Thor’s wife, the lover being presumably Loki; cf. Lokasenna,

54.

52. Asathor: Thor goes by various names in the poems: e.g., Vingthor,

Vingnir, Hlorrithi. Asathor means “Thor of the Gods.”

53. Magni: Thor’s son; cf. stanza 9 and note.

56. Line 2: the phrases mean simply “a long way”; cf. “over stock and

stone.” Verland: the “Land of Men” to which Thor must come from the

land of the giants. The Arnamagnæan Codex has “Valland” (cf. stanza 24

and note), but this is obviously an error. Fjorgyn: a feminine form of

the same name, which belongs to Othin (cf. Voluspo, 56 and note); here

it evidently means Jorth (Earth), Thor’s mother. The road: the rainbow

bridge, Bifrost; cf. Grimnismol, 29 and note.

58. Line 2: so Regius; the other manuscript has “ere sunrise.”

60. The Arnamagnæan Codex clearly indicates Harbarth as the speaker of

this line, but Regius has no superscription, and begins the line with a

small letter not preceded by a period, thereby assigning it to Thor.

THE LAY OF HYMIR

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Hymiskvitha is found complete in both manuscripts; in Regius it

follows the Harbarthsljoth, while in the Arnamagnæan Codex it comes

after the Grimnismol. Snorri does not quote it, although he tells the

main story involved.

The poem is a distinctly inferior piece of work, obviously based on

various narrative fragments, awkwardly pieced together. Some critics,

Jessen and Edzardi for instance, have maintained that the compiler had

before him three distinct poems, which he simply put together; others,

like Finnur Jonsson and Mogk, think that the author made a new poem of

his own on the basis of earlier poems, now lost. It seems probable that

he took a lot of odds and ends of material concerning Thor, whether in

prose or in verse, and worked them together in a perfunctory way,

without much caring how well they fitted. His chief aim was probably to

impress the credulous imaginations of hearers greedy for wonders.

The poem is almost certainly one of the latest of those dealing with

the gods, though Finnur Jonsson, in order to support his theory of a

Norwegian origin, has to date it relatively early. If, as seems

probable, it was produced in Iceland, the chances are that it was

composed in the first half of the eleventh century. Jessen, rather

recklessly, goes so far as to put it two hundred years later. In any

case, it belongs to a period of literary decadence,—the great days of

Eddic poetry would never have permitted the nine hundred headed person

found in Hymir’s home—and to one in which the usual forms of diction in

mythological poetry had yielded somewhat to the verbal subtleties of

skaldic verse.

While the skaldic poetry properly falls outside the limits of this

book, it is necessary here to say a word about it. There is preserved,

in the sagas and elsewhere, a very considerable body of lyric poetry,

the authorship of each poem being nearly always definitely stated,

whether correctly or otherwise. This type of poetry is marked by an

extraordinary complexity of diction, with a peculiarly difficult

vocabulary of its own. It was to explain some of the “kennings” which

composed this special vocabulary that Snorri wrote one of the sections

of the Prose Edda. As an illustration, in a single stanza of one poem

in the Egilssaga, a sword is called “the halo of the helm,” “the

wound-hoe,” “the blood-snake” (possibly; no one is sure what the

compound word means) and “the ice of the girdle,” while men appear in

the same stanza as “Othin’s ash-trees,” and battle is spoken of as “the

iron game.” One of the eight lines has defied translation completely.

Skaldic diction made relatively few inroads into the earlier Eddic

poems, but in the Hymiskvitha these circumlocutions are fairly

numerous. This sets the poem somewhat apart from the rest of the

mythological collection. Only the vigor of the two main stories—Thor’s

expedition after Hymir’s kettle and the fishing trip in which he caught

Mithgarthsorm—saves it from complete mediocrity.

1. Of old the gods | made feast together,

And drink they sought | ere sated they were;

Twigs they shook, | and blood they tried:

Rich fare in Ægir’s | hall they found.

2. The mountain-dweller | sat merry as boyhood,

But soon like a blinded | man he seemed;

The son of Ygg | gazed in his eyes:

“For the gods a feast | shalt thou forthwith get.”

3. The word-wielder toil | for the giant worked,

And so revenge | on the gods he sought;

He bade Sif’s mate | the kettle bring:

“Therein for ye all | much ale shall I brew.”

4. The far-famed ones | could find it not,

And the holy gods | could get it nowhere;

Till in truthful wise | did Tyr speak forth,

And helpful counsel | to Hlorrithi gave.

5. “There dwells to the east | of Elivagar

Hymir the wise | at the end of heaven;

A kettle my father | fierce doth own,

A mighty vessel | a mile in depth.”

Thor spake:

6. “May we win, dost thou think, | this whirler of water?”

Tyr spake:

“Aye, friend, we can, | if cunning we are.”

7. Forward that day | with speed they fared,

From Asgarth came they | to Egil’s home;

The goats with horns | bedecked he guarded;

Then they sped to the hall | where Hymir dwelt.

8. The youth found his grandam, | that greatly he loathed,

And full nine hundred | heads she had;

But the other fair | with gold came forth,

And the bright-browed one | brought beer to her son.

9. “Kinsman of giants, | beneath the kettle

Will I set ye both, | ye heroes bold;

For many a time | my dear-loved mate

To guests is wrathful | and grim of mind.”

10. Late to his home | the misshapen Hymir,

The giant harsh, | from his hunting came;

The icicles rattled | as in he came,

For the fellow’s chin-forest | frozen was.

11. “Hail to thee, Hymir! | good thoughts mayst thou have;

Here has thy son | to thine hall now come;

(For him have we waited, | his way was long;)

And with him fares | the foeman of Hroth,

The friend of mankind, | and Veur they call him.

12. “See where under | the gable they sit!

Behind the beam | do they hide themselves.”

The beam at the glance | of the giant broke,

And the mighty pillar | in pieces fell.

13. Eight fell from the ledge, | and one alone,

The hard-hammered kettle, | of all was whole;

Forth came they then, | and his foes he sought,

The giant old, | and held with his eyes.

14. Much sorrow his heart | foretold when he saw

The giantess’ foeman | come forth on the floor;

Then of the steers | did they bring in three;

Their flesh to boil | did the giant bid.

15. By a head was each | the shorter hewed,

And the beasts to the fire | straight they bore;

The husband of Sif, | ere to sleep he went,

Alone two oxen | of Hymir’s ate.

16. To the comrade hoary | of Hrungnir then

Did Hlorrithi’s meal | full mighty seem;

“Next time at eve | we three must eat

The food we have | as the hunting’s spoil.”

17. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

Fain to row on the sea | was Veur, he said,

If the giant bold | would give him bait.

Hymir spake:

18. “Go to the herd, | if thou hast it in mind,

Thou slayer of giants, | thy bait to seek;

For there thou soon | mayst find, methinks,

Bait from the oxen | easy to get.”

19. Swift to the wood | the hero went,

Till before him an ox | all black he found;

From the beast the slayer | of giants broke

The fortress high | of his double horns.

Hymir spake:

20. “Thy works, methinks, | are worse by far,

Thou steerer of ships, | than when still thou sittest.”

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

21. The lord of the goats | bade the ape-begotten

Farther to steer | the steed of the rollers;

But the giant said | that his will, forsooth,

Longer to row | was little enough.

22. Two whales on his hook | did the mighty Hymir

Soon pull up | on a single cast;

In the stern the kinsman | of Othin sat,

And Veur with cunning | his cast prepared.

23. The warder of men, | the worm’s destroyer,

Fixed on his hook | the head of the ox;

There gaped at the bait | the foe of the gods,

The girdler of all | the earth beneath.

24. The venomous serpent | swiftly up

To the boat did Thor, | the bold one, pull;

With his hammer the loathly | hill of the hair

Of the brother of Fenrir | he smote from above.

25. The monsters roared, | and the rocks resounded,

And all the earth | so old was shaken;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

Then sank the fish | in the sea forthwith.

26. . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

Joyless as back | they rowed was the giant;

Speechless did Hymir | sit at the oars,

With the rudder he sought | a second wind.

Hymir spake:

27. “The half of our toil | wilt thou have with me,

And now make fast | our goat of the flood;

Or home wilt thou bear | the whales to the house,

Across the gorge | of the wooded glen?”

28. Hlorrithi stood | and the stem he gripped,

And the sea-horse with water | awash he lifted;

Oars and bailer | and all he bore

With the surf-swine home | to the giant’s house.

29. His might the giant | again would match,

For stubborn he was, | with the strength of Thor;

None truly strong, | though stoutly he rowed,

Would he call save one | who could break the cup.

