The Poetic Edda Read online

  In addition to the Aesir gods, there are also the Vanir, who are lower in rank than the Aesir and associated with nature and fertility. The Vanir include Njorth, god of the sea, and his two children, Frey, god of agriculture, and Freyja, goddess of love. There are hints that there are (or were) more Vanir, but that the Aesir defeated them in an ancient war, and that Njorth and his children are the hostages from that conflict.

  The home of the gods in Asgard can be reached from Midgard by means of the rainbow bridge, Bifrost. This bridge is guarded by Heimdall, watchman of the gods, who has magnificent powers of vision and hearing, and who is also referred to as the father of human beings (for that story, see the poem Rigsthula). To the east of Asgard, beyond a vast sea that encircles Midgard, is Jotunheim, the realm of the gods’ enemies, the giants (note that the giants are not necessarily larger than the gods, and do not necessarily look different from gods or humans). There are other realms (such as Hel, the home of the dead who do not die in battle), but most of the action of the Eddic poems takes place on Midgard, Asgard, and Jotunheim. These realms are connected by the roots of the great ash tree Yggdrasil.

  Readers may be tempted to see the poems about the heroes as more separate from the poems about the gods than they are, but they are products of very much the same society and period, and the human heroes are connected to the gods both by genealogy (as the poem Voluspa en skamma shows) and by Odin’s profound interest in helping and harvesting human warriors (for instance, {xv} in Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II, where Odin assists Dag very directly in his mission of vengeance).

  The human characters of the heroic poems are members or relations of the family of the Volsungs, including most notably Sigmund and his sons Helgi and Sigurth. Helgi’s story is an interesting study in the variations and changes that can add up in a myth as it is told in different ways in different places and times, as the three poems about him follow the same basic skeletal pattern (a warrior-prince named Helgi falls in love with a Valkyrie) but with substantial differences, including who Helgi’s father is (Hjorvarth or Sigmund). The poems about Sigurth tell a more straightforward narrative, of a brave prince who kills a dragon but is killed when Brynhild, the jealous wife of his brother-in-law Gunnar, manipulates her husband and his brothers into betraying him. Following his death, the last poems of the Poetic Edda focus on Sigurth’s widow, Guthrun, who is remarried to Attila, and who kills her second husband after he kills her brothers.

  Motifs and Style

  The poetry of the Poetic Edda makes use of certain stock phrases and images, many of which are rooted in the realities of medieval life and warfare.

  Three species of scavenging predatory animals—eagles, ravens, and wolves—are frequently mentioned, alone or together. One particularly frequent motif is the “feeding of” (or as I have sometimes rendered it, “setting a table for”) these animals, a visceral shorthand for killing in battle. One of the most striking statements of this theme is from the poem Helgakvitha Hundingsbana I:

  [5] …

  One raven said

  to another raven,

  expecting a feast:

  “I know something:

  [6] “Sigmund’s young son

  will wear armor!

  He’s just a day old;

  his first day has just dawned.

  But he has sharp eyes

  {xvi} like a war-king;

  that boy’s a friend of wolves—

  we’ll be happy and well-fed!”

  Not only is being followed by scavenging predators predictive of success in battle (see, for instance, Reginsmal, st. 20 and 22), but as opportunistic feeders on the weak and dead, these creatures function also as a mirror in which the Norse raider sees himself and his warlike gods. Indeed the war-god Odin’s mental powers are literally embodied in his ravens Thought and Memory, as he implies in a stanza from Grimnismal, which for all its mythic color reads like the poignant reflection of an elderly man worried about what he might forget in his old age:

  [20] “Thought and Memory,

  my ravens, fly every day

  the whole world over.

  Each day I fear

  that Thought might not return,

  but I fear more for Memory.”

