The Poetic Edda

Contents

1. 1The Wise-Woman’s Prophecy66 stanzas
2. 2The Ballad of the High One165 stanzas
3. 3The Ballad of Vafthruthnir55 stanzas
4. 4The Ballad of Grimnir54 stanzas
5. 5The Ballad of Skirnir43 stanzas
6. 6The Poem of Harbarth60 stanzas
7. 7The Lay of Hymir40 stanzas
8. 8Loki’s Wrangling65 stanzas
9. 9The Lay of Thrym33 stanzas
10. 10The Ballad of Alvis35 stanzas
11. 11Baldr’s Dreams14 stanzas
12. 12The Song of Rig49 stanzas
13. 13The Poem of Hyndla51 stanzas
14. 14The Ballad of Svipdag66 stanzas
15. 15The Lay of Völund43 stanzas
16. 16The Lay of Helgi the Son of Hjorvarth43 stanzas
17. 17The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane58 stanzas
18. 18The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane50 stanzas
19. 19Of Sinfjotli’s Death2 stanzas
20. 20Gripir’s Prophecy53 stanzas
21. 21The Ballad of Regin26 stanzas
22. 22The Ballad of Fafnir44 stanzas
23. 23The Ballad of the Victory-Bringer37 stanzas
24. 24Fragment of a Sigurth Lay20 stanzas
25. 25The First Lay of Guthrun25 stanzas
26. 26The Short Lay of Sigurth70 stanzas
27. 27Brynhild’s Hell-Ride14 stanzas
28. 28The Slaying of the Niflungs1 stanza
29. 29The Second, or Old, Lay of Guthrun45 stanzas
30. 30The Third Lay of Guthrun10 stanzas
31. 31The Lament of Oddrun32 stanzas
32. 32The Greenland Lay of Atli46 stanzas
33. 33The Greenland Ballad of Atli99 stanzas
34. 34Guthrun’s Inciting22 stanzas
35. 35The Ballad of Hamther31 stanzas

Nearest to the Papers

The passages of this work and the paragraphs of the Papers that are nearest to each other in meaning, as the API compares them.

• Voluspo 5-650%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. 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.85:5.2The Origins of WorshipMoon worship preceded sun worship. Veneration of the moon was at its height during the hunting era, while sun worship became the chief religious ceremony of the subsequent agricultural ages. Solar worship first took extensive root in India, and there it persisted the longest. In Persia sun veneration gave rise to the later Mithraic cult. Among many peoples the sun was regarded as the ancestor of their kings. The Chaldeans put the sun in the center of “the seven circles of the universe.” Later civilizations honored the sun by giving its name to the first day of the week.
• Hovamol 118-11948%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. 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.149:6.12The Second Preaching Tour“Well did the Prophet Jeremiah describe many mortals when he said: ‘You are near God in the mouth but far from him in the heart.’ And have you not also read that direful warning of the prophet who said: ‘The priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. At the same time they profess piety and proclaim that the Lord is with them.’ Have you not been well warned against those who ‘speak peace to their neighbors when mischief is in their hearts,’ those who ‘flatter with the lips while the heart is given to double-dealing’? Of all the sorrows of a trusting man, none are so terrible as to be ‘wounded in the house of a trusted friend.’”
• Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II 20-2245%“On the ground full low the slain are lying, Most are there of the men of thy race; Nought hast thou won, for thy fate it was Brave men to bring to the battle-field.” Then Sigrun wept. Helgi said: “Grieve not, Sigrun, the battle is gained, The fighter can shun not his fate.” Sigrun spake: “To life would I call them who slaughtered lie, If safe on thy breast I might be.” This Gothmund the son of Granmar spoke: “What hero great is guiding the ships? A golden flag on the stem he flies; I find not peace in the van of your faring, And round the fighters is battle-light red.”80:5.4Andite Expansion in the OccidentThe decisive struggles between the white man and the blue man were fought out in the valley of the Somme. Here, the flower of the blue race bitterly contested the southward-moving Andites, and for over five hundred years these Cro-Magnoids successfully defended their territories before succumbing to the superior military strategy of the white invaders. Thor, the victorious commander of the armies of the north in the final battle of the Somme, became the hero of the northern white tribes and later on was revered as a god by some of them.

This edition

Translator

Henry Adams Bellows

Year

1923

Tradition

Norse

Rights

Public domain in the United States

Source

Read at the source