EDDIC TO ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION, BACKGROUND, & PURPOSE

Joseph S. Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info, 2019-ongoing

Eddic to English is an ongoing effort toward a single, simple goal: By way of producing the first in-depth survey of English translations of the Poetic Edda of its type, Mimisbrunnr.info aims to assist readers and translators in the broader study of the Poetic Edda. To that end, the study's author intends Eddic to English to be as approachable, readable, and useful as possible.

More specifically, this study highlights differences, commonalities, and trends among translators of the Poetic Edda. The intention of this survey is not to promote any particular translation, although the author recommends readers new to the text start with Carolyne Larrington's revised edition (2014) due its content, price, and availability. Yet as discussed below, it is unwise to lean on a single translation and it is the author's belief that every translation included in this study contains some amount of value for the reader.

The inspiration for Eddic to English was threefold:

I. A student group: During the monthly meetings of Ár Var Alda: The Ancient Germanic Studies Society at the University of Georgia (ÁVA), a (defunct) student reading group sponsored by the school’s Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, members commonly read from different translations of the Poetic Edda. As one can imagine, this approach yielded much comparative discussion.

II. A website: A now-defunct website authored by Haukur Þorgeirsson (University of Iceland) featured comparisons of various English translations of eddic material. Haukur's approach was a major influence on the development of Eddic to English.

III. An article: Translating the Poetic Edda into English (2007) by Carolyne Larrington (University of Oxford) was also a major influence in formulating Eddic to English. A decade later, Larrington published something of sequel piece (Larrington 2017), this time focused on her decision to publish a revised edition of the Poetic Edda. This was similarly quite helpful in developing the project.

One weakness of Eddic to English is that it does not survey single-poem editions, nor does it include translations by non-academics. However, translations exterior to the project's current scope are certainly worthy of future study. Additionally—and importantly—the author emphasizes that Eddic to English is never truly complete and is subject to periodic revisions and additions. The project has plenty of room for improvement: For example, Eddic to English would benefit from more in-depth analysis in each entry’s Observations section and far more reviews, particularly from specialists. Please alert the present author of any errors you may encounter.

The Poetic Edda: A Brief Introduction

This section consists of a brief introduction to the Poetic Edda. Readers looking for a more in-depth introductions to the text can find them in ‘complete’ editions of the Poetic Edda, such as Carolyne Larrington’s revised edition (2014).

What is today known as the Poetic Edda consists of a collection of poems in Old Norse, a North Germanic language related to English. These poems were compiled by unknown parties and for unknown reasons. Scholars generally assume the collection dates to somewhere around the 13th century, but the material in many of the poems is certainly far older, in some cases invoking historical events known to have occurred among other ancient Germanic peoples.

The poems that form the Poetic Edda are of a type known as eddic, itself a variety of traditional poetry known as alliterative verse, which (as you’d expect) places emphasis on alliteration—words containing the same sound, and structures built around this feature. Alliterative verse can yield complex and ornate compositions unlike what many readers may have experienced before. Prior to entering the written record in Latin characters, poems of this type no doubt circulated orally, and some runic inscriptions also feature alliterative verse (like the Rök Runestone from the 9th century or the Golden Horns of Gallehus from the 5th century).

Alliterative verse is commonly encountered in the poetry of other ancient Germanic peoples. Notable examples outside of North Germanic texts include the Old English Nigon Wyrta Galdor (the so-called “Nine Herbs Charm”) and the Old High German Merseburg Charms. All of these examples quite likely stem from a common oral tradition among speakers of Proto-Germanic languages, but unfortunately no clear record of poetic material from that era comes down to us today. (Nonetheless, as many of these ancient Germanic branches invoke entities and concepts stemming from a shared body of beliefs, symbols, and motifs, such as deities or heroes, scholars can reconstruct aspects of Proto-Germanic poetry with some level of confidence.)

One of eddic poetry’s most notable features is the genre’s ability to pack a tremendous amount of material into very few words. This makes some prior understanding of the material necessary to truly follow what is happening. As an example, it’s worth taking a quick look at one of the three sample texts we’ve included in each entry of this survey, this one from the famous poem Vǫluspá:

This stanza focuses on a cosmic sacred tree, a plant that stands at the center of the entire body of narratives that together form what we today know as Norse mythology. This tree is known by the very exotic-looking name Yggdrasill and its focal presence mirrors an intense emphasis on sacred trees and holy groves in the ‘real-world’, a core practice among the ancient Germanic peoples (for more on this topic, see Kvasir Symbol Database’s “Sacred tree and grove” entry ).

The name Yggdrasill breaks down to two elements: [Yggr], meaning ‘the terrible one, the awesome one’—a name for the god Odin—and [drasill], which just means ‘horse’. The result is ‘the steed of the terrible one, the horse of the awesome one’, which is generally understood to mean ‘Odin’s gallows’. But why would a cosmic tree be called by such a curious name? Elsewhere in the Old Norse corpus we read that Odin hangs from a tree for nine nights before gaining knowledge of the runic alphabet (wisdom potentially to be understood as gained from the tree). Scholars generally understand this tree to be Yggdrasill. Yggdrasill is itself an example of what is known as a kenning, a poetic device poets frequently employ in Old Norse and Old English literature that meets the structural needs of alliterative verse. The concept of the kenning was probably also a component of earlier forms of alliterative verse among the ancient Germanic peoples.