30. Hlorrithi then, | when the cup he held,

Struck with the glass | the pillars of stone;

As he sat the posts | in pieces he shattered,

Yet the glass to Hymir | whole they brought.

31. But the loved one fair | of the giant found

A counsel true, | and told her thought:

“Smite the skull of Hymir, | heavy with food,

For harder it is | than ever was glass.”

32. The goats’ mighty ruler | then rose on his knee,

And with all the strength | of a god he struck;

Whole was the fellow’s | helmet-stem,

But shattered the wine-cup | rounded was.

Hymir spake:

33. “Fair is the treasure | that from me is gone,

Since now the cup | on my knees lies shattered;”

So spake the giant: | “No more can I say

In days to be, | ‘Thou art brewed, mine ale.’

34. “Enough shall it be | if out ye can bring

Forth from our house | the kettle here.”

Tyr then twice | to move it tried,

But before him the kettle | twice stood fast.

35. The father of Mothi | the rim seized firm,

And before it stood | on the floor below;

Up on his head | Sif’s husband raised it,

And about his heels | the handles clattered.

36. Not long had they fared, | ere backwards looked

The son of Othin, | once more to see;

From their caves in the east | beheld he coming

With Hymir the throng | of the many-headed.

37. He stood and cast | from his back the kettle,

And Mjollnir, the lover | of murder, he wielded;

. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .

So all the whales | of the waste he slew.

38. Not long had they fared | ere one there lay

Of Hlorrithi’s goats | half-dead on the ground;

In his leg the pole-horse | there was lame;

The deed the evil | Loki had done.

39. But ye all have heard,— | for of them who have

The tales of the gods, | who better can tell?—

What prize he won | from the wilderness-dweller,

Who both his children | gave him to boot.

40. The mighty one came | to the council of gods,

And the kettle he had | that Hymir’s was;

So gladly their ale | the gods could drink

In Ægir’s hall | at the autumn-time.

NOTES

1. Twigs: Vigfusson comments at some length on “the rite practised in

the heathen age of inquiring into the future by dipping bunches of

chips or twigs into the blood (of sacrifices) and shaking them.” But

the two operations may have been separate, the twigs being simply

“divining-rods” marked with runes. In either case, the gods were

seeking information by magic as to where they could find plenty to

drink. Ægir: a giant who is also the god of the sea; little is known of

him outside of what is told here and in the introductory prose to the

Lokasenna, though Snorri has a brief account of him, giving his home as

Hlesey (Läsö, cf. Harbarthsljoth, 37). Grimnismol, 45, has a reference

to this same feast.

2. Mountain-dweller: the giant (Ægir). Line 2: the principal word in

the original has defied interpretation, and any translation of the line

must be largely guesswork. Ygg: Othin; his son is Thor. Some editors

assume a gap after this stanza.

3. Word-wielder: Thor. The giant: Ægir. Sif: Thor’s wife; cf.

Harbarthsljoth, 48. The kettle: Ægir’s kettle is possibly the sea

itself.

4. Tyr: the god of battle; his two great achievements were thrusting

his hand into the mouth of the wolf Fenrir so that the gods might bind

him, whereby he lost his hand (cf. Voluspo, 39, note), and his fight

with the hound Garm in the last battle, in which they kill each other.

Hlorrithi: Thor.

5. Elivagar (“Stormy Waves”): possibly the Milky Way; cf.

Vafthruthnismol, 31, note. Hymir: this giant figures only in this

episode. It is not clear why Tyr, who is elsewhere spoken of as a son

of Othin, should here call Hymir his father. Finnur Jonsson, in an

attempt to get round this difficulty, deliberately changed the word

“father” to “grandfather,” but this does not help greatly.

6. Neither manuscript has any superscriptions, but most editors have

supplied them as above. From this point through stanza 11 the editors

have varied considerably in grouping the lines into stanzas. The

manuscripts indicate the third lines of stanzas 7, 8, 9, and 10 as

beginning stanzas, but this makes more complications than the present

arrangement. It is possible that, as Sijmons suggests, two lines have

been lost after stanza 6.

7. Egil: possibly, though by no means certainly, the father of Thor’s

servant, Thjalfi, for, according to Snorri, Thor’s first stop on this

journey was at the house of a peasant whose children, Thjalfi and

Roskva, he took into his service; cf. stanza 38, note. The Arnamagnæan

Codex has “Ægir” instead of “Egil,” but, aside from the fact that Thor

had just left Ægir’s house, the sea-god can hardly have been spoken of

as a goat-herd.

8. The youth: Tyr, whose extraordinary grandmother is Hymir’s mother.

We know nothing further of her, or of the other, who is Hymir’s wife

and Tyr’s mother. It may be guessed, however, that she belonged rather

to the race of the gods than to that of the giants.

11. Two or three editors give this stanza a superscription (“The

concubine spake,” “The daughter spake”). Line 3 is commonly regarded as

spurious. The foeman of Hroth: of course this means Thor, but nothing

is known of any enemy of his by this name. Several editors have sought

to make a single word meaning “the famous enemy” out of the phrase.

Concerning Thor as the friend of man, particularly of the peasant

class, cf. introduction to Harbarthsljoth. Veur: another name, of

uncertain meaning, for Thor.

13. Eight: the giant’s glance, besides breaking the beam, knocks down

all the kettles with such violence that all but the one under which

Thor and Tyr are hiding are broken.

14. Hymir’s wrath does not permit him to ignore the duties of a host to

his guests, always strongly insisted on.

15. Thor’s appetite figures elsewhere; cf. Thrymskvitha, 24.

16. The comrade of Hrungnir: Hymir, presumably simply because both are

giants; cf. Harbarthsljoth, 14 and note.

17. The manuscripts indicate no lacuna, and many editors unite stanza

17 with lines 1 and 2 of 18. Sijmons and Gering assume a gap after

these two lines, but it seems more probable that the missing passage,

if any, belonged before them, supplying the connection with the

previous stanza.

18. The manuscripts have no superscription. Many editors combine lines

3 and 4 with lines 1 and 2 of stanza 19. In Snorri’s extended

paraphrase of the story, Hymir declines to go fishing with Thor on the

ground that the latter is too small a person to be worth bothering

about. “You would freeze,” he says, “if you stayed out in mid-ocean as

long as I generally do.” Bait (line 4): the word literally means

“chaff,” hence any small bits; Hymir means that Thor should collect

dung for bait.

19. Many editors combine lines 3 and 4 with stanza 20. Fortress, etc.:

the ox’s head; cf. introductory note concerning the diction of this

poem. Several editors assume a lacuna after stanza 19, but this seems

unnecessary.

20. The manuscripts have no superscription. Steerer of ships: probably

merely a reference to Thor’s intention to go fishing. The lacuna after

stanza 20 is assumed by most editors.

21. Lord of the goats: Thor, because of his goat-drawn chariot.

Ape-begotten: Hymir; the word “api,” rare until relatively late times

in its literal sense, is fairly common with the meaning of “fool.”

Giants were generally assumed to be stupid. Steed of the rollers: a

ship, because boats were pulled up on shore by means of rollers.

23. Warder of men: Thor; cf. stanza 11. Worm’s destroyer: likewise

Thor, who in the last battle slays, and is slain by, Mithgarthsorm; cf.

Voluspo, 56. The foe of the gods: Mithgarthsorm, who lies in the sea,

and surrounds the whole earth.

24. Hill of the hair: head,—a thoroughly characteristic skaldic phrase.

Brother of Fenrir: Mithgarthsorm was, like the wolf Fenrir and the

goddess Hel, born to Loki and the giantess Angrbotha (cf. Voluspo, 39

and note), and I have translated this line accordingly; but the word

used in the text has been guessed as meaning almost anything from

“comrade” to “enemy.”

25. No gap is indicated in the manuscripts, but that a line or more has

been lost is highly probable. In Snorri’s version, Thor pulls so hard

on the line that he drives both his feet through the flooring of the

boat, and stands on bottom. When he pulls the serpent up, Hymir cuts

the line with his bait-knife, which explains the serpent’s escape.

Thor, in a rage, knocks Hymir overboard with his hammer, and then wades

ashore. The lines of stanzas 25 and 26 have been variously grouped.

26. No gap is indicated in the manuscripts, but line 2 begins with a

small letter. A second wind: another direction, i.e., he put about for

the shore.

27. No superscription in the manuscripts. In its place Bugge supplies a

line—“These words spake Hymir, | the giant wise.” The manuscripts

reverse the order of lines 2 and 3, and in both of them line 4 stands

after stanza 28. Goat of the flood: boat.

28. Sea-horse: boat. Surf-swine: the whales.

29. Snorri says nothing of this episode of Hymir’s cup. The glass which

cannot be broken appears in the folklore of various races.

