The Poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows (translator)
3,671 passages indexed from The Poetic Edda (Henry Adams Bellows (translator)) — Page 42 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Poetic Edda, passage 2801
14. “In danger ye fare, | if forth ye go thither,
No welcoming friendly | this time shall ye find;
For I dreamed now, Hogni, | and nought will I hide,
Full evil thy faring, | if rightly I fear.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2866
77. “Now both of thy sons | thou hast lost . . .
. . . . . . . . | as thou never shouldst do;
The skulls of thy boys | thou as beer-cups didst have,
And the draught that I made thee | was mixed with their blood.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1731
5. The manuscript indicates no gap, but it looks as though something
had been lost after line 2. Ylfings’ son: Sigmund is evidently meant,
though calling him an Ylfing (cf. Hyndluljoth, 11 and note) is a
manifest error. Helgi, in the tradition as it came from Denmark, was
undoubtedly an Ylfing, and the poet, in order to combine the two
legends, has to treat the Ylfings and Volsungs as if they were the same
family.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2840
52. We lay seldom together | since to me thou wast given,
Now my kin all are gone, | of my gold am I robbed;
Nay, and worst, thou didst send | my sister to hell.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2180
6. Winning-runes learn, | if thou longest to win,
And the runes on thy sword-hilt write;
Some on the furrow, | and some on the flat,
And twice shalt thou call on Tyr.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3542
Sigr″-drif-u-mǭl′, the Ballad of the Victory-Bringer, 4, 99, 100, 119,
151, 293, 339, 344, 356, 357, 370, 381, 384–403, 411, 442, 444, 445,
450, 470, 472.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2484
3. “Chide me not, woman | from rocky walls,
Though to battle once | I was wont to go;
Better than thou | I shall seem to be,
When men us two | shall truly know.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1964
41. “Thou dwellest, leader | lofty of men,
With the maid as if | thy mother she were;
Lofty as long | as the world shall live,
Ruler of men, | thy name shall remain.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1720
52. “At anchor lying | off Gnipalund
Are fire-beasts black, | all fitted with gold;
There wait most | of the foeman’s men,
Nor will Helgi long | the battle delay.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3437
Kumb′-a, daughter of Thræll, 207.
The Poetic Edda, passage 29
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 Poetic Edda, passage 1958
35. “Wholly Grimhild | thy heart deceives,
She will bid thee go | and Brynhild woo
For Gunnar’s wife, | the lord of the Goths;
And the prince’s mother | thy promise shall win.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1801
9. “Of battle thou tellest, | and there was bent
Hunding the king | before Helgi down;
There was carnage when thou | didst avenge thy kin,
And blood flowed fast | on the blade of the sword.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1617
34. “Thou saidst once, Helgi, | that Hethin was
A friend full good, | and gifts didst give him;
More seemly it were | thy sword to redden,
Than friendship thus | to thy foe to give.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2865
76. “I have seldom slept | since the hour they were slain,
Baleful were my threats, | now I bid thee recall them;
Thou didst say it was morning,— | too well I remember,—
Now is evening come, | and this question thou askest.
The Poetic Edda, passage 59
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1604
23. “I will not go | till the warriors wake,
Again their chief to guard;
I should wonder not, | foul witch, if up
From beneath our keel thou shouldst come.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1202
28. The lady sat, | at her arms she looked,
She smoothed the cloth, | and fitted the sleeves;
Gay was her cap, | on her breast were clasps,
Broad was her train, | of blue was her gown,
Her brows were bright, | her breast was shining,
Whiter her neck | than new-fallen snow.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3313
Har′-ald (Battle-Tooth), son of Hrörek, 227.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2711
19. Then Gunnar they seized, | and they set him in chains,
The Burgundians’ king, | and fast they bound him.
The Poetic Edda, passage 550
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2706
14. Then they saw Atli’s halls, | and his watch-towers high,
On the walls so lofty | stood the warriors of Buthli;
The hall of the southrons | with seats was surrounded,
With targets bound | and shields full bright.
The Poetic Edda, passage 659
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2270
14. Brynhild awoke, | the daughter of Buthli,
The warrior’s daughter, | ere dawn of day:
“Love me or hate me, | the harm is done,
And my grief cries out, | or else I die.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2461
51. No gap indicated in the manuscript; many editions place it between
lines 3 and 4. Menja’s wealth: gold; the story of the mill Grotti,
whereby the giantesses Menja and Fenja ground gold for King Frothi, is
told in the Grottasongr.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2127
44. “There mayst thou behold | the maiden helmed,
Who forth on Vingskornir | rode from the fight;
The victory-bringer | her sleep shall break not,
Thou heroes’ son, | so the Norns have set.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3509
Ōt′-tar, a warrior, 217–227, 231–233.
The Poetic Edda, passage 147
29. The first line, not in either manuscript, is a conjectural
emendation based on Snorri’s paraphrase. Bugge puts this stanza after
stanza 20.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3384
Hǭ′-tūn, Helgi’s home, 293, 298.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3425
Jor′-mun-rek, Ermanarich, 225, 226, 339, 407, 437, 439, 447, 451,
538–540, 546, 549, 551–554.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2503
11. This stanza is presumably an interpolation, reflecting a different
version of the story, wherein Sigurth meets Brynhild at the home of her
brother-in-law and foster-father, Heimir (cf. Gripisspo, 19 and 27).
Grani: Sigurth’s horse. Danes: nowhere else does Sigurth appear in this
capacity. Perhaps this is a curious relic of the Helgi tradition.
The Poetic Edda, passage 535
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1656
31. From Norway: Bugge uses this phrase as evidence that the poem was
composed in one of the Icelandic settlements of the western islands,
but as the annotator himself seems to have thought that Hethin came to
Helgi by land (“on wild paths southward”), this argument does not
appear to have much weight.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1838
36. “Such the fear | that Helgi’s foes
Ever felt, | and all their kin,
As makes the goats | with terror mad
Run from the wolf | among the rocks.
The Poetic Edda, passage 923
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.)”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3145
Auth′-i, son of Halfdan the Old, 221, 485.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1186
12. Children they had, | they lived and were happy,
Fjosnir and Klur | they were called, methinks,
Hreim and Kleggi, | Kefsir, Fulnir,
Drumb, Digraldi, | Drott and Leggjaldi,
Lut and Hosvir; | the house they cared for,
Ground they dunged, | and swine they guarded,
Goats they tended, | and turf they dug.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2388
41. “Never a wife | of fickle will
Yet to another | man should yield.
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
So vengeance for all | my ills shall come.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3386
Hǭ′-varth, son of Hunding, 295.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3226
Fjal′-ar, a cock, 18, 19, 243.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3063
This is called the old ballad of Hamther.
The Poetic Edda, passage 613
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.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3597
Svǭs′-uth, father of Summer, 75.
The Poetic Edda, passage 904
Then Loki went into the hall, but when they who were there saw who had
entered, they were all silent.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1683
15. Then glittered light | from Logafjoll,
And from the light | the flashes leaped;
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
The Poetic Edda, passage 2468
58. Possibly two lines have been lost; many editions combine the two
remaining lines with lines 1–3 of stanza 59. Concerning the manner of
Gunnar’s death cf. Drap Niflunga.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3239
Frān′-ang, a waterfall, 172, 173.
The Poetic Edda, passage 878
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.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1923
2. “Is the king all-knowing | now within,
Will the monarch come | with me to speak?
A man unknown | his counsel needs,
And Gripir fain | I soon would find.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3270
Gol″-lin-kamb′-i, a cock, 19, 243, 329.