The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson

THE ELDER EDDAS OF SAEMUND SIGFUSSON. _Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English_ BY BENJAMIN THORPE, AND THE YOUNGER EDDAS OF SNORRE STURLESON. _Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English_ BY I.A. BLACKWELL. HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, LL.D., EDITOR IN CHIEF. J. W. BUEL, Ph.D., MANAGING EDITOR. PUBLISHED BY THE NORROENA SOCIETY, LONDON STOCKHOLM COPENHAGEN BERLIN NEW YORK 1906

Illustration note

[Illustration KING GUNTHER.]

(_After a painting by B. Guth_.) Gunnar, Gunther, or Gunter, King of Burgundy, was probably a real personage of the troubled times with which his name is associated--a period distinguished as much for heroic characters as for tragic events. Gunther represents the best type of kinghood of his age; a man swayed by his affections rather than by ambition, who scrupled at misdeeds, yet yielded to the mastering passions of love; one whose instincts were loyalty to friends and country, and who shrank from cruelties to gain his ends, but who fell a victim to woman's fascinations. History accordingly praises him more for a lover than for a sovereign. LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURES. (ELDER AND YOUNGER EDDAS.) Frontispiece--Gunnar (Gunther) Page Siegfried Awakens Brynhild 159 Death of Atli 247 A Feast in Valhalla 331 CONTENTS. THE ELDER EDDAS OF SAEMUND. Page Preface by the Translator ix Introduction to the Voluspa xv The Vala's Prophecy 1 The Lay of Vafthrudnir 9 The Lay of Vegtam, or Baldur's Dream 26 The High One's Lay 29 Odin's Rune Song 44 The Lay of Hymir 48 The Lay of Thrym, or the Hammer Recovered 53 The Lay of the Dwarf Alvis 57 The Lay of Harbard 63 The Journey, or Lay of Skirnir 71 The Lay of Rig 78 Egir's Compotation, or Loki's Altercation 84 The Lay of Fiolsvith 95 The Lay of Hyndla 102 The Incantation of Groa 109 The Song of the Sun 111 The Lay of Volund 121 The Lay of Helgi Hiorvard's Son 127 The First Lay of Helgi Hundingcide 137 The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingcide 144 Sinfiotli's End 155 The Lay of Sigurd, or Gripir's Prophecy 157 The Lay of Fafnir 172 The Lay of Sigrdrifa 180 Fragments of the Lay of Sigurd and Brynhild 186 The Third Lay of Sigurd Fafnicide 194 Fragments of the Lay of Brynhild 203 The First Lay of Gudrun 206 Brynhild's Hel-ride 210 The Slaughter of the Niflungs 212 The Second Lay of Gudrun 213 The Third Lay of Gudrun 219 Oddrun's Lament 221 The Lay of Atli 226 The Groenland Lay of Atli 233 Gudrun's Incitement 248 The Lay of Hamdir 251 THE YOUNGER EDDAS OF STURLESON. The Deluding of Gylfi 256 Of the Primordial State of the Universe 259 Origin of the Frost-Giants 260 Of the Cow Audhumla, and Birth of Odin 262 The Making of Heaven and Earth 263 Creation of Man and Woman 265 Night and Day, Sun and Moon 266 Wolves that Pursue the Sun and Moon 267 The Way that Leads to Heaven 268 The Golden Age 269 Origin of the Dwarfs, and Norns of Destiny 270 The Ash Yggdrasill and Mimer's Well 271 The Norns that Tend Yggdrasill 273 The Wind and the Seasons 275 Thor and His Hammer 277 Balder and Njord 278 Njord and His Wife Skadi 279 The God Frey and Goddess Freyja 280 Tyr and Other Gods 281 Hodur the Blind, Assassin of Baldur 283 Loki and His Progeny 284 Binding the Wolf Fenrir 285 The Goddesses and their Attributes 289 Frey, and Gerda the Beautiful 291 The Joys of Valhalla 293 The Wonderful Horse Sleipnir 297 The Ship Adapted to Sail on Sea or Land 299 Thor's Adventures in the Land of Giants 300 The Death of Baldur 315 Baldur in the Abode of the Dead 319 Loki's Capture and Punishment 321 Destruction of the Universe 323 Restoration of the Universe 327 How Loki Carried Away Iduna 329 The Origin of Poetry 331 Odin Beguiles the Daughter of Baugi 333 Glossary 335 PREFACE. Sæmund, son of Sigfus, the reputed collector of the poems bearing his name, which is sometimes also called the Elder, and the Poetic, Edda, was of a highly distinguished family, being descended in a direct line from King Harald Hildetonn. He was born at Oddi, his paternal dwelling in the south of Iceland, between the years 1054 and 1057, or about 50 years after the establishment by law of the Christian religion in that island; hence it is easy to imagine that many heathens, or baptized favourers of the old mythic songs of heathenism, may have lived in his days and imparted to him the lays of the times of old, which his unfettered mind induced him to hand down to posterity. The youth of Sæmund was passed in travel and study, in Germany and France, and, according to some accounts, in