31. The loved one: Hymir’s wife and Tyr’s mother; cf. stanza 8 and

note. The idea that a giant’s skull is harder than stone or anything

else is characteristic of the later Norse folk-stories, and in one of

the so-called “mythical sagas” we find a giant actually named

Hard-Skull.

32. Helmet-stem: head.

33. The manuscripts have no superscription. Line 4 in the manuscripts

is somewhat obscure, and Bugge, followed by some editors, suggests a

reading which may be rendered (beginning with the second half of line

3): “No more can I speak / Ever again | as I spoke of old.”

35. The father of Mothi and Sif’s husband: Thor.

36. The many-headed: The giants, although rarely designated as a race

in this way, sometimes had two or more heads; cf. stanza 8, Skirnismol,

31 and Vafthruthnismol, 33. Hymir’s mother is, however, the only

many-headed giant actually to appear in the action of the poems, and it

is safe to assume that the tradition as a whole belongs to the period

of Norse folk-tales of the märchen order.

37. No gap is indicated in the manuscripts. Some editors put the

missing line as 2, some as 3, and some, leaving the present three lines

together, add a fourth, and metrically incorrect, one from late paper

manuscripts: “Who with Hymir | followed after.” Whales of the

waste: giants.

38. According to Snorri, when Thor set out with Loki (not Tyr) for the

giants’ land, he stopped first at a peasant’s house (cf. stanza 7 and

note). There he proceeded to cook his own goats for supper. The

peasant’s son, Thjalfi, eager to get at the marrow, split one of the

leg-bones with his knife. The next morning, when Thor was ready to

proceed with his journey, he called the goats to life again, but one of

them proved irretrievably lame. His wrath led the peasant to give him

both his children as servants (cf. stanza 39). Snorri does not indicate

that Loki was in any way to blame.

39. This deliberate introduction of the story-teller is exceedingly

rare in the older poetry.

40. The translation of the last two lines is mostly guesswork, as the

word rendered “gods” is uncertain, and the one rendered “at the

autumn-time” is quite obscure.

LOKI’S WRANGLING

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Lokasenna is found only in Regius, where it follows the

Hymiskvitha; Snorri quotes four lines of it, grouped together as a

single stanza.

The poem is one of the most vigorous of the entire collection, and

seems to have been preserved in exceptionally good condition. The

exchange or contest of insults was dear to the Norse heart, and the

Lokasenna consists chiefly of Loki’s taunts to the assembled gods and

goddesses, and their largely ineffectual attempts to talk back to him.

The author was evidently well versed in mythological lore, and the poem

is full of references to incidents not elsewhere recorded. As to its

date and origin there is the usual dispute, but the latter part of the

tenth century and Iceland seem the best guesses.

The prose notes are long and of unusual interest. The introductory one

links the poem closely to the Hymiskvitha, much as the Reginsmol,

Fafnismol and Sigrdrifumol are linked together; the others fill in the

narrative gaps in the dialogue—very like stage directions,—and provide

a conclusion by relating Loki’s punishment, which, presumably, is here

connected with the wrong incident. It is likely that often when the

poem was recited during the two centuries or so before it was committed

to writing, the speaker inserted some such explanatory comments, and

the compiler of the collection followed this example by adding such

explanations as he thought necessary. The Lokasenna is certainly much

older than the Hymiskvitha, the connection between them being purely

one of subject-matter; and the twelfth-century compiler evidently knew

a good deal less about mythology than the author whose work he was

annotating.

Ægir, who was also called Gymir, had prepared ale for the gods, after

he had got the mighty kettle, as now has been told. To this feast came

Othin and Frigg, his wife. Thor came not, as he was on a journey in the

East. Sif, Thor’s wife, was there, and Bragi with Ithun, his wife. Tyr,

who had but one hand, was there; the wolf Fenrir had bitten off his

other hand when they had bound him. There were Njorth and Skathi his

wife, Freyr and Freyja, and Vithar, the son of Othin. Loki was there,

and Freyr’s servants Byggvir and Beyla. Many were there of the gods and

elves.

Ægir had two serving-men, Fimafeng and Eldir. Glittering gold they had

in place of firelight; the ale came in of itself; and great was the

peace. The guests praised much the ability of Ægir’s serving-men. Loki

might not endure that, and he slew Fimafeng. Then the gods shook their

shields and howled at Loki and drove him away to the forest, and

thereafter set to drinking again. Loki turned back, and outside he met

Eldir. Loki spoke to him:

1. “Speak now, Eldir, | for not one step

Farther shalt thou fare;

What ale-talk here | do they have within,

The sons of the glorious gods?”

Eldir spake:

2. “Of their weapons they talk, | and their might in war,

The sons of the glorious gods;

From the gods and elves | who are gathered here

No friend in words shalt thou find.”

Loki spake:

3. “In shall I go | into Ægir’s hall,

For the feast I fain would see;

Bale and hatred | I bring to the gods,

And their mead with venom I mix.”

Eldir spake:

4. “If in thou goest | to Ægir’s hall,

And fain the feast wouldst see,

And with slander and spite | wouldst sprinkle the gods,

Think well lest they wipe it on thee.”

Loki spake:

5. “Bethink thee, Eldir, | if thou and I

Shall strive with spiteful speech;

Richer I grow | in ready words

If thou speakest too much to me.”

Then Loki went into the hall, but when they who were there saw who had

entered, they were all silent.

Loki spake:

6. “Thirsty I come | into this thine hall,

I, Lopt, from a journey long,

To ask of the gods | that one should give

Fair mead for a drink to me.

7. “Why sit ye silent, | swollen with pride,

Ye gods, and no answer give?

At your feast a place | and a seat prepare me,

Or bid me forth to fare.”

Bragi spake:

8. “A place and a seat | will the gods prepare

No more in their midst for thee;

For the gods know well | what men they wish

To find at their mighty feasts.”

Loki spake:

9. “Remember, Othin, | in olden days

That we both our blood have mixed;

Then didst thou promise | no ale to pour,

Unless it were brought for us both.”

Othin spake:

10. “Stand forth then, Vithar, | and let the wolf’s father

Find a seat at our feast;

Lest evil should Loki | speak aloud

Here within Ægir’s hall.”

Then Vithar arose and poured drink for Loki; but before he drank he

spoke to the gods:

11. “Hail to you, gods! | ye goddesses, hail!

Hail to the holy throng!

Save for the god | who yonder sits,

Bragi there on the bench.”

Bragi spake:

12. “A horse and a sword | from my hoard will I give,

And a ring gives Bragi to boot,

That hatred thou makst not | among the gods;

So rouse not the great ones to wrath.”

Loki spake:

13. “In horses and rings | thou shalt never be rich,

Bragi, but both shalt thou lack;

Of the gods and elves | here together met

Least brave in battle art thou,

(And shyest thou art of the shot.)”

Bragi spake:

14. “Now were I without | as I am within,

And here in Ægir’s hall,

Thine head would I bear | in mine hands away,

And pay thee the price of thy lies.”

Loki spake:

15. “In thy seat art thou bold, | not so are thy deeds,

Bragi, adorner of benches!

Go out and fight | if angered thou feelest,

No hero such forethought has.”

Ithun spake:

16. “Well, prithee, Bragi, | his kinship weigh,

Since chosen as wish-son he was;

And speak not to Loki | such words of spite

Here within Ægir’s hall.”

Loki spake:

17. “Be silent, Ithun! | thou art, I say,

Of women most lustful in love,

Since thou thy washed-bright | arms didst wind

About thy brother’s slayer.”

Ithun spake:

18. “To Loki I speak not | with spiteful words

Here within Ægir’s hall;

And Bragi I calm, | who is hot with beer,

For I wish not that fierce they should fight.”

Gefjun spake:

19. “Why, ye gods twain, | with bitter tongues

Raise hate among us here?

Loki is famed | for his mockery foul,

And the dwellers in heaven he hates.”

Loki spake:

20. “Be silent, Gefjun! | for now shall I say

Who led thee to evil life;

The boy so fair | gave a necklace bright,

And about him thy leg was laid.”

Othin spake:

21. “Mad art thou, Loki, | and little of wit,

The wrath of Gefjun to rouse;

For the fate that is set | for all she sees,

Even as I, methinks.”

Loki spake:

22. “Be silent, Othin! | not justly thou settest

The fate of the fight among men;

Oft gavst thou to him | who deserved not the gift,

To the baser, the battle’s prize.”

Othin spake:

23. “Though I gave to him | who deserved not the gift,

To the baser, the battle’s prize;

Winters eight | wast thou under the earth,

Milking the cows as a maid,

(Ay, and babes didst thou bear;

Unmanly thy soul must seem.)”

