The Seeress's Prophecy

VOLUSPÁ
The Poetic Edda is a set of old norse poems. Nothing is known about its authors or when its poems
were composed other than its poems being known and in use in Iron Age Scandinavia. The poems
broadly fall into two main categories. The theological poems (theological from greek theos Θεός,
‘God’ and logia λογία, 'utterances, sayings, oracles’) which use elaborate imagery to relate
characteristics and relations of the Gods, and the Heroic poems which tell the legends of famous
heroes and their interactions with the divine.

The first poem of the Poetic Edda is Voluspa. One the theological poems, Voluspa recalls the creation
of our universe or ‘Midgard’, the creation of mankind and the gifts given, and and foretells its doom
and subsequent rebirth at Ragnarok, the norse apocalypse. All related to the audience by a völva or
seeress speaking to the Allfather Odin. The poem makes reference to many other stories, the nine
worlds, the game of tafl, and many other things, and is one of the most discussed poems of the Poetic
Edda and an important source of cosmology.

1
Hearing I ask for from all hallowed kindreds,
greater and lesser offspring of Heimdallr;
You want, Valfather, that I should well recount
ancient story of beings[1] that I remember from longest ago.
2
I remember jǫtuns born long ago,
those who once me had nurtured;[2]
nine worlds I remember, nine giantesses inside,[3]
the great Measure Tree[4] down under the ground.
3
It was early in the ages, when nothing was,[5]
there was neither sand nor sea nor cool waves;
Earth was nowhere to be found, nor sky above,
a gap there was of yawning spaces[6] and nowhere grass.
4
Before the sons of Burr raised up the lands,
they who Miðgarð, the glorious, created;
the sun shone from the south on the stones of that dwelling-place,[7]
Then the ground was grown-over with the green leek.[8]
5
From the south cast Sól,[9] companion of Máni,
her right hand around the edge of the sky;[10]
Sól did not know where she had halls,
Máni did not know what power he had,
the stars did not know where they had places.
6
Then all the regin went to judgment seats,
the vastly holy[11] Gods, and considered that;
to Nótt and her children, the new moons, they gave out names,
morning they named and midday,
afternoon[12] and evening, to reckon by years.
7
The Æsir gathered at Iðavǫllr,[13]
they who high-timbered hǫrgs and hofs;
they laid down forges, smithied wealth,
shaped tongs and created tools.
8
They played tafl in the enclosure,[14] were happy,
they had nothing of lack of gold,
until there came three þurs maidens
very awesomely strong from Jǫtunheim.
Notes:
[1] spjǫll: both history and an account of history, news, a
tale. firar: used of humans, of Gods, and of both humans
and Gods; the last seems most appropriate here.
[2] fædda: can mean anything from "gave birth to"
through "raised" to "fed", so it could be rendered
"parented" or "took care of"; the ending tells us the
speaker is female.
[3] íviðjur: a rare word for "giantesses" that begins with
the prefix í-, "in" - usually here rendered "rooms", but
Dronke points out the poet is either punning on viðr,
"wood, tree" or using the word in its original precise
sense, for the giantesses from whom the roots of the World
Tree grow. Cleasby-Vigfússon also has "giantesses."
[4] mjǫtvið: "measure-wood," the World Tree. In
Cleasby-Vigfússon this is seen as an error for mjǫtuðr,
which occurs in verse 46. Olive Bray has "Fate Tree."
[5] þar er ekki var, reading taken from the Prose Edda;
most editions follow the Codex Regius and have þar er
Ymir byggði, "when Ymir dwelt," for this line.
[6] A reference to Ginnungagap; but it is unclear whether
it is a reversal of the name or whether there was actually
an Old Norse verb ginna, "to yawn, gape"; Dronke
suspects that ginnunga- was borrowed from Old High
German ginung (a word for Chaos derived from a verb "to
gape") just as Muspell was borrowed from Old High
German Muspilli or Mutspilli.
[7] salar: literally "hall."
[8] The leek, laukr, here deliberately chosen to stand for all
plants because of its size and nobility, commonly
contrasted with grass (mentioned at the end of verse 3), as
Guðrún says that Sigurðr towered over other men like the
leek over grass.
[9] Sól is both the name of the Goddess and the word
"sun"; however, Máni is almost always the God rather
than the moon itself (Cleasby-Vigfússon). I have therefore
treated both as deities, and also Nótt (night) in the
following verse.
[10] The rest of the verse is only in the Prose Edda and
Dronke regards it as interpolation by Snorri replacing
something more about the cosmic mill turning the heavens.
[11] The first element in ginnheilög is related to that in
Ginnungagap, although it is usually taken as simply an
intensifier.
[12] Undorn and its cognates have shifted in meaning but
appear to have originally meant mid-afternoon.
[13] Iðavǫllr has been translated "Plain of Activity" or
"Plain that Renews Itself"; Dronke calls it "Eddying
Plain." Hollander translates it "Shining Plain."
[14] The base meaning of tún is the fenced-in plot around a
farmhouse; it can be used specifically as "meadow" or
"home-field."