With that in mind, let’s take a moment to consider some similarities and differences between translations of this single stanza: For example, while the present author has used “it’s called” to translate Old Norse heita, translators like Benjamin Thorpe and Lee M. Hollander use the archaic early modern English word hight, meaning ‘named’. English hight, archaic as it is, happens to stem from the same Proto-Germanic ancestor as the aforementioned Old Norse heita. And while speakers of modern German will recognize another, very much still-in-use sibling (which linguists called a cognate) in the verb heiße (also meaning ‘named’ or ‘called’), hight will be totally obscure to the great majority of modern English speakers who encounter it. 

These two translators have chosen to sacrifice comprehensibility for emphasis on a cognate. And while interesting, Thorpe and Hollander's decision is not helpful to general readers. Most will have no idea what’s going on, simply moving on to friendlier territory. In turn, readers are wise to consider the textual samples we’ve provided with the fundamental observation that the more stylized a translation appears, the further removed it is likely to be from the Old Norse text it purports to translate.

Notes and supplementary material make for crucial tools for anyone hoping to follow the poems of the Poetic Edda, where there’s often more lurking behind these stanzas than initially meets the eye. For example, when translators neglect to inform readers that a word, phrase, or stanza can be translated a few different ways, readers are only getting part of the story. The above stanza provides a few examples: Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the translation by the present author (Hopkins) makes for a considerably more text than what one finds in the normalized Old Norse—32 words versus 23 words. This is primarily because two adjectives in the stanza can be understood a few different ways, which Hopkins has rendered as intentional on the part of a skilled poet.

Consider hvítr, which means ‘white’ and can be understood with the sense of ‘bright, shining’. The poet uses this adjective in the above stanza to describe a type of mud on the sacred tree (about which there is plenty to say beyond the scope of this section). And then there’s hár, which means ‘high’. Just as today, ‘high’ can also be understood to mean either ‘tall’ or ‘noble, regal, venerable’. This is evidenced in the name Hár ‘the high one’, a prominent name among many for the god Odin. The poet appears to embrace the notion of this sacred tree as ‘tall’ and ‘noble’, while also emphasizing its association with the god Odin, much as we see in the name Yggdrasill.

Most translators make a decision and simply go with it, leaving readers unaware of the possibilities and ambiguity, intentional by the poet or not: Dodds (2014: 19) provides a “a sky-high tree, mired in white muck”, Orchard (2011: 5) goes with “a high tree, drenched with bright white mud”, Larrington (2014: 6) chooses “a tall tree, drenched with shining loam”, as just a few examples. Some translators decide not to mention the mud at all: Compare Thorpe’s (1866: 5) “a lofty tree, laved with limpid water”, Bellows’s (1923: 9) “with water white is the great tree wet”, and Hollander’s (1962: 4) “the mighty tree moist with white dews”.

All that from a single stanza of a single poem! And many stanzas are far more complex and mysterious than the comparatively straightforward example the author has chosen. Unfortunately, no translation featured in Eddic to English presents all these factors to the reader.

Translators may aim for style over accuracy, attempting to retain meter or alliteration over accuracy. Some freely alter stanza order and cut sections as they see fit, in some cases on quite dubious grounds, and most continue at least some bad habit of their predecessors, such as the misleading (and frankly indefensible) practice of translating jǫtunn or þurs as “giant” or “ogre”. Some don't even bother with notes (!), leaving their readers to turn to whatever flotsam and jetsam washes up from search engines to make sense of their rendering choices. On the other hand, some translations include wonderful illustrations or other helpful supplementary materials, aiming to make a translation as approachable to general readers as possible.

The simple solution to all these issues is to compare as many translations as possible and consult reliable secondary sources—such as handbooks by scholars—to fill in the gaps. With that in mind, the present survey attempts to make navigating translations and their reception as easy as possible for all readers.

A Note to Translators

The Poetic Edda presents translators with no shortage of mysteries and diverging paths. The process of translating an ancient text such as what we know today as the Poetic Edda requires extensive analysis of an array of thorny topics and complex issues, many of them without clear answers and some long central to the field of ancient Germanic studies. In short, to truly appreciate—and accurately render—these poems, scholars must draw from a variety of fields, such as historical linguistics, folklore studies, and archaeology.

Indeed, a translator who aims to produce a quality edition of the Poetic Edda faces a daunting task. Fortunately, this burden is eased by consulting the works of those who have walked these routes before: Wise scholars draw from the works of their predecessors, consulting decisions and analyses from earlier researchers who pondered the same puzzles and mysteries before them, learning from the successes and failures of their forebears. The present guide aims to make this process much easier. Translator, the author hopes this guide helps you in your mission to produce the best possible translation of the Poetic Edda.

References

• Haukur Þorgeirsson. 2001. "Old Norse for Beginners". Web. Accessed Nov. 25, 2020

• Larrington, Carolyne. 2007. "Translating the Poetic Edda” as published in Old Norse Made New, p. 21-42. eds. D. Clark and C. Phelpstead. Viking Society for Northern Research.

• Larrington, Carolyne. 2017. “Translating and Retranslating the Poetic Edda” as published in Birkett, Tom & Kristy March-Lyons. Ed. Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation, p. 165-182.

• Neckel, Gustav & Hans Kuhn. 1983. Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern. Universitätsverlag Winter.