Loki spake:

24. “They say that with spells | in Samsey once

Like witches with charms didst thou work;

And in witch’s guise | among men didst thou go;

Unmanly thy soul must seem.”

Frigg spake:

25. “Of the deeds ye two | of old have done

Ye should make no speech among men;

Whate’er ye have done | in days gone by,

Old tales should ne’er be told.”

Loki spake:

26. “Be silent, Frigg! | thou art Fjorgyn’s wife,

But ever lustful in love;

For Vili and Ve, | thou wife of Vithrir,

Both in thy bosom have lain.”

Frigg spake:

27. “If a son like Baldr | were by me now,

Here within Ægir’s hall,

From the sons of the gods | thou shouldst go not forth

Till thy fierceness in fight were tried.”

Loki spake:

28. “Thou wilt then, Frigg, | that further I tell

Of the ill that now I know;

Mine is the blame | that Baldr no more

Thou seest ride home to the hall.”

Freyja spake:

29. “Mad art thou, Loki, | that known thou makest

The wrong and shame thou hast wrought;

The fate of all | does Frigg know well,

Though herself she says it not.”

Loki spake:

30. “Be silent, Freyja! | for fully I know thee,

Sinless thou art not thyself;

Of the gods and elves | who are gathered here,

Each one as thy lover has lain.”

Freyja spake:

31. “False is thy tongue, | and soon shalt thou find

That it sings thee an evil song;

The gods are wroth, | and the goddesses all,

And in grief shalt thou homeward go.”

Loki spake:

32. “Be silent, Freyja! | thou foulest witch,

And steeped full sore in sin;

In the arms of thy brother | the bright gods caught thee

When Freyja her wind set free.”

Njorth spake:

33. “Small ill does it work | though a woman may have

A lord or a lover or both;

But a wonder it is | that this womanish god

Comes hither, though babes he has borne.”

Loki spake:

34. “Be silent, Njorth; | thou wast eastward sent,

To the gods as a hostage given;

And the daughters of Hymir | their privy had

When use did they make of thy mouth.”

Njorth spake:

35. “Great was my gain, | though long was I gone,

To the gods as a hostage given;

The son did I have | whom no man hates,

And foremost of gods is found.”

Loki spake:

36. “Give heed now, Njorth, | nor boast too high,

No longer I hold it hid;

With thy sister hadst thou | so fair a son,

Thus hadst thou no worse a hope.”

Tyr spake:

37. “Of the heroes brave | is Freyr the best

Here in the home of the gods;

He harms not maids | nor the wives of men,

And the bound from their fetters he frees.”

Loki spake:

38. “Be silent, Tyr! | for between two men

Friendship thou ne’er couldst fashion;

Fain would I tell | how Fenrir once

Thy right hand rent from thee.”

Tyr spake:

39. “My hand do I lack, | but Hrothvitnir thou,

And the loss brings longing to both;

Ill fares the wolf | who shall ever await

In fetters the fall of the gods.”

Loki spake:

40. “Be silent, Tyr! | for a son with me

Thy wife once chanced to win;

Not a penny, methinks, | wast thou paid for the wrong,

Nor wast righted an inch, poor wretch.”

Freyr spake:

41. “By the mouth of the river | the wolf remains

Till the gods to destruction go;

Thou too shalt soon, | if thy tongue is not stilled,

Be fettered, thou forger of ill.”

Loki spake:

42. “The daughter of Gymir | with gold didst thou buy,

And sold thy sword to boot;

But when Muspell’s sons | through Myrkwood ride,

Thou shalt weaponless wait, poor wretch.”

Byggvir spake:

43. “Had I birth so famous | as Ingunar-Freyr,

And sat in so lofty a seat,

I would crush to marrow | this croaker of ill,

And beat all his body to bits.”

Loki spake:

44. “What little creature | goes crawling there,

Snuffling and snapping about?

At Freyr’s ears ever | wilt thou be found,

Or muttering hard at the mill.”

Byggvir spake:

45. “Byggvir my name, | and nimble am I,

As gods and men do grant;

And here am I proud | that the children of Hropt

Together all drink ale.”

Loki spake:

46. “Be silent, Byggvir! | thou never couldst set

Their shares of the meat for men;

Hid in straw on the floor, | they found thee not

When heroes were fain to fight.”

Heimdall spake:

47. “Drunk art thou, Loki, | and mad are thy deeds,

Why, Loki, leavst thou this not?

For drink beyond measure | will lead all men

No thought of their tongues to take.”

Loki spake:

48. “Be silent, Heimdall! | in days long since

Was an evil fate for thee fixed;

With back held stiff | must thou ever stand,

As warder of heaven to watch.”

Skathi spake:

49. “Light art thou, Loki, | but longer thou mayst not

In freedom flourish thy tail;

On the rocks the gods bind thee | with bowels torn

Forth from thy frost-cold son.”

Loki spake:

50. “Though on rocks the gods bind me | with bowels torn

Forth from my frost-cold son,

I was first and last | at the deadly fight

There where Thjazi we caught.”

Skathi spake:

51. “Wert thou first and last | at the deadly fight

There where Thjazi was caught,

From my dwellings and fields | shall ever come forth

A counsel cold for thee.”

Loki spake:

52. “More lightly thou spakest | with Laufey’s son,

When thou badst me come to thy bed;

Such things must be known | if now we two

Shall seek our sins to tell.”

Then Sif came forward and poured mead for Loki in a crystal cup, and

said:

53. “Hail to thee, Loki, | and take thou here

The crystal cup of old mead;

For me at least, | alone of the gods,

Blameless thou knowest to be.”

He took the horn, and drank therefrom:

54. “Alone thou wert | if truly thou wouldst

All men so shyly shun;

But one do I know | full well, methinks,

Who had thee from Hlorrithi’s arms,—

(Loki the crafty in lies.)”

Beyla spake:

55. “The mountains shake, | and surely I think

From his home comes Hlorrithi now;

He will silence the man | who is slandering here

Together both gods and men.”

Loki spake:

56. “Be silent, Beyla! | thou art Byggvir’s wife,

And deep art thou steeped in sin;

A greater shame | to the gods came ne’er,

Befouled thou art with thy filth.”

Then came Thor forth, and spake:

57. “Unmanly one, cease, | or the mighty hammer,

Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;

Thy shoulder-cliff | shall I cleave from thy neck,

And so shall thy life be lost.”

Loki spake:

58. “Lo, in has come | the son of Earth:

Why threaten so loudly, Thor?

Less fierce thou shalt go | to fight with the wolf

When he swallows Sigfather up.”

Thor spake:

59. “Unmanly one, cease, | or the mighty hammer,

Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;

I shall hurl thee up | and out in the East,

Where men shall see thee no more.”

Loki spake:

60. “That thou hast fared | on the East-road forth

To men shouldst thou say no more;

In the thumb of a glove | didst thou hide, thou great one,

And there forgot thou wast Thor.”

Thor spake:

61. “Unmanly one, cease, | or the mighty hammer,

Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;

My right hand shall smite thee | with Hrungnir’s slayer,

Till all thy bones are broken.”

Loki spake:

62. “A long time still | do I think to live,

Though thou threatenest thus with thy hammer;

Rough seemed the straps | of Skrymir’s wallet,

When thy meat thou mightest not get,

(And faint from hunger didst feel.)”

Thor spake:

63. “Unmanly one, cease, | or the mighty hammer,

Mjollnir, shall close thy mouth;

The slayer of Hrungnir | shall send thee to hell,

And down to the gate of death.”

Loki spake:

64. “I have said to the gods | and the sons of the gods

The things that whetted my thoughts;

But before thee alone | do I now go forth,

For thou fightest well, I ween.

65. “Ale hast thou brewed, | but, Ægir, now

Such feasts shalt thou make no more;

O’er all that thou hast | which is here within

Shall play the flickering flames,

(And thy back shall be burnt with fire.)”

And after that Loki hid himself in Franang’s waterfall in the guise of

a salmon, and there the gods took him. He was bound with the bowels of

his son Vali, but his son Narfi was changed to a wolf. Skathi took a

poison-snake and fastened it up over Loki’s face, and the poison

dropped thereon. Sigyn, Loki’s wife, sat there and held a shell under

the poison, but when the shell was full she bore away the poison, and

meanwhile the poison dropped on Loki. Then he struggled so hard that

the whole earth shook therewith; and now that is called an earthquake.

