THE COMPARATIVe VǪLUSPÁ
Stanzas 40-42
Joseph S. Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info, August 2022
The present page consists of an entry of Mimisbrunnr.info’s The Comparative Vǫluspá. The Mimisbrunnr.info team designed The Comparative Vǫluspá as a resource to assist in the study of both the poem and its English language translations. You can read about the project’s approach and goals here.
The Comparative Vǫluspá features six public domain English editions of Vǫluspá presented in reverse chronological order, specifically those of Lee M. Hollander (first edition, 1928), Henry Adams Bellows (1923), Olive Bray (1908), Guðbrandur Vigfússon and York Powell (1883), Benjamin Thorpe (1866), and Sharon Turner (1836). We precede these with Gustav Neckel’s 1914 Old Norse edition of the poem, which is also in the public domain in the United States, and which we’ve used as a basis for the project’s stanza order.
Please note that if this is your first encounter with the poem, The Comparative Vǫluspá can serve as an introduction, but you stand to benefit from Carolyne Larrington’s revised edition (2014) as your foundation. Not only do Larrington’s notes reflect contemporary scholarship but her revised edition contains two separate translations of the poem from two notably different manuscripts of the poem. Translators often combine these manuscripts and this can lead to significant confusion for non-specialists.
STANZA 40:
Austr sat in
x. Neckel’s Old Norse edition, 1914:
Austr sat in aldna í Iárnviði
ok fœddi þar Fenris kindir:
verðr af þeim ǫllom einna nøkkorr
tungls tiúgari í trollz hami.
In the east sat the old one, in the Ironwood,
bred there the bad brood of Fenrir,
will one of these, worse than they all,
the sun swallow, in seeming a wolf.
The giantess old in Ironwood sat,
In the east, and bore the brood of Fenrir;
Among these one in monster's guise
Was soon to steal the sun from the sky.
Far east in Iron-wood sat an old giantess,
Fenrir’s offspring she fostered there.
From among them all doth one come forth,
in guise of a troll, to snatch the sun.
c. Guðbrandur Vigfússon & York Powell, 1883:
Easterward in Ironwood the aged witch is sitting,
breeding the brood of Fenri [the Wolf-ogre],
from whom there shall spring one amongst them all
in ogre shape that shall pitch the Moon out of Heaven.
East sat the crone, in Iârnvidir,*
and there reared up Fenrir's progeny:
of all shall be one especially
the moon's devourer, in a troll's semblance.
a. Turner, 1836:
There sat an old man
Towards the east in a wood of iron.
Where he nourished the sons of Fenris.
Eery one of these grew prodigious;
A giant form;
The prosecutor of the moon.
STANZA 41:
Fylliz fiǫrvi feigra
x. Neckel’s Old Norse edition, 1914:
Fylliz fiǫrvi feigra manna,
rýðr ragna siǫt rauðom dreya;
svǫrt verða sólskin of sumor eptir,
veðr ǫll válynd — vitoð ér enn, eða hvat?
He feeds on the flesh of fallen men,
with their blood sullies the seats of the gods;
will grow swart the sunshine in the summers thereafter,
the weather woe-bringing: do yet wit more, or how?
There feeds he full on the flesh of the dead,
And the home of the gods he reddens with gore;
Dark grows the sun, and in summer soon
Come mighty storms: would you know yet more?
d. Bray, 1908:
He is gorged, as on lives of dying men;
he reddens the place of the Powers like blood.
Swart grows the sunshine of summer after,
all baleful the storms. —Would ye know further, and what?
c. Guðbrandur Vigfússon & York Powell, 1883:
He shall feed on the lives of death-doomed mortals,
spattering the heavens with red blood.
The sunshine shall wax dark,
nor shall any summer follow,
and all the winds shall turn to blight.—Know ye yet or what?
He is sated with the last breath of dying men;
the gods’ seat he with red gore defiles:
swart is the sunshine then for summers after;
all weather turns to storm. Understand ye yet, or what?
He was saturated
With the lives of dying men.
He sprinkled the host of the Deities with blood.
He darken'd the light of the sun in the summer.
All the winds were malignant.
Know you more? It is this.
STANZA 42:
Sat þar á
x. Neckel’s Old Norse edition, 1914:
Sat þar á haugi ok sló hǫrpo
gýgiar hirðir, glaðr Eggþér;
gól um hánom í gaglviði
fagrrauðr hani, sá er Fialarr heitir.
His harp striking, on hill there sat gladsome Eggthér,
he who guards the ogress;
o'er him gaily in the gallows-tree
crowed the fair-red cock which is Fialar hight.
On a hill there sat, and smote on his harp,
Eggther the joyous, the giants' warder;
Above him the cock in the bird-wood crowed.
Fair and red did Fjalar stand.
d. Bray, 1908:
Sits on a mound and strikes his harp
the gleeful Swordsman, warder of giant-wives;
o’er him crows in the roosting tree
the fair red cock who Fjalar is called.
c. Guðbrandur Vigfússon & York Powell, 1883:
On a mound there sat striking a harp the giantesses’ shepherd,
Eggtheow the Gladsome; in Gaggle-brake, a bright-red
chanticleer whose name is Fialar was crowing to her.
There on a height sat, striking a harp,
the giantess's watch, the joyous Egdir;
by him crowed, in the bird-wood,
the bright red cock, which Fialar hight.
He sat on a mound, and struck the harp.
Gygas the herdsman.
The glad Egder (the eagle)
Sang before him on the boughs of the tree,
The purple cock surnamed Fialer.