The Poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows (translator)
3,671 passages indexed from The Poetic Edda (Henry Adams Bellows (translator)) — Page 41 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Poetic Edda, passage 2311
15. Then Guthrun, daughter | of Gjuki, wept,
And through her tresses | flowed the tears;
And from the court | came the cry of geese,
The birds so fair | of the hero’s bride.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1956
33. “Tricked by another, | prince, thou art,
And the price of Grimhild’s | wiles thou must pay;
Fain of thee | for the fair-haired maid,
Her daughter, she is, | and she drags thee down.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1006
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1738
14. In this poem Helgi kills all the sons of Hunding, but in the poems
of the Sigurth cycle, and the prose notes attached thereto, Sigmund and
his father-in-law, Eylimi, are killed by Hunding’s sons, on whom
Sigurth subsequently takes vengeance (cf. Fra Dautha Sinfjotla and
Regïnsmol).
The Poetic Edda, passage 3450
Lyf′-ja-berg, a mountain, 248, 251.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3137
At″-la-kvith′-a, the Lay of Atli, 165, 255, 306, 421, 448, 463, 476,
480–501, 515, 520, 522, 530, 543.
The Poetic Edda, passage 497
21. Ymir: the giant out of whose body the gods made the world; cf.
Voluspo, 3 and note.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2216
Prose (after stanza 4). Sigrdrifa: on the error whereby this epithet,
“victory-bringer,” became a proper name cf. Fafnismol, 44 and note.
Hjalmgunnar: in Helreith Brynhildar (stanza 8) he is called a king of
the Goths, which means little; of him and his adversary, Agnar, we know
nothing beyond what is told here. The two lines quoted apparently come
from the same poem as stanza 1; the two first lines of the stanza have
been reconstructed from the prose thus: “Hjalmgunnar was one, | the
hoary king, / And triumph to him | had Heerfather promised.” A few
editions insert in this prose passage stanzas 7–10 of Helreith
Brynhildar, which may or may not have belonged originally to this poem.
The Poetic Edda, passage 977
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2674
19. In the manuscript lines 1–2 of stanza 15 follow line 2, resulting
in various conjectural combinations. The manuscript marks line 3 as
beginning a new stanza. Rings, etc.: possibly, as Gering maintains,
payment offered by Gunnar and Hogni for Brynhild’s death, but more
probably, as in stanza 20, Gunnar’s proffered “marriage gold” for the
hand of Oddrun.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1533
12. The manuscript indicates line 3, and not line 1, as the beginning
of a stanza, which has given rise to a large amount of conjectural
rearrangement. Line 2 of the original is identical with the phrase
added by Bugge in stanza 6. Line 5 may be spurious, or lines 4–5 may
have been expanded out of a single line running “The wind-dried wood
| for Völund burned well.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2768
31. The stanza in the original is hopelessly confused. Glaum: this
horse of Atli’s is mentioned by name elsewhere. Long-maned: uncertain.
The manuscript indicates no gap, but something has evidently been lost.
Gods of slaughter: perhaps the phrase, usually applied to Othin and the
other gods, is here used simply to mean “heroes,” i.e., Atli, Gunnar,
and Hogni. Line 4 suggests Guthrun’s tearlessness after Sigurth’s death
(cf. Guthrunarkvitha II, 11).
The Poetic Edda, passage 2924
36. Cf. note on preceding stanza; the manuscript does not indicate line
1 as beginning a stanza. Line 3 may be spurious.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2862
“Slay thy boys as thou wilt, | for no one may bar it,
Short the angry one’s peace | if all thou shalt do.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3101
No attempt has been made to differentiate between the short open “o”
and the short closed “o,” which for speakers of English closely
resemble one another.