NOTES

Prose. Ægir: the sea-god; Snorri gives Hler as another of his names,

but he is not elsewhere called Gymir, which is the name of the giant,

Gerth’s father, in the Skirnismol. On Ægir cf. Grimnismol, 45, and

Hymiskvitha, 1. Frigg: though Othin’s wife is often mentioned, she

plays only a minor part in the Eddic poems; cf. Voluspo, 34,

Vafthruthnismol, 1, and Grimnismol, introductory prose. Thor: the

compiler is apparently a trifle confused as to Thor’s movements; the

“journey in the East” here mentioned cannot be the one described in the

Hymiskvitha, nor yet the one narrated by Snorri, as Loki was with Thor

throughout that expedition. He probably means no more than that Thor

was off killing giants. Sif: concerning Thor’s wife the chief incident

is that Loki cut off her hair, and, at the command of the wrathful

Thor, was compelled to have the dwarfs fashion her a new supply of hair

out of gold; cf. Harbarthsljoth, 48. Bragi: the god of poetry; cf.

Grimnismol, 44 and note. Ithun: the goddess of youth; cf. note on

Skirnismol, 19. Ithun is not mentioned by name in any other of the

Eddic poems, but Snorri tells in detail how the giant Thjazi stole her

and her apples, explaining the reference in Harbarthsljoth, 19 (q. v.).

Tyr: the god of battle; cf. Hymiskvitha, 4, and (concerning his

dealings with the wolf Fenrir) Voluspo, 39, note. Njorth: the chief of

the Wanes, and father of Freyr and Freyja; cf. (concerning the whole

family) Skirnismol, introductory prose and note, also Voluspo, 21 and

note. Skathi: Njorth’s wife was the daughter of the giant Thjazi; cf.

Harbarthsljoth, 19, note, and Grimnismol, 11. Vithar: the silent god,

the son of Othin who avenged his father by slaying the wolf Fenrir; cf.

Voluspo, 54, Vafthruthnismol, 51, and Grimnismol, 17. Loki: the

mischief-making fire-god; in addition to the many references to his

career in the Lokasenna, cf. particularly Voluspo, 32 and 35, and

notes. Byggvir and Beyla: not mentioned elsewhere in the poems; Freyr’s

conspicuous servant is Skirnir, hero of the Skirnismol. Fimafeng (“The

Swift Handler”) and Eldir (“The Man of the Fire”): mentioned only in

connection with this incident. Glittering gold: Ægir’s use of gold to

light his hall, which was often thought of as under the sea, was

responsible for the phrase “flame of the flood,” and sundry kindred

phrases, meaning “gold.”

6. Lopt: like Lothur (cf. Voluspo, 18) another name for Loki; cf.

Hyndluljoth, 43, and Svipdagsmol, 42.

7. In the manuscript this stanza begins with a small letter, and

Heinzel unites it with stanza 6.

8. Bragi: cf. note on introductory prose. Why Loki taunts him with

cowardice (stanzas 11–13–15) is not clear, for poetry, of which Bragi

was the patron, was generally associated in the Norse mind with

peculiar valor, and most of the skaldic poets were likewise noted

fighters.

9. There exists no account of any incident in which Othin and Loki thus

swore blood-brotherhood, but they were so often allied in enterprises

that the idea is wholly reasonable. The common process of “mingling

blood” was carried out quite literally, and the promise of which Loki

speaks is characteristic of those which, in the sagas, often

accompanied the ceremony; cf. Brot af Sigurtharkvithu, 18 and note.

10. In stanzas 10–31 the manuscript has nothing to indicate the

identity of the several speakers, but these are uniformly clear enough

through the context. Vithar: cf. note on introductory prose. The wolf’s

father: Loki; cf. Voluspo, 39 and note.

13. Sijmons makes one line of lines 4–5 by cutting out a part of each;

Finnur Jonsson rejects 5 as spurious.

14. The text of line 4 is somewhat obscure, and has been variously

emended, one often adopted suggestion making the line read, “Little is

that for thy lies.”

15. Adorner of benches: this epithet presumably implies that Bragi is

not only slothful, but also effeminate, for a very similar word, “pride

of the benches,” means a bride.

16. Ithun: Bragi’s wife; cf. note on introductory prose. The goddesses

who, finding that their husbands are getting the worst of it, take up

the cudgels with Loki, all find themselves confronted with undeniable

facts in their own careers; cf. stanzas 26 (Frigg), 52 (Skathi) and 54

(Sif). Gefjun and Freyja are silenced in similar fashion. Wish-son:

adopted son; Loki was the son of the giant Farbauti and the giantess

Laufey, and hence was not of the race of the gods, but had been

virtually adopted by Othin, who subsequently had good reason to regret

it.

17. We do not even know who Ithun’s brother was, much less who slew

him.

19. Gefjun: a goddess, not elsewhere mentioned in the poems, who,

according to Snorri, was served by the women who died maidens. Beyond

this nothing is known of her. Lines 3–4 in the manuscript are puzzling,

and have been freely emended.

20. Nothing is known of the incident here mentioned. There is a good

deal of confusion as to various of the gods and goddesses, and it has

been suggested that Gefjun is really Frigg under another name, with a

little of Freyja—whose attributes were frequently confused with

Frigg’s—thrown in. Certainly Othin’s answer (stanza 21, lines 3–4) fits

Frigg perfectly, for she shared his knowledge of the future, whereas it

has no relation to anything known of Gefjun. As for the necklace (line

3), it may be the Brisings’ necklace, which appears in the Thrymskvitha

as Freyja’s, but which, in some mythological writings, is assigned to

Frigg.

21. Snorri quotes line 1; cf. note on stanza 29.

23. There is no other reference to Loki’s having spent eight years

underground, or to his cow-milking. On one occasion, however, he did

bear offspring. A giant had undertaken to build the gods a fortress,

his reward being Freyja and the sun and moon, provided the work was

done by a given time. His sole helper was his horse, Svathilfari. The

work being nearly done, and the gods fearing to lose Freyja and the sun

and moon, Loki turned himself into a mare, and so effectually

distracted Svathilfari from his task that shortly afterwards Loki gave

birth to Othin’s eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. In such contests of

abuse a man was not infrequently taunted with having borne children;

cf. Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I, 39–45. One or two of the last three

lines may be spurious.

24. Samsey: perhaps the Danish island of Samsö. Othin was the god of

magic, but there is no other reference to his ever having disguised

himself as a witch.

25. Frigg: Othin’s wife; cf. note to introductory prose.

26. Fjorgyn: Othin; cf. Voluspo, 56 and note. Vili and Ve: Othin’s

brothers, who appear merely as, with Othin, the sons of Bur and Bestla;

cf. Voluspo, 4. The Ynglingasaga says that, during one of Othin’s

protracted absences, his two brothers took Frigg as their mistress.

Vithrir: another name for Othin.

27. On the death of Baldr, slain through Loki’s cunning by the blind

Hoth, cf. Voluspo, 32 and note.

29. Freyja: daughter of Njorth and sister of Freyr; cf. note on

introductory prose. Snorri, in speaking of Frigg’s knowledge of the

future, makes a stanza out of Lokasenna, 21, 1; 47, 2; 29, 3–4, thus:

“Mad art thou, Loki, | and little of wit, / Why, Loki, leavst thou

this not? / The fate of all | does Frigg know well, / Though

herself she says it not.”

30. According to Snorri, Freyja was a model of fidelity to her husband,

Oth.

32. Before each of stanzas 32–42 the manuscript indicates the speaker,

through the initial letter of the name written in the margin. Thy

brother: Freyr; there is no other indication that such a relation

existed between these two, but they themselves were the product of such

a union; cf. stanza 36 and note.

33. Njorth: father of Freyr and Freyja, and given by the Wanes as a

hostage, in exchange for Hönir, at the close of the first war; cf.

Voluspo, 21 and note, also Skirnismol, introductory prose and note.

Babes: cf. stanza 23 and note. Bugge suggests that this clause may have

been a late insertion.

34. Daughters of Hymir: we have no clue to who these were, though Hymir

is doubtless the frost-giant of the Hymiskvitha (q.v.). Loki’s point is

that Njorth is not a god, but the product of an inferior race (the

Wanes).

35. The son: Freyr.

36. Thy sister: the Ynglingasaga supports this story of Njorth’s having

had two children by his sister before he came among the gods. Snorri,

on the other hand, specifically says that Freyr and Freyja were born

after Njorth came to the gods.

37. Tyr: the god of battle; cf. notes on Hymiskvitha, 4, and Voluspo,

39. Freyr; concerning his noble qualities cf. Skirnismol, introductory

prose and note.

38. Snorri mentions Tyr’s incompetence as a peacemaker. Fenrir: the

wolf, Loki’s son; cf. Voluspo, 39.