Italy. His cousin John Ogmundson, who later became first bishop of Holum, and after his death was received among the number of saints, when on his way to Rome, fell in with his youthful kinsman, and took him back with him to Iceland, in the year 1076. Sæmund afterwards became a priest at Oddi, where he instructed many young men in useful learning; but the effects of which were not improbably such as to the common people might appear as witchcraft or magic: and, indeed, Sæmund's predilection for the sagas and songs of the old heathen times (even for the magical ones) was so well known, that among his countrymen there were some who regarded him as a great sorcerer, though chiefly in what is called white or innocuous and defensive sorcery, a repute which still clings to his memory among the common people of Iceland, and will long adhere to it through the numerous and popular stories regarding him (some of them highly entertaining) that are orally transmitted from generation to generation.[1] Sæmund died at the age of 77, leaving behind him a work on the history of Norway and Iceland, which is now almost entirely lost. The first who ascribed to Sæmund the collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda,[2] was Brynjolf Svensson, bishop of Skalholt. This prelate, who was a zealous collector of ancient manuscripts, found in the year 1643, the old vellum codex, which is the most complete of all the known manuscripts of the Edda; of this he caused a transcript to be made, which he entitled _Edda Saemundi Multiscii_. The transcript came into the possession of the royal historiographer Torfæus; the original, together with other MSS., was presented to the King of Denmark, Frederick. III., and placed in the royal library at Copenhagen, where it now is.[3] As many of the Eddaic poems appear to have been orally transmitted in an imperfect state, the collector has supplied the deficiencies by prose insertions, whereby the integrity of the subject is to a certain degree restored. The collection called Sæmund's Edda consists of two parts, viz., the Mythological and the Heroic. It is the former of those which is now offered to the public in an English version. In the year 1797, a translation of this first part, by A.S. Cottle, was published at Bristol. This work I have never met with; nor have I seen any English version of any part of the Edda, with the exception of Gray's spirited but free translation of the Vegtamskvida. The Lay of Volund (Volundarkvida) celebrates the story of Volund's doings and sufferings during his sojourn in the territory of the Swedish king Nidud. Volund (_Ger_. Wieland, _Fr_. Veland and Galans) is the Scandinavian and Germanic Vulcan (Hephaistos) and Dædalus. In England his story, as a skillful smith, is traceable to a very early period. In the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf we find that hero desiring, in the event of his falling in conflict with Grendel, that his corslets may be sent to Hygelac, being, as he says, the work of Weland; and king Ælfred, in his translation of Boethius de Consolatione, renders the words _fidelis ossa Fabricii, etc_. by Hwæt (hwær) Welondes? (Where are now the bones of the famous and wise goldsmith Weland?), evidently taking the proper name of Fabricius for an appellative equivalent to faber. In the Exeter Book, too, there is a poem in substance closely resembling the Eddaic lay. In his novel of Kenilworth, Walter Scott has been guilty of a woeful perversion of the old tradition, travestied from the Berkshire legend of Wayland Smith. As a land-boundary we find Weland's smithy in a Charter of king Eadred A.D. 955. On the Lay of Helgi Hiorvard's Son there is nothing to remark beyond what appears in the poem itself. The Lays of Helgi Hundingcide form the first of the series of stories relating to the Volsung race, and the Giukungs, or Niflungs. The connection of the several personages celebrated in these poems will appear plain from the following tables: Sigi, king of Hunaland, said to be a son of Odin | Rerir | Volsung = a daughter of the giant Hrimnir __________________| | Sigmund = Signi = Borghild = Hiordis | | | | Hamund. Sinfiotli. Helgi = Sigrun Sigurd = Gudrun __|____________ | | Sigmund, Svanhild. m Jornmnrek. Giuki = Grimhild. _______________________| | Gunnar=Glaumvor. Hogni=Kostbera. Guthorm. Gudrun,=1 Sigurd. | 2 Atli. Solar. Giuki. Snævar. 3 Jonakr. Budli. | Atli = Gudrun: Brynhild = Gunnar. Oddrun. Beckhild = Heimir. | | Erp. Eitil Alsvid. Jonakr = Gudrun _____| |__________ | | Erp Hamdir. Sorli. The Eddaic series of the Volsung and Niflung lays terminates with the