The Poetic Edda: Voluspo · 7 of 16 · tr. Henry Adams Bellows

Section 1g

Lines 5-6, one or both of them probably interpolated, seem to symbolize the refining of gold by fire.

Hor ("The High One"): Othin.

22.

Heith ("Shining One"?): a name often applied to wise women and prophetesses.

The application of this stanza to Gollveig is far from clear, though the reference may be to the [fp.

11] magic and destructive power of gold.

It is also possible that the stanza is an interpolation.

Bugge maintains that it applies to the Volva who is reciting the poem, and makes it the opening stanza, following it with stanzas 28 and 30, and then going on with stanzas I ff.

The text of line 2 is obscure, and has been variously emended.] p.

11 23.

On the host his spear | did Othin hurl, Then in the world | did war first come; The wall that girdled | the gods was broken, And the field by the warlike | Wanes was trodden.

24.

Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats, The holy ones, | and council held, Whether the gods | should tribute give, Or to all alike | should worship belong.

25.

Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats, The holy ones, | and council held, To find who with venom | the air had filled, Or had given Oth's bride | to the giants' brood.

[23.

This stanza and stanza 24 have been transposed from the order in the manuscripts, for the former describes the battle and the victory of the Wanes, after which the gods took council, debating whether to pay tribute to the victors, or to admit them, as was finally done, to equal rights of worship.

25.

Possibly, as Finn Magnusen long ago suggested, there is something lost after stanza 24, but it was not the custom of the Eddic poets to supply transitions which their hearers could generally be counted on to understand.

The story referred to in stanzas 25-26 (both quoted by Snorri) is that of the rebuilding of Asgarth after its destruction by the Wanes.

The gods employed a giant as builder, who demanded as his reward the sun and moon, and the goddess Freyja for his wife.

The gods, terrified by the rapid progress of the work, forced Loki, who had advised the bargain, to delay the giant by a trick, so that the [fp.

12] work was not finished in the stipulated time (cf.

Grimnismol , 44, note).

The enraged giant then threatened the gods, whereupon Thor slew him.

Oth's bride : Freyja; of Oth little is known beyond the fact that Snorri refers to him as a man who "went away on long journeys."] p.

12 26.

In swelling rage | then rose up Thor,-- Seldom he sits | when he such things hears,-- And the oaths were broken, | the words and bonds, The mighty pledges | between them made.

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?

[26.

Thor : the thunder-god, son of Othin and Jorth (Earth) cf.

particularly Harbarthsljoth and Thrymskvitha, passim.

Oaths , etc.: the gods, by violating their oaths to the giant who rebuilt Asgarth, aroused the undying hatred of the giants' race, and thus the giants were among their enemies in the final battle.

27.

Themes

◆Animismcosmology

The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.

The cosmos is populated by plural divine agents including gods, giants, and a holy tree with inherent power.