39. Hrothvitnir (“The Mighty Wolf”): Fenrir, who awaits in chains the

final battle and death at the hands of Vithar. The manuscript has a

metrical error in line 3, which has led to various emendations, all

with much the same meaning.

40. Thy wife: there is no other reference to Tyr’s wife, nor do we know

who was the son in question.

41. The mouth of the river: according to Snorri, the chained Fenrir

“roars horribly, and the slaver runs from his mouth, and makes the

river called Vam; he lies there till the doom of the gods.” Freyr’s

threat is actually carried out; cf. concluding prose.

42. The daughter of Gymir: Gerth, heroine of the Skirnismol, which

gives the details of Freyr’s loss of his sword. Muspell’s sons: the

name Muspell is not used elsewhere in the poems; Snorri uses it

frequently, but only in this same phrase, “Muspell’s sons.” They are

the dwellers in the fire-world, Muspellsheim, led by Surt against the

gods in the last battle; cf. Voluspo, 47 and 52 and notes. Myrkwood:

here the dark forest bounding the fire-world; in the Atlakvitha (stanza

3) the name is used of another boundary forest.

43. Byggvir: one of Freyr’s two servants; cf. introductory prose.

Ingunar-Freyr: the name is not used elsewhere in the poems, or by

Snorri; it may be the genitive of a woman’s name, Ingun, the unknown

sister of Njorth who was Freyr’s mother (cf. stanza 36), or a

corruption of the name Ingw, used for Freyr (Fro) in old German

mythology.

44. Beginning with this stanza, the names of the speakers are lacking

in the manuscript. The mill: i.e., at slaves’ tasks.

45. Nothing further is known of either Byggvir’s swiftness or his

cowardice. Hropt: Othin.

47. Heimdall: besides being the watchman of the gods (cf. Voluspo, 27),

he appears also as the god of light (cf. Thrymskvitha, 14), and

possibly also as a complex cultural deity in the Rigsthula. He was a

son of Othin, born of nine sisters; cf. Hyndluljoth, 37–40. In the last

battle he and Loki slay one another. Line 2 is quoted by Snorri; cf.

stanza 29, note.

49. Skathi: the wife of Njorth, and daughter of the giant Thjazi,

concerning whose death cf. Harbarthsljoth, 19, note. Bowels, etc.:

according to the prose note at the end of the Lokasenna, the gods bound

Loki with the bowels of his son Vali, and changed his other son, Narfi,

into a wolf. Snorri turns the story about, Vali being the wolf, who

tears his brother to pieces, the gods then using Narfi’s intestines to

bind Loki. Narfi—and presumably Vali—were the sons of Loki and his

wife, Sigyn. They appear only in this episode, though Narfi (or Nari)

is named by Snorri in his list of Loki’s children. Cf. concluding

prose, and note.

52. Laufey’s son: Loki; not much is known of his parents beyond their

names. His father was the giant Farbauti, his mother Laufey, sometimes

called Nal. There is an elaborate but far-fetched hypothesis explaining

these three on the basis of a nature-myth. There is no other reference

to such a relation between Skathi and Loki as he here suggests.

53. Sif: Thor’s wife; cf. Harbarthsljoth, 48, where her infidelity is

again mentioned. The manuscript omits the proper name from the

preceding prose, and a few editors have, obviously in error, attributed

the speech to Beyla.

54. Hlorrithi: Thor. Line 5 is probably spurious.

55. Beyla: Freyr’s servant, wife of Byggvir; cf. introductory prose and

note.

57. Mjollnir: concerning Thor’s famous hammer see particularly

Thrymskvitha, 1 and note. Shoulder-cliff: head; concerning the use of

such diction in the Edda, cf. introductory note to Hymiskvitha. The

manuscript indicates line 3 as the beginning of a stanza, but this is

apparently a scribal error.

58. Son of Earth: Thor, son of Othin and Jorth (Earth). The manuscript

omits the word “son,” but all editors have agreed in supplying it. The

wolf: Fenrir, Loki’s son, who slays Othin (Sigfather: “Father of

Victory”) in the final battle. Thor, according to Snorri and to the

Voluspo, 56, fights with Mithgarthsorm and not with Fenrir, who is

killed by Vithar.

59. Lines 1–2 are abbreviated in the manuscript, as also in stanzas 61

and 63.

60. Loki’s taunt that Thor hid in the thumb of Skrymir’s glove is

similar to that of Othin, Harbarthsljoth, 26, in the note to which the

story is outlined. Line 4 is identical with line 3 of Harbarthsljoth,

26.

61. Hrungnir’s slayer: the hammer; the story of how Thor slew this

stone-headed giant is indicated in Harbarthsljoth, 14–15, and outlined

in the note to stanza 14 of that poem.

62. On the day following the adventure of the glove, Thor, Loki and

Thor’s servants proceed on their way in company with Skrymir, who puts

all their food in his wallet. At evening Skrymir goes to sleep, and

Thor tries to get at the food, but cannot loosen the straps of the

wallet. In a rage he smites Skrymir three times on the head with his

hammer, but the giant—who, it subsequently appears, deftly dodges the

blows—is totally undisturbed. Line 5 may well be spurious.

65. The flames: the fire that consumes the world on the last day; cf.

Voluspo, 57. Line 5 may be spurious.

Prose: Snorri tells the same story, with minor differences, but makes

it the consequence of Loki’s part in the slaying of Baldr, which

undoubtedly represents the correct tradition. The compiler of the poems

either was confused or thought the incident was useful as indicating

what finally happened to Loki. Possibly he did not mean to imply that

Loki’s fate was brought upon him by his abuse of the gods, but simply

tried to round out the story. Franang: “Gleaming Water.” Vali and

Narfi: cf. stanza 49 and note. Sigyn: cf. Voluspo, 35, the only other

place where she is mentioned in the poems. Snorri omits the naive note

about earthquakes, his narrative ending with the words, “And there he

lies till the destruction of the gods.”

THE LAY OF THRYM

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The Thrymskvitha is found only in the Codex Regius, where it follows

the Lokasenna. Snorri does not quote from it, nor, rather oddly, does

the story occur in the Prose Edda.

Artistically the Thrymskvitha is one of the best, as it is, next to the

Voluspo, the most famous, of the entire collection. It has, indeed,

been called “the finest ballad in the world,” and not without some

reason. Its swift, vigorous action, the sharpness of its

characterization and the humor of the central situation combine to make

it one of the most vivid short narrative poems ever composed. Of course

we know nothing specific of its author, but there can be no question

that he was a poet of extraordinary ability. The poem assumed its

present form, most critics agree, somewhere about 900, and thus it is

one of the oldest in the collection. It has been suggested, on the

basis of stylistic similarity, that its author may also have composed

the Skirnismol, and possibly Baldrs Draumar. There is also some

resemblance between the Thrymskvitha and the Lokasenna (note, in this

connection, Bugge’s suggestion that the Skirnismol and the Lokasenna

may have been by the same man), and it is not impossible that all four

poems have a single authorship.

The Thrymskvitha has been preserved in excellent condition, without any

serious gaps or interpolations. In striking contrast to many of the

poems, it contains no prose narrative links, the story being told in

narrative verse—a rare phenomenon in the poems of the Edda.

1. Wild was Vingthor | when he awoke,

And when his mighty | hammer he missed;

He shook his beard, | his hair was bristling,

As the son of Jorth | about him sought.

2. Hear now the speech | that first he spake:

“Harken, Loki, | and heed my words,

Nowhere on earth | is it known to man,

Nor in heaven above: | our hammer is stolen.”

3. To the dwelling fair | of Freyja went they,

Hear now the speech | that first he spake:

“Wilt thou, Freyja, | thy feather-dress lend me,

That so my hammer | I may seek?”

Freyja spake:

4. “Thine should it be | though of silver bright,

And I would give it | though ’twere of gold.”

Then Loki flew, | and the feather-dress whirred,

Till he left behind him | the home of the gods,

And reached at last | the realm of the giants.

5. Thrym sat on a mound, | the giants’ master,

Leashes of gold | he laid for his dogs,

And stroked and smoothed | the manes of his steeds.

Thrym spake:

6. “How fare the gods, | how fare the elves?

Why comst thou alone | to the giants’ land?”

Loki spake:

“Ill fare the gods, | ill fare the elves!

Hast thou hidden | Hlorrithi’s hammer?”

Thrym spake:

7. “I have hidden | Hlorrithi’s hammer,

Eight miles down | deep in the earth;

And back again | shall no man bring it

If Freyja I win not | to be my wife.”

8. Then Loki flew, | and the feather-dress whirred,

Till he left behind him | the home of the giants,

And reached at last | the realm of the gods.

There in the courtyard | Thor he met:

Hear now the speech | that first he spake:

9. “Hast thou found tidings | as well as trouble?

