The Poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows (translator)
3,671 passages indexed from The Poetic Edda (Henry Adams Bellows (translator)) — Page 21 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Poetic Edda, passage 3238
Frā Dauth′-a Sinf′-jotl-a, Of Sinfjotli’s Death, 270, 293, 295, 302,
332–337, 340, 342, 356, 357, 359, 365, 368, 374, 386, 388, 421, 454,
455.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1765
42. Fenrir’s-wolves: wolves in general. Thorsnes: “Thor’s Cape.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3215
Ey′-lim-i, father of Svava, 277, 284, 285, 287, 335.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2957
72. The manuscript marks line 3 as beginning a new stanza; some
editions make a separate stanza of lines 3–5, while others combine them
with lines 1–2 of stanza 73. Line 2 in the original is clearly
defective, the verb being omitted. The meaning of line 3 is uncertain;
the Volsungasaga paraphrase has: “At evening she took the sons of King
Atli (Erp and Eitil) where they were playing with a block of wood.”
Probably the text of the line as we have it is faulty. Lines 4–5 may
possibly have been expanded out of a single line, or line 5 may be
spurious.
The Poetic Edda, passage 275
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2918
30. The manuscript indicates no gap. Grundtvig inserts (line 2): “The
evil was clear | when his words he uttered.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 346
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 130
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2650
28. “Alone was I gone | to Geirmund then,
The draught to mix | and ready to make;
Sudden I heard | from Hlesey clear
How in sorrow the strings | of the harp resounded.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2871
82. “With fire shall they burn thee, | and first shall they
stone thee,
So then hast thou earned | what thou ever hast sought for.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 22
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3147
Baldrs Draumar, Baldr’s Dreams, 15, 19, 114, 174, 178, 195–200, 236.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3319
Heim′-dall, a god, 3, 12, 18, 20, 90, 97, 115, 166, 167, 178, 202, 203,
213, 228–230.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3655
Vīth′-ar, a god, 23, 82, 83, 91, 152, 155, 156, 164, 170, 228.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3177
Brodd, follower of Hrolf, 224.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2995
7. Laughing did Guthrun | go to her chamber,
The helms of the kings | from the cupboards she took,
And mail-coats broad, | to her sons she bore them;
On their horses’ backs | the heroes leaped.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1143
2. Then Othin rose, | the enchanter old,
And the saddle he laid | on Sleipnir’s back;
Thence rode he down | to Niflhel deep,
And the hound he met | that came from hell.
The Poetic Edda, passage 209
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3649
Vin′-bjorg, Grimhild’s land, 461.
The Poetic Edda, passage 688
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2341
23. Editors are agreed that this stanza shows interpolations, but
differ as to the lines to reject. Line 4 (literally “every wave of
ill-doing drives thee”) is substantially a proverb, and line 5, with
its apparently meaningless reference to “seven” kings, may easily have
come from some other source.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2412
65. “With shields and carpets | cover the pyre,
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
Shrouds full fair, | and fallen slaves,
And besides the Hunnish | hero burn me.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1329
9. Foreign metal: gold. The word valr, meaning “foreign,” and akin to
“Welsh,” is interesting in this connection, and some editors interpret
it frankly as “Celtic,” i.e., Irish.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2733
41. There was clamor on the benches, | and the cry of men,
The clashing of weapons, | and weeping of the Huns,
Save for Guthrun only, | she wept not ever
For her bear-fierce brothers, | or the boys so dear,
So young and so unhappy, | whom with Atli she had.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3519
Rist′-il, daughter of Karl, 210.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3180
Bryn′-hild, wife of Gunnar, 14, 226, 234, 270, 296, 339, 344–347,
349–353, 362, 370, 371, 383–388, 391, 396, 397, 400, 403–408, 412,
417–419, 421–425, 427, 429–438, 442–448, 457, 459, 460, 469, 470,
474–476, 481, 484, 511, 516, 518, 532, 537, 543.
The Poetic Edda, passage 48
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1411
41. “Now answer me, Fjolsvith, | the question I ask,
For now the truth would I know:
What weapon can send | Vithofnir to seek
The house of Hel below?”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1025
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 293
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1169
The Rigsthula is essentially unlike anything else which editors have
agreed to include in the so-called Edda. It is a definitely cultural
poem, explaining, on a mythological basis, the origin of the different
castes of early society: the thralls, the peasants, and the warriors.
From the warriors, finally, springs one who is destined to become a
king, and thus the whole poem is a song in praise of the royal estate.
This fact in itself would suffice to indicate that the Rigsthula was
not composed in Iceland, where for centuries kings were regarded with
profound disapproval.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1868
7. Guth: a Valkyrie (cf. Voluspo, 31); the birds of her sisters are the
kites and ravens.
The Poetic Edda, passage 903
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2695
3. “Now Atli has sent me | his errand to ride,
On my bit-champing steed | through Myrkwood the secret,
To bid you, Gunnar, | to his benches to come,
With helms round the hearth, | and Atli’s home seek.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1204
30. Then Mothir brought | a broidered cloth,
Of linen bright, | and the board she covered;
And then she took | the loaves so thin,
And laid them, white | from the wheat, on the cloth.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2502
10. Branches’ foe: fire. Regarding the treasure cf. Fafnismol.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1043
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 84
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2783
46. The entire stanza is very likely a later addition. Three kings:
Atli and his two sons, Erp and Eitil.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1875
14. The lines of stanzas 14 and 15 are here rearranged in accordance
with Bugge’s emendation; in the manuscript they stand as follows: lines
3–4 of stanza 14; stanza 15; lines 1–2 of stanza 14. This confusion has
given rise to various editorial conjectures.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3000
12. “The brave boys I summoned | to secret speech;
For my woes requital | I might not win
Till off the heads | of the Hniflungs I hewed.
The Poetic Edda, passage 500
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2670
15. Lines 1–2 have here been transposed from the middle of stanza 19;
cf. note on stanzas 10–20. Wish-maid: a Valkyrie, so called because the
Valkyries fullfilled Othin’s wish in choosing the slain heroes for
Valhall. The reference to Brynhild as a Valkyrie by no means fits with
the version of the story used in stanzas 16–17, and the poet seems to
have attempted to combine the two contradictory traditions; cf.
Fafnismol, note on stanza 44. In the manuscript stanzas 10–11 follow
line 4 of stanza 15.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2347
The narrative features of the poem are based on the German rather than
the Norse elements of the story (cf. introductory note to Gripisspo),
but the poet has taken whatever material he wanted without much
discrimination as to its source. By the year 1100 the story of Sigurth,
with its allied legends, existed throughout the North in many and
varied forms, and the poem shows traces of variants of the main story
which do not appear elsewhere.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1353
37. According to Snorri (Gylfaginning, 27) Heimdall was the son of
Othin and of nine sisters. As Heimdall was the watchman of the gods,
this has given rise to much “solar myth” discussion. The names of his
nine giantess mothers are frequently said to denote attributes of the
sea.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1474
1. Maids from the south | through Myrkwood flew,
Fair and young, | their fate to follow;
On the shore of the sea | to rest them they sat,
The maids of the south, | and flax they spun.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2895
5. Some editors assume a gap after this stanza.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1724
56. From heaven there came | the maidens helmed,—
The weapon-clang grew,— | who watched o’er the king;
Spake Sigrun fair,— | the wound-givers flew,
And the horse of the giantess | raven’s-food had:—
The Poetic Edda, passage 685
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1122
6. Vingthor (“Thor the Hurler”): cf. Thrymskvitha, 1. Sithgrani
(“Long-Beard”): Othin.