  Another major theme is wisdom, though this has a narrower meaning for us than it had for the Norse, who used “wisdom” to mean many sorts of mental abilities, including a deep knowledge of obscure facts and often some kind of power to foresee the future. So while Odin in the poem Havamal speaks of wisdom mostly in the modern sense of intelligent behavior and understanding, in the next poem, Vafthruthnismal, he has a contest to see whether he or the giant Riddle-Weaver is “wiser”—meaning whether he or the giant knows more facts and names about mythical creatures and places (similar definitions of what it means to be “wise” are seen in Grimnismal and Alvissmal, among other poems). Meanwhile, in Gripisspa, the hero Sigurth’s uncle Gripir is said to be wise because he can foresee the future. Of course, those who have this kind of wisdom are also those who are most acutely aware of the doom that awaits them, and this may be a curse, as Odin explicitly says in Havamal:

  [55] You should be

  only a little wise,

  never too wise.

  A wise man’s heart

  is seldom glad

  if he’s truly wise.

  {xvii} [56] You should be

  only a little wise,

  never too wise.

  It’s best not to know

  your fate beforehand;

  you’ll live happier if you don’t.

  Additionally, the Eddic poems are often rambling and discursive in a way that modern readers may not be used to, especially when it comes to dispensing “wisdom” of the kind briefly discussed above. Time and time again, the thread of a story will be momentarily broken while a character asks for or imparts some wisdom or lore. This is especially true of the poems about young Sigurth—see the exchange of Loki and Andvari in Reginsmal (st. 3–4) for a short example, or most of the poem Fafnismal for a very long example. Consider how abruptly Sigurth interrupts Fafnir—a dragon who is dying from a wound Sigurth gave him!—to ask him:

  [12] “Tell me, Fafnir,

  they say you are wise,

  and very knowledgeable—

  who are the Norns

  who govern childbirth

  and choose who mothers what child?”

  Another technique that may seem odd to modern readers is that many of the mythical stories in the Poetic Edda switch back and forth between prose (“plain” writing) and poetry. Many of the poems are preceded by a prose introduction that sets the stage for the action and dialogue in the poem—Grimnismal and Lokasenna, for example. Others have the dialogue mostly in verse but the narration mostly in prose (Helgakvitha Hjorvarthssonar is an example), or they conclude with a brief epilogue in prose (as Lokasenna or Brot af Sigurtharkvithu do), or simply with a note that the reader has reached the end of the poem, or a reminder of what the name of the poem is (as in Hamthismal).

  As for the characteristics of the poetry itself, the verses of the Poetic Edda do not rhyme or use a consistent number of syllables, as traditional English poetry does. Instead, the poetry is held together by alliteration and by counting the number of stressed syllables in a line.

  The meter used in most of the poems of the Poetic Edda is known appropriately as fornyrthislag, or “meter for ancient {xviii} sayings.” Each stanza consists of (usually) six to ten lines, with each odd line paired with the following even line. Each line will have two stressed syllables, one of which will alliterate with a stressed syllable in its paired line (the odd line may also have alliteration in both stressed syllables); usually the even line will begin with the alliterating syllable.

  The meter is not difficult to use in English, and something of its style may be gleaned from a single modern fornyrthislag stanza in English (an x above a syllable marks it as stressed, and a bold letter indicates alliteration with a syllable in the paired line):


  [1] xummingbxrds

  [1] Hummingbirds

  [2] xattle faxrcely,

  [2] battle fiercely,

  [3] xake waxr,

  [3] make war,

  [4] xighty fixers.

  [4] mighty fliers.

  [5] xeather-cxvered

  [5] Feather-covered

  [6] xighters hixe no

  [6] fighters have no

  [7] xread, sixe of

  [7] dread, save of

  [8] xying in pxace.

  [8] dying in peace.