Thy news in the air | shalt thou utter now;

Oft doth the sitter | his story forget,

And lies he speaks | who lays himself down.”

Loki spake:

10. “Trouble I have, | and tidings as well:

Thrym, king of the giants, | keeps thy hammer,

And back again | shall no man bring it

If Freyja he wins not | to be his wife.”

11. Freyja the fair | then went they to find;

Hear now the speech | that first he spake:

“Bind on, Freyja, | the bridal veil,

For we two must haste | to the giants’ home.”

12. Wrathful was Freyja, | and fiercely she snorted,

And the dwelling great | of the gods was shaken,

And burst was the mighty | Brisings’ necklace:

“Most lustful indeed | should I look to all

If I journeyed with thee | to the giants’ home.”

13. Then were the gods | together met,

And the goddesses came | and council held,

And the far-famed ones | a plan would find,

How they might Hlorrithi’s | hammer win.

14. Then Heimdall spake, | whitest of the gods,

Like the Wanes he knew | the future well:

“Bind we on Thor | the bridal veil,

Let him bear the mighty | Brisings’ necklace;

15. “Keys around him | let there rattle,

And down to his knees | hang woman’s dress;

With gems full broad | upon his breast,

And a pretty cap | to crown his head.”

16. Then Thor the mighty | his answer made:

“Me would the gods | unmanly call

If I let bind | the bridal veil.”

17. Then Loki spake, | the son of Laufey:

“Be silent, Thor, | and speak not thus;

Else will the giants | in Asgarth dwell

If thy hammer is brought not | home to thee.”

18. Then bound they on Thor | the bridal veil,

And next the mighty | Brisings’ necklace.

19. Keys around him | let they rattle,

And down to his knees | hung woman’s dress;

With gems full broad | upon his breast,

And a pretty cap | to crown his head.

20. Then Loki spake, | the son of Laufey:

“As thy maid-servant thither | I go with thee;

We two shall haste | to the giants’ home.”

21. Then home the goats | to the hall were driven,

They wrenched at the halters, | swift were they to

run;

The mountains burst, | earth burned with fire,

And Othin’s son | sought Jotunheim.

22. Then loud spake Thrym, | the giants’ leader:

“Bestir ye, giants, | put straw on the benches;

Now Freyja they bring | to be my bride,

The daughter of Njorth | out of Noatun.

23. “Gold-horned cattle | go to my stables,

Jet-black oxen, | the giant’s joy;

Many my gems, | and many my jewels,

Freyja alone | did I lack, methinks.”

24. Early it was | to evening come,

And forth was borne | the beer for the giants;

Thor alone ate an ox, | and eight salmon,

All the dainties as well | that were set for the

women;

And drank Sif’s mate | three tuns of mead.

25. Then loud spake Thrym, | the giants’ leader:

“Who ever saw bride | more keenly bite?

I ne’er saw bride | with a broader bite,

Nor a maiden who drank | more mead than this!”

26. Hard by there sat | the serving-maid wise,

So well she answered | the giant’s words:

“From food has Freyja | eight nights fasted,

So hot was her longing | for Jotunheim.”

27. Thrym looked ’neath the veil, | for he longed to kiss,

But back he leaped | the length of the hall:

“Why are so fearful | the eyes of Freyja?

Fire, methinks, | from her eyes burns forth.”

28. Hard by there sat | the serving-maid wise,

So well she answered | the giant’s words:

“No sleep has Freyja | for eight nights found,

So hot was her longing | for Jotunheim.”

29. Soon came the giant’s | luckless sister,

Who feared not to ask | the bridal fee:

“From thy hands the rings | of red gold take,

If thou wouldst win | my willing love,

(My willing love | and welcome glad.)”

30. Then loud spake Thrym, | the giants’ leader:

“Bring in the hammer | to hallow the bride;

On the maiden’s knees | let Mjollnir lie,

That us both the hand | of Vor may bless.”

31. The heart in the breast | of Hlorrithi laughed

When the hard-souled one | his hammer beheld;

First Thrym, the king | of the giants, he killed,

Then all the folk | of the giants he felled.

32. The giant’s sister | old he slew,

She who had begged | the bridal fee;

A stroke she got | in the shilling’s stead.

And for many rings | the might of the hammer.

33. And so his hammer | got Othin’s son.

NOTES

1. Vingthor (“Thor the Hurler”): another name for Thor, equivalent to

Vingnir (Vafthruthnismol, 51). Concerning Thor and his hammer,

Mjollnir, cf. Hymiskvitha, Lokasenna, and Harbarthsljoth, passim.

Jorth: Earth, Thor’s mother, Othin being his father.

2. Loki: cf. Lokasenna, passim.

3. Freyja: Njorth’s daughter, and sister of Freyr; cf. Lokasenna,

introductory prose and note, also Skirnismol, introductory prose.

Freyja’s house was Sessrymnir (“Rich in Seats”) built in Folkvang

(“Field of the Folk”); cf. Grimnismol, 14. Feather-dress: this flying

equipment of Freyja’s is also used in the story of Thjazi, wherein Loki

again borrows the “hawk’s dress” of Freyja, this time to rescue Ithun;

cf. Harbarthsljoth, 19 and note.

4. The manuscript and most editions have lines 1–2 in inverse order.

Several editors assume a lacuna before line 1, making a stanza out of

the two conjectural lines (Bugge actually supplies them) and lines 1–2

of stanza 4. Thus they either make a separate stanza out of lines 3–5

or unite them in a six-line stanza with 5. The manuscript punctuation

and capitalization—not wholly trustworthy guides—indicate the stanza

divisions as in this translation.

5. Thrym: a frost-giant. Gering declares that this story of the theft

of Thor’s hammer symbolizes the fact that thunderstorms rarely occur in

winter.

6. Line 1: cf. Voluspo, 48, 1. The manuscript does not indicate Loki as

the speaker of lines 3–4. Hlorrithi: Thor.

7. No superscription in the manuscript. Vigfusson made up and inserted

lines like “Then spake Loki | the son of Laufey” whenever he

thought they would be useful.

9. The manuscript marks line 2, instead of line 1, as the beginning of

a stanza, which has caused editors some confusion in grouping the lines

of stanzas 8 and 9.

10. No superscription in the manuscript.

12. Many editors have rejected either line 2 or line 3. Vigfusson

inserts one of his own lines before line 4. Brisings’ necklace: a

marvelous necklace fashioned by the dwarfs, here called Brisings (i.e.,

“Twiners”); cf. Lokasenna, 20 and note.

13. Lines 1–3 are identical with Baldrs Draumar, 1, 1–3.

14. Heimdall: the phrase “whitest of the gods” suggests that Heimdall

was the god of light as well as being the watchman. His wisdom was

probably connected with his sleepless watching over all the worlds; cf.

Lokasenna, 47 and note. On the Wanes cf. Voluspo, 21 and note. They are

not elsewhere spoken of as peculiarly gifted with knowledge of future

events.

16. Possibly a line has been lost from this stanza.

17. Laufey: Loki’s mother, cf. Lokasenna, 52 and note.

18–19. The manuscript abbreviates all six lines, giving only the

initial letters of the words. The stanza division is thus arbitrary;

some editors have made one stanza of the six lines, others have

combined the last two lines of stanza 19 with stanza 20. It is possible

that a couple of lines have been lost.

21. Goats: Thor’s wagon was always drawn by goats; cf. Hymiskvitha, 38

and note. Jotunheim: the world of the giants.

22. Njorth: cf. Voluspo, 21, and Grimnismol, 11 and 16. Noatun

(“Ships’-Haven”): Njorth’s home, where his wife, Skathi, found it

impossible to stay; cf. Grimnismol, 11 and note.

24. Grundtvig thinks this is all that is left of two stanzas describing

Thor’s supper. Some editors reject line 4. In line 3 the manuscript has

“he,” the reference being, of course, to Thor, on whose appetite cf.

Hymiskvitha, 15. Sif: Thor’s wife; cf. Lokasenna, note to introductory

prose and stanza 53.

27. For clearness I have inserted Thrym’s name in place of the pronoun

of the original. Fire: the noun is lacking in the manuscript; most

editors have inserted it, however, following a late paper manuscript.

28. In the manuscript the whole stanza is abbreviated to initial

letters, except for “sleep,” “Freyja,” and “found.”

29. Luckless: so the manuscript, but many editors have altered the word

“arma” to “aldna,” meaning “old,” to correspond with line 1 of stanza

32. Line 5 may well be spurious.

30. Hallow: just what this means is not clear, but there are references

to other kinds of consecration, though not of a bride, with the “sign

of the hammer.” According to Vigfusson, “the hammer was the holy sign

with the heathens, answering to the cross of the Christians.” In

Snorri’s story of Thor’s resuscitation of his cooked goat (cf.

Hymiskvitha, 38, note) the god “hallows” the goat with his hammer. One

of the oldest runic signs, supposed to have magic power, was named

Thor’s-hammer. Vor: the goddess of vows, particularly between men and

women; Snorri lists a number of little-known goddesses similar to Vor,

all of them apparently little more than names for Frigg.

33. Some editors reject this line, which, from a dramatic standpoint,

is certainly a pity. In the manuscript it begins with a capital letter,

like the opening of a new stanza.

ALVISSMOL

THE BALLAD OF ALVIS

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

No better summary of the Alvissmol can be given than Gering’s statement

that “it is a versified chapter from the skaldic Poetics.” The

narrative skeleton, contained solely in stanzas 1–8 and in 35, is of

the slightest; the dwarf Alvis, desirous of marrying Thor’s daughter,

is compelled by the god to answer a number of questions to test his

knowledge. That all his answers are quite satisfactory makes no

difference whatever to the outcome. The questions and answers differ

radically from those of the Vafthruthnismol. Instead of being

essentially mythological, they all concern synonyms. Thor asks what the

earth, the sky, the moon, and so on, are called “in each of all the

worlds,” but there is no apparent significance in the fact that the

gods call the earth one thing and the giants call it another; the

answers are simply strings of poetic circumlocutions, or “kennings.”

Concerning the use of these “kennings” in skaldic poetry, cf.

introductory note to the Hymiskvitha.

Mogk is presumably right in dating the poem as late as the twelfth

century, assigning it to the period of “the Icelandic renaissance of

skaldic poetry.” It appears to have been the work of a man skilled in

poetic construction,—Thor’s questions, for instance, are neatly

balanced in pairs,—and fully familiar with the intricacies of skaldic

diction, but distinctly weak in his mythology. In other words, it is

learned rather than spontaneous poetry. Finnur Jonsson’s attempt to

make it a tenth century Norwegian poem baffles logic. Vigfusson is

pretty sure the poem shows marked traces of Celtic influence, which is

by no means incompatible with Mogk’s theory (cf. introductory note to

the Rigsthula).

The poem is found only in Regius, where it follows the Thrymskvitha.

Snorri quotes stanzas 20 and 30, the manuscripts of the Prose Edda

giving the name of the poem as Alvissmol, Alsvinnsmol or Olvismol. It

is apparently in excellent condition, without serious errors of

transmission, although interpolations or omissions in such a poem might

have been made so easily as to defy detection.

The translation of the many synonyms presents, of course, unusual

difficulties, particularly as many of the Norse words can be properly

rendered in English only by more or less extended phrases. I have kept

to the original meanings as closely as I could without utterly

destroying the metrical structure.

Alvis spake:

1. “Now shall the bride | my benches adorn,

And homeward haste forthwith;

Eager for wedlock | to all shall I seem,

Nor at home shall they rob me of rest.”

Thor spake:

2. “What, pray, art thou? | Why so pale round the nose?

By the dead hast thou lain of late?

To a giant like | dost thou look, methinks;

Thou wast not born for the bride.”

Alvis spake:

3. “Alvis am I, | and under the earth

My home ’neath the rocks I have;

With the wagon-guider | a word do I seek;

Let the gods their bond not break.”

Thor spake:

4. “Break it shall I, | for over the bride

Her father has foremost right;

At home was I not | when the promise thou hadst,

And I give her alone of the gods.”

Alvis spake:

5. “What hero claims | such right to hold

O’er the bride that shines so bright?

Not many will know thee, | thou wandering man!

Who was bought with rings to bear thee?”

Thor spake:

6. “Vingthor, the wanderer | wide, am I,

And I am Sithgrani’s son;

Against my will | shalt thou get the maid,

And win the marriage word.”

Alvis spake:

7. “Thy good-will now | shall I quickly get,

And win the marriage word;

I long to have, | and I would not lack,

This snow-white maid for mine.”

Thor spake:

8. “The love of the maid | I may not keep thee

From winning, thou guest so wise,

If of every world | thou canst tell me all

That now I wish to know.

9. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the earth, | that lies before all,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

10. “‘Earth’ to men, ‘Field’ | to the gods it is,

‘The Ways’ is it called by the Wanes;

‘Ever Green’ by the giants, | ‘The Grower’ by elves,

‘The Moist’ by the holy ones high.”

Thor spake:

11. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the heaven, | beheld of the high one,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

12. “‘Heaven’ men call it, | ‘The Height’ the gods,

The Wanes ‘The Weaver of Winds’;

Giants ‘The Up-World,’ | elves ‘The Fair-Roof,’

The dwarfs ‘The Dripping Hall.’”

Thor spake:

13. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the moon, | that men behold,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

14. “‘Moon’ with men, ‘Flame’ | the gods among,

‘The Wheel’ in the house of hell;

‘The Goer’ the giants, | ‘The Gleamer’ the dwarfs,

The elves ‘The Teller of Time.’”

Thor spake:

15. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the sun, | that all men see,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

16. “Men call it ‘Sun,’ | gods ‘Orb of the Sun,’

‘The Deceiver of Dvalin’ the dwarfs;

The giants ‘The Ever-Bright,’ | elves ‘Fair Wheel,’

‘All-Glowing’ the sons of the gods.”

Thor spake:

17. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the clouds, | that keep the rains,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

18. “‘Clouds’ men name them, | ‘Rain-Hope’ gods call them,

The Wanes call them ‘Kites of the Wind’;

‘Water-Hope’ giants, | ‘Weather-Might’ elves,

‘The Helmet of Secrets’ in hell.”

Thor spake:

19. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the wind, | that widest fares,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

20. “‘Wind’ do men call it, | the gods ‘The Waverer,’

‘The Neigher’ the holy ones high;

‘The Wailer’ the giants, | ‘Roaring Wender’ the elves,

In hell ‘The Blustering Blast.’”

Thor spake:

21. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the calm, | that quiet lies,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

22. “‘Calm’ men call it, | ‘The Quiet’ the gods,

The Wanes ‘The Hush of the Winds’;

‘The Sultry’ the giants, | elves ‘Day’s Stillness,’

The dwarfs ‘The Shelter of Day.’”

Thor spake:

23. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the sea, | whereon men sail,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

24. “‘Sea’ men call it, | gods ‘The Smooth-Lying,’

‘The Wave’ is it called by the Wanes;

‘Eel-Home’ the giants, | ‘Drink-Stuff’ the elves,

For the dwarfs its name is ‘The Deep.’”

Thor spake:

25. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the fire, | that flames for men,

In each of all the worlds?”

Alvis spake:

26. “‘Fire’ men call it, | and ‘Flame’ the gods,

By the Wanes is it ‘Wildfire’ called;

‘The Biter’ by giants, | ‘The Burner’ by dwarfs,

‘The Swift’ in the house of hell.”

Thor spake:

27. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the wood, | that grows for mankind,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

28. “Men call it ‘The Wood,’ | gods ‘The Mane of the Field,’

‘Seaweed of Hills’ in hell;

‘Flame-Food’ the giants, | ‘Fair-Limbed’ the elves,

‘The Wand’ is it called by the Wanes.”

Thor spake:

29. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the night, | the daughter of Nor,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

30. “‘Night’ men call it, | ‘Darkness’ gods name it,

‘The Hood’ the holy ones high;

The giants ‘The Lightless,’ | the elves ‘Sleep’s Joy,’

The dwarfs ‘The Weaver of Dreams.’”

Thor spake:

31. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the seed, | that is sown by men,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

32. “Men call it ‘Grain,’ | and ‘Corn’ the gods,

‘Growth’ in the world of the Wanes;

‘The Eaten’ by giants, | ‘Drink-Stuff’ by elves,

In hell ‘The Slender Stem.’”

Thor spake:

33. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,

Dwarf, of the doom of men:

What call they the ale, | that is quaffed of men,

In each and every world?”

Alvis spake:

34. “‘Ale’ among men, | ‘Beer’ the gods among,

In the world of the Wanes ‘The Foaming’;

‘Bright Draught’ with giants, | ‘Mead’ with dwellers in hell,

‘The Feast-Draught’ with Suttung’s sons.”

Thor spake:

35. “In a single breast | I never have seen

More wealth of wisdom old;

But with treacherous wiles | must I now betray thee:

The day has caught thee, dwarf!

(Now the sun shines here in the hall.)”

NOTES

1. Alvis (“All-Knowing”): a dwarf, not elsewhere mentioned. The

manuscript nowhere indicates the speakers’ names. The bride in question