The Poetic Edda, passage 460
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?”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2594
44. This stanza is evidently Guthrun’s intentionally cryptic
interpretation of Atli’s dreams, but the meaning of the original is
more than doubtful. The word here rendered “sacrifice” may mean
“sea-catch,” and the one rendered “beasts” may mean “whales.” None of
the attempted emendations have rendered the stanza really intelligible,
but it appears to mean that Atli will soon make a sacrifice of beasts
at night, and give their bodies to the people. Guthrun of course has in
mind the slaying of his two sons.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1557
37. Identical, except for the pronouns, with stanza 25.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1454
36. Gif and Geri: both names signify “Greedy.” The first part of line 3
is conjectural; the manuscripts indicate the word “eleven,” which
clearly fails to make sense.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2420
4. Southern hero: Sigurth, whose Frankish origin is seldom wholly lost
sight of in the Norse versions of the story. On the episode of the
sword cf. Gripisspo, 41 and note. Line 3 may well be an interpolation;
both lines 4 and 5 have also been questioned, and some editions combine
line 5 with lines 1–3 of stanza 5. Hunnish king: Sigurth, who was, of
course, not a king of the Huns, but was occasionally so called in the
later poems owing to the lack of ethnological distinction made by the
Norse poets (cf. Guthrunarkvitha I, 24 and note).
The Poetic Edda, passage 3124
Am′-ma, Grandmother, 204, 207, 208.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1284
16. “Hence come the Skjoldungs, | hence the Skilfings,
Hence the Othlings, | hence the Ynglings,
Hence come the free-born, | hence the high-born,
The noblest of men | that in Mithgarth dwell:
And all are thy kinsmen, | Ottar, thou fool!
The Poetic Edda, passage 911
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1471
The Völundarkvitha is full of prose narrative links, including an
introduction. The nature of such prose links has already been discussed
in the introductory note to the Grimnismol; the Völundarkvitha is a
striking illustration of the way in which the function of the earlier
Eddic verse was limited chiefly to dialogue or description, the
narrative outline being provided, if at all, in prose. This prose was
put in by each reciter according to his fancy and knowledge, and his
estimate of his hearers’ need for such explanations; some of it, as in
this instance, eventually found its way into the written record.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1291
23. “Hervarth, Hjorvarth, | Hrani, Angantyr,
Bui and Brami, | Barri and Reifnir,
Tind and Tyrfing, | the Haddings twain,—
And all are thy kinsmen, | Ottar, thou fool!
The Poetic Edda, passage 360
1. This stanza is quoted by Snorri, the second line being omitted in
most of the Prose Edda manuscripts.
The Poetic Edda, passage 311
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3102
Consonants. The consonants are pronounced approximately as in English,
with the following special points to be noted:
The Poetic Edda, passage 1364
49. The manuscript repeats once again lines 3–4 of stanza 47 as the
last two lines of this stanza. It seems probable that two lines have
been lost, to the effect that Freyja will burn the giantess alive “If
swiftly now | thou dost not seek, / And hither bring | the
memory-beer.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1467
There has been a vast amount written regarding the Weland tradition as
a whole, discussing particularly the relations between the
Völundarkvitha and the Weland passage in Deor’s Lament. There can be
little question that the story came to the North from Saxon regions,
along with many of the other early hero tales. In stanza 16 the Rhine
is specifically mentioned as the home of treasure; and the presence of
the story in Anglo-Saxon poetry probably as early as the first part of
the eighth century proves beyond a doubt that the legend cannot have
been a native product of Scandinavia. In one form or another, however,
the legend or the smith persisted for centuries throughout all the
Teutonic lands, and the name of Wayland Smith is familiar to all
readers of Walter Scott, and even of Rudyard Kipling’s tales of
England.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2658
4. Line 1 in the original appears to have lost its second half. In line
2 the word rendered “has happened” is doubtful. The manuscript does not
indicate the speaker of lines 3–4, and a few editors assign them to
Borgny herself.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2372
25. So hard she smote | her hands together
That the hero rose up, | iron-hearted:
“Weep not, Guthrun, | grievous tears,
Bride so young, | for thy brothers live.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1837
35. “I shall sit not happy | at Sevafjoll,
Early or late, | my life to love,
If the light cannot show, | in the leader’s band,
Vigblær bearing him | back to his home,
(The golden-bitted; | I shall greet him never.)