  In my translation, I have not sought to reproduce the meter of the original poems, nor have I made any particular effort to regularize the length of lines in the poems if doing so would add to, or subtract from, the original meaning of a stanza. Old Norse is a highly inflected language, and often a much more compact medium of expression than English. In particular, Old Norse poetry frequently employs ad-hoc compound words known as kennings that are deliberate riddles to be deciphered. Kennings are typically compact analogies, such as “whale-road” (the sea, because whales travel on it) or “pen-blood” (ink, because it runs through a pen like blood through the body), but sometimes kennings include very obscure references, often to other tales from mythology or to shadowy semi-historical legends and characters. I have done the {xix} task of “unpacking” (or rather, fully translating) kennings and other allusive references for the reader, and thus it has usually been necessary to write lines that are longer in English than they are in Old Norse. Note also that the articles that English uses—a, an, the—are practically absent from the archaic language of the Eddic poems, and require additional space in the line in English.

  Many of the characters in these poems, especially major gods such as Odin, are referred to by many different names in the Old Norse text. I have referred to each character by one name instead, so as to reduce confusion about who is acting or speaking. At times, I have allowed the characters to be called “daughter of Buthli” or “son of Odin,” as they often are in the original Old Norse, but only when the surrounding context makes it clear who is meant.

  The poems often make it clear who is speaking, usually by inserting something like Loki kvath (“Loki said”) before a stanza. However, this is indicated more clearly and consistently in some poems than in others, and where a speaker is not indicated, I have inserted the name of the speaker into the stanza itself: for example, “But Helgi said, ‘Do not fear …,’” in a stanza where the original Old Norse text does not name the speaker at all. At times, especially in parts of the very old Atlakvitha and Hamthismal, I have had to make educated guesses (or an occasional silent correction) as to which character is meant to be speaking, but I do not believe that any of these guesses are controversial. Similarly, in poems where one speaker refers to him- or herself both as “I” and as “he” or “she” (this is especially true of the witch in Voluspa), I have reduced unnecessary confusion for the reader by having the speaker consistently use “I.”

  Language and Pronunciation

  The Poetic Edda was written in Old Norse, the written language of medieval Iceland and Norway. This language is the direct ancestor of today’s Icelandic and Norwegian languages, and is closely related to the ancestors of Danish and Swedish. Old Norse is also a “first cousin” to other old Germanic languages, such as Old English and Old High German, and thus distantly related (as an “aunt” or “uncle”) to their modern descendants such as English and German.

  Old Norse was written in the Roman alphabet (the alphabet used for English and most other Western European languages {xx} today) beginning in approximately AD 1150, with the addition of some new letters for sounds that the Roman alphabet was not designed to accommodate. In the interest of readability, particularly on digital devices, I have replaced these letters (, , æ, ø, and ) with their closest equivalents from the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, and I have inserted an e between another consonant and r in characters’ names (this affects especially Balder and Sigerdrifa). However, where an English translation of an Old Norse name is already widespread and popular, I have used that instead of directly transliterating the Old Norse name according to these principles: I use Odin, Midgard, and Valhalla instead of the more authentic or consistent Othin, Mithgarth, and Valholl.

  In reading aloud the Old Norse names in the translation, a few ground rules should be kept in mind. The accent is always on the first syllable of a word, thus AS-gard, not as-GARD, and JOT-un-heim, not jot-UN-heim, and so on. For consonants, a few additional comments should be enough to allow English speakers to read them naturally:

  f is pronounced as v unless at the beginning of a word or doubled; thus the name of Fafnir is pronounced close to FOV-near, and Sigerdrifa as SIG-er-DREEV-ah.

  g is pronounced “hard” as in go, never “soft” as in gin; thus the second syllable of Regin is like that of begin, not like the liquor gin.

  h can occur in the combinations Hl (Hlymdalir), Hr (Hrauthung), and Hv (Hvergelmir). Readers who wish to sound authentic can train their tongue by holding the h-sound in he for a second and then saying l, r, or v. With a little practice the combinations become easy to make (see also v, below).

  j is pronounced as the English y in young, or the German j in ja; thus Jotunheim is pronounced Yoat-un-hame.

  th is pronounced as the English th; thus Thor is correctly pronounced as it is usually pronounced in English (his name is not pronounced like tore or tour, as it is in modern Scandinavian languages or German).

  v is pronounced as the English v in very. It is possible that a v after another consonant was pronounced as w (as in Afrikaans today), so Hvergelmir would begin with the hw-sound of older American English “where,” and Svanhild would be pronounced as SWAN-hild.

  {xxi} Vowels are pronounced as in Spanish, so a is the o of American English got, e is the e of pet, i is the ee of feet, o is approximately the oa in boat (pronouncing this word with a Wisconsin accent will be nearer the actual Scandinavian pronunciation), and u is the oo of boot. The vowel y is similar to u, but further forward in the mouth, like the German ü or the vowel in a “surfer” pronunciation of dude or tune. The letter y is not used as a consonant in Old Norse (see j, above).

  The combination au is pronounced like the ou of house, while ei is the ai of rain, and ey is similar to the oy in boy (more authentically, the German äu or the Norwegian øy).

  The Text

  By the time the earliest manuscripts in Norway and Iceland were written (ca. AD 1150), belief in the gods such as Odin and Thor was a memory as old as the Civil War is in America today. Iceland was formally converted to Christianity in the year AD 1000, and Norway was converted piecemeal in the period between AD 995 and 1020.

  So it is surprising to learn that in approximately the year AD 1270—almost 300 years since the last sacrifices to the Norse gods had been made anywhere in Iceland—several poems concerning pre-Christian gods and heroes were written down there, in a manuscript known as the Codex Regius (or, in Icelandic, as Konungsbok). These poems make up the majority of the translations presented in this book, with one excluded, and with four poems from other manuscripts added (see the following section, “What Is Included in This Translation”). Together, these poems about the Norse gods and heroes make up the Poetic Edda.

  It is notable that the Poetic Edda offers us only myths and some general advice for living; it does not give us more than the most vague clues about prayers or rituals. This is not surprising, since it was copied by Christian hands. Consider that parents today may read their children stories from the Greek myths, without having any fear that their children will grow up to believe in Zeus, since no one around them takes these myths seriously. Similarly, the people of Iceland in the 1200s must have been so firmly converted to Christianity, and paganism must have been such a distant memory, that whoever wrote down these myths was probably doing so out of antiquarian interest rather than out of religious belief.

  {xxii} The Codex Regius manuscript itself is a copy of
an earlier manuscript, probably from around the year AD 1200; this dating is based on hints such as the way the spelling becomes haphazardly more archaic in some words than in others (by analogy, think of modernizing a centuries-old printing of Shakespeare’s plays by hand, but sometimes forgetting to update the spelling of words like “olde” to “old,” or to change a “thou” to “you”). Additionally, many of the poems are cited in the same or very similar form by Snorri Sturluson (AD 1178–1241) in his Prose Edda, composed in approximately AD 1225. This assures us that the poems in Codex Regius were composed, at the latest, in the early 1200s, but the language of some poems is so archaic that they must have been composed in some form before (or shortly after) the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in AD 1000.

  Atlakvitha and Hamthismal, two of the heroic poems, are almost certainly the oldest poems in the Poetic Edda, and were probably composed before AD 900 in Norway. Some of the poems about the gods (especially Voluspa, Havamal, Vafthruthnismal, and Thrymskvitha) also include linguistic features that suggest they were composed before AD 1000, and some (especially Havamal and Rigsthula) have words and references to social conventions that also demonstrate they were originally composed in Norway. But in spite of the fact that the poems were probably composed in the Viking Age, and certainly reflect Viking Age traditions, it is unlikely that they were not modified, enlarged, or shortened as they were passed down over the succeeding centuries.

  Finally, a note on the translation: Certain words pose problems to a translator who wishes to retain the sense of an original text that is sometimes surprisingly frank and informal in tone. One word that has been especially difficult to render satisfactorily is argr, a highly pejorative adjective implying a lack of manly qualities, and, especially, imputing to another a desire for a passive role in sex with a male. Comparable expressions in English and other modern languages tend to shift decade by decade and are often highly inflammatory. I have chosen to translate the word into English as “sissy,” which strikes me as acceptably informal, even if it does not quite convey the word’s full range of meaning.