The poem starts with the völva requesting silence from "the sons of Heimdallr" (human beings) and asking Odin whether he wants her to recite ancient lore. She says she remembers giants born in antiquity who reared her. Why will ye, Æsir twain, here within, strive with reproachful words? Lopt perceives not that he is deluded, and is urged on by fate." Milder was thou of speech to Laufey's son, ( Laufey´s son: the giant Loki) when to thy bed thou didst invite me. Such matters must be mentioned, if we accurately must recount our vices." Be silent, Freyja! Thou art a sorceress, and with much evil blended; since against thy brother thou the gentle powers excited. And then, Freyja! what didst thou do?"

This book is an edition and translation of one of the most important and celebrated sources of Old Norse-Icelandic mythology and heroic legend, namely the medieval poems now known collectively as the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda. The seeress then reveals to Odin that she knows some of his own secrets, and that he sacrificed an eye in pursuit of knowledge. She tells him she knows where his eye is hidden and how he gave it up in exchange for knowledge. She asks him in several refrains if he understands, or if he would like to hear more.

Auden, W. H.; Taylor, Paul B., eds. (1969), The Elder Edda: A Selection, London: Faber., ISBN 0571090664 The poem is preserved in its entirety among the mythological poems of the thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript Codex Regius, and the beginning of the prose prologue is also found in the AM 748 I 4to fragment. Prologue: Snorri reveals his Christian influence by giving an account of the Biblical version of creation with the stories of Adam and Eve, the Great Flood and Noah's Ark. Reissued as Helgason, Jón, ed. (1955), Eddadigte, Copenhagen: Munksgaard , Codex Regius poems up to Sigrdrífumál , (3 vols.).

Our current knowledge of the pre-Christian mythology and religion of the Norse and other Germanic peoples has been painstakingly pieced together from a large assortment of sources over the past few centuries. Accurate dating of the poems has long been a source of scholarly debate. Firm conclusions are difficult to reach; lines from the Eddic poems sometimes appear in poems by known poets. For example, Eyvindr skáldaspillir composed in the latter half of the 10th century, and he uses a couple of lines in his Hákonarmál that are also found in Hávamál. It is possible that he was quoting a known poem, but it is also possible that Hávamál, or at least the strophe in question, is the younger derivative work. Munch, P. A., ed. (1847), Den Ældre Edda. Samling af norrøne oldkvad, indeholdende Nordens ældste gude- og helte-sagn, Christiania [Oslo]: P.T. MallingIt also contains many kennings, a type of metaphorical phrase used in Norse poetry, which add to the poetic complexity of the poem. The poem is considered to be one of the most important sources of Norse mythology and is rich in Norse cosmological and cosmogonic concepts. Grímnismál – The Lay of Grímnir There is another thing that might cause some confusion when we speak about the Poetic Edda. There isn’t just one collection of poems, rather there are several similar, yet different collections of mostly the same poems.

So alone shouldst thou be, hadst thou strict and prudent been towards thy mate; but one I know, and, I think, know him well, a favoured rival of Hlorridi, and that is the wily Loki." The continental Germans have also bequeathed to us accounts of their heathen traditions such as those found in the so-called Merseburg Charms, which are medieval prayers or spells composed in Old High German, and the Middle High German epic poem Nibelungenlied. Individual poems have individual clues to their age. For example, Atlamál hin groenlenzku is claimed by its title to have been composed in Greenland and seems so by some internal evidence. If so, it must have been composed no earlier than about 985, since there were no Scandinavians in Greenland until that time.Loki, thou art drunk, and hast lost thy wits. Why dost thou not leave off, Loki? But drunkenness so rules every man, that he knows not of his garrulity." Edda, body of ancient Icelandic literature contained in two 13th-century books commonly distinguished as the Prose, or Younger, Edda and the Poetic, or Elder, Edda. It is the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Germanic mythology. The Prose Edda. You can leaf through the original manuscript here, cataloged as GKS 2365 4to, part of the Árni Magnússon Institute collection. Other manuscripts with Poetic Edda poems Tells the story of Völund, a legendary smith and king of the elves who is captured by a human king and forced to make treasures for him. Völund ultimately takes revenge on the king by killing his sons and raping his daughter Boldvild, before flying away on wings he had made himself.

As noted above, the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson makes much use of the works included in the Poetic Edda, though he may well have had access to other compilations that contained the poems and there is no evidence that he used the Poetic Edda or even knew of it.

PREFACE.

Other dating criteria include the use of the negative adverb eigi 'not', and alliteration of vr- with v-. In western dialects of Old Norse the former became r- around the year 1000, but in some Eddic poems the word vreiðr, younger form reiðr, is seen to alliterate with words beginning in an original v-. This was observed already by Olaf ‘White Skald’ Thordarson, the author of the Third Grammatical Treatise, who termed this v before r the vindandin forna; 'the ancient use of vend'. Thought to be one of the oldest surviving works of Norse literature and is believed to first have been written in the 10th century. The Völuspá is presented as a prophecy given by a seeress, and tells the story of the creation of the world, the deeds of the gods, and the eventual destruction of the world in Ragnarok, the Norse apocalypse.