The Poetic Edda: Voluspo · 15 of 16 · tr. Henry Adams Bellows
Section 1o
The sun turns black, | earth sinks in the sea, The hot stars down | from heaven are whirled; Fierce grows the steam | and the life-feeding flame, Till fire leaps high | about heaven itself.
58.
Now Garm howls loud | before Gnipahellir, The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free; Much do I know, | and more can see Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.
59.
Now do I see | the earth anew Rise all green | from the waves again; The cataracts fall, | and the eagle flies, And fish he catches | beneath the cliffs.
60.
The gods in Ithavoll | meet together, Of the terrible girdler | of earth they talk, [57.
With this stanza ends the account of the destruction.
58.
Again the refrain-stanza (cf.
stanza 44 and note), abbreviated in both manuscripts, as in the case of stanza 49.
It is probably misplaced here.
59.
Here begins the description of the new world which is to rise out of the wreck of the old one.
It is on this passage that a few critics have sought to base their argument that the poem is later than the introduction of Christianity ( circa 1000), but this theory has never seemed convincing (cf.
introductory note).
60.
The third line of this stanza is not found in Regius .
Ithavoll : cf.
stanza 7 and note.
The girdler of earth : Mithgarthsorm : [fp.
25], who, lying in the sea, surrounded the land.
The Ruler of Gods : Othin.
The runes were both magic signs, generally carved on wood, and sung or spoken charms.] p.
25 And the mighty past | they call to mind, And the ancient runes | of the Ruler of Gods.
61.
In wondrous beauty | once again Shall the golden tables | stand mid the grass, Which the gods had owned | in the days of old, .
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62.
Then fields unsowed | bear ripened fruit, All ills grow better, | and Baldr comes back; Baldr and Hoth dwell | in Hropt's battle-hall, And the mighty gods: | would you know yet more?
63.
Then Hönir wins | the prophetic wand, .
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And the sons of the brothers | of Tveggi abide In Vindheim now: | would you know yet more?
[61.
The Hauksbok version of the first two lines runs: "The gods shall find there, | wondrous fair, The golden tables | amid the grass." No lacuna (line 4) is indicated in the manuscripts.
Golden tables : cf.
stanza 8 and note.
62.
Baldr : cf.
stanza 32 and note.
Baldr and his brother, Hoth, who unwittingly slew him at Loki's instigation, return together, their union being a symbol of the new age of peace.
Hropt : another name for Othin.
His "battle-hall" is Valhall.
63.
No lacuna (line 2) indicated in the manuscripts.
Hönir : cf.
stanza 18 and note.
In this new age he has the gift of foretelling the future.
Tveggi ("The Twofold"): another name for [fp.
26] Othin.
His brothers are Vili and Ve (cf.
Lokasenna , 26, and note).
Little is known of them, and nothing, beyond this reference, of their sons.
Vindheim ("Home of the Wind"): heaven.] p.
26 p.
27 64.
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.
Natural phenomena like the sun and earth act with agency, and the cosmos is populated by plural divine agents such as gods and monsters.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
Stanza 59 narrates the origin of the new world rising green from the waves following the destruction of the old.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The Seeress speaks of the predetermined fate of the gods and the unfolding of cosmic events according to a known order.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The text describes the collective fate of the gods and the destruction of the cosmos as a final event before restoration.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The commentary explicitly identifies runes as sung or spoken charms, and the text references the ancient runes of the Ruler of Gods.