The Poetic Edda, passage 2816
28. Snævar and Solar, | they were sons of Hogni,
Orkning was he called | who came with the others,
Blithe was the shield-tree, | the brother of Kostbera;
The fair-decked ones followed, | till the fjord divided them,
Full hard did they plead, | but the others would hear not.
The Poetic Edda, passage 83
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?
The Poetic Edda, passage 2451
38. Brynhild here again appears as a Valkyrie. The manuscript marks
line 4 as the beginning of a new stanza. Any one of the last three
lines may be spurious.
The Poetic Edda, passage 368
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2565
7. Gotthorm: from this it appears that in both versions of the death of
Sigurth the mortally wounded hero killed his murderer, the younger
brother of Gunnar and Hogni. The story of how Gotthorm was slain after
killing Sigurth in his bed is told in Sigurtharkvitha en skamma, 22–23,
and in the Volsungasaga.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3580
Sut′-tung, a giant, 32, 50–52, 117, 187, 193.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2018
Fafnir and Regin asked Hreithmar for a share of the wealth that was
paid for the slaying of their brother, Otr. This he refused, and Fafnir
thrust his sword through the body of his father, Hreithmar, while he
was sleeping. Hreithmar called to his daughters:
The Poetic Edda, passage 2165
The Sigrdrifumol section as we now have it is an extraordinary piece of
patchwork. It is most unlikely that the compiler himself brought all
these fragments together for the first time; little by little, through
a process of accretion and also, unluckily, through one of elimination,
the material grew into its present shape. Certainly the basis of it is
a poem dealing with the finding of Brynhild by Sigurth, but of this
original poem only five stanzas (2–4 and 20–21) can be identified with
any degree of confidence. To these five stanzas should probably,
however, be added some, if not all, of the passage (stanzas 6–12) in
which Brynhild teaches Sigurth the magic runes. These stanzas of
rune-lore attracted sundry similar passages from other sources,
including stanza 5, in which a magic draught is administered (not
necessarily by Brynhild or to Sigurth), the curious rune-chant in
stanzas 15–17, and stanzas 13–14 and 18–19. Beginning with stanza 22,
and running to the end of the fragment (stanza 37), is a set of
numbered counsels closely resembling the Loddfafnismol (Hovamol,
stanzas 111–138), which manifestly has nothing whatever to do with
Brynhild. Even in this passage there are probably interpolations
(stanzas 25, 27, 30, 34, and 36). Finally, and bespeaking the existence
at some earlier time of another Sigurth-Brynhild poem, is stanza 1,
sharply distinguished by its metrical form from stanzas 2–4 and 20–21.
Many critics argue that stanzas 6–10 of Helreith Brynildar belonged
originally to the same poem as stanza 1 of the Sigrdrifumol.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1895
40. In the manuscript most of this stanza is abbreviated to the first
letters of the words.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3202
Eik″-in-skjald′-i, a dwarf, 7, 8.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1975
52. “Now fare thee well! | our fates we shun not;
And well has Gripir | answered my wish;
More of joy | to me wouldst tell
Of my life to come | if so thou couldst.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1909
King Sigmund dwelt long in Denmark in Borghild’s kingdom after he had
married her. Thereafter Sigmund went south into the land of the Franks,
to the kingdom which he had there. There he married Hjordis, the
daughter of King Eylimi; their son was Sigurth. King Sigmund fell in a
battle with the sons of Hunding, and Hjordis then married Alf the son
of King Hjalprek. There Sigurth grew up in his boyhood. Sigmund and all
his sons were far above all other men in might and stature and courage
and every kind of ability. Sigurth, however, was the foremost of all,
and all men call him in the old tales the noblest of mankind and the
mightiest leader.
The Poetic Edda, passage 913
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.)”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2094
15. “Oskopnir is it, | where all the gods
Shall seek the play of swords;
Bilrost breaks | when they cross the bridge,
And the steeds shall swim in the flood.
The Poetic Edda, passage 519
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1662
41. One or two editors ascribe this stanza to Hethin.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1815
Then she sought out Helgi, and was full of joy. He said: