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Edda Discussion: Völuspá

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    Edda Discussion: Völuspá

    This is a thread for discussion of the . It has been inspired by the existing Havamal thread. The idea is that 5 verses will be posted each week, following a discussion on what the verses mean, differences in translations, applications to life and heathenry and anything else that people would like to say! I'm going to be using the Bellows translation (available here http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/index.htm). Feel free to comment using different ones!

    I should point out that this is my first look at the Poetic Edda. I intend for this to be a massive learning curve for myself, and hope other people will find it educational!

    Let us begin!

    1. Hearing I ask | from the holy races,
    From Heimdall's sons, | both high and low;
    Thou wilt, Valfather, | that well I relate
    Old tales I remember | of men long ago.


    2. I remember yet | the giants of yore,
    Who gave me bread | in the days gone by;
    Nine worlds I knew, | the nine in the tree
    With mighty roots | beneath the mold.


    3. Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;
    Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;
    Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,
    But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.


    4. Then Bur's sons lifted | the level land,
    Mithgarth the mighty | there they made;
    The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,
    And green was the ground | with growing leeks.


    5. The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south
    Her right hand cast | over heaven's rim;
    No knowledge she had | where her home should be,
    The moon knew not | what might was his,
    The stars knew not | where their stations were.



    ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

    RIP

    I have never been across the way
    Seen the desert and the birds
    You cut your hair short
    Like a shush to an insult
    The world had been yelling
    Since the day you were born
    Revolting with anger
    While it smiled like it was cute
    That everything was shit.

    - J. Wylder

    #2
    Originally posted by Heka View Post

    Let us begin!

    1. Hearing I ask | from the holy races,
    From Heimdall's sons, | both high and low;
    Thou wilt, Valfather, | that well I relate
    Old tales I remember | of men long ago.



    (my translation has a footnote that says the wise woman is telling these tales to prove her knowledge)

    Comment


      #3
      ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

      RIP

      I have never been across the way
      Seen the desert and the birds
      You cut your hair short
      Like a shush to an insult
      The world had been yelling
      Since the day you were born
      Revolting with anger
      While it smiled like it was cute
      That everything was shit.

      - J. Wylder

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Heka View Post
        1) Holy races = men? or all races? (dwarves/elves etc), high and low referring to the high and low born classes makes me lean towards the former. And so does that make us Heimdall's sons?
        The Holy Races is the Aesir and the Vanir, the two lines of gods. The clue is in the third line where she mentions that Valfather (another name for Odin) has asled her to relate what she knows of past, present and future. Why he does so is fairly obscure. Though there is some who argue the the Hole Races are the races created by the Aesir (Man, Dwarf, Elf) as opposed to the Giants who were there all along.
        Heimdall's son's is ideed the race of men. There is a story elsewhere where Heimdall is said to visit Midgaard (Mithgarth) and each night he stop at a house. On the first one he stops at Great-grandfather's and Great-grandmother's place, on the second at Grandfather's and Grandmother's and finally on the last night he stays at Father's and Mother's. After nine months each of the three women has a baby. Great-grandmother has Thrall, Grandmother has Peasant and Mother had Jarl thus creating the three social groups that existed in the Viking era.

        Originally posted by Heka View Post
        2) The giants gave the Volva bread? Is she a giant? or a visitor? So the giants were here first? Nine worlds are mentioned here, but the creation of Mithgarth is mentioned in V4?
        The Volva is generally thought to be either a giant or a half-giant but the matter is still debated. And yes, the Giants were there before man, before the gods, before anyone else. This verse does in internal chronology take place after V4 so yes the worlds are mentioned but they are only there after their creation, if that makes any sense. The whole idea that metters must be dealt with chronologically is a fairly new idea, but some editions have moved this verse to a later point in the tale as to avoid confusing the modern reader.


        Originally posted by Heka View Post
        3) Ymir is a giant yes? and the yawning gap is Ginnunga gap? I've heard it used as a noun, and my version has a footnote alluding to it.
        Ymir is a giant, in fact he is the original, or Ur, Giant. The one who came before anyone or anything else. And the yawning gap is Ginnunga gap. Ginnunga is supposed to mean grinning so it is the 'Grinning Gap'.

        Originally posted by Heka View Post
        4) Pretty straight forward, creation of Mithgarth (even though the nine worlds are mentioned as being in V2... It seems like there was 9 worlds, then Mithgarth was created???)
        Also interesting, the sun warms from the south, where I live, the sun warms from the north. Wiccan's etc 'turn' the wheel of the year down here... thoughts?
        Midgaard (Mithgarth) is one of the nine worlds. Which exactly is the eight others is still discussed. As I said V2 cames chronologically after V4. V1 is now, V2 a sort of statement that the Volva remembers far back though here the nine worlds already are, and then oin V3 and forth she tells her sorry starting at the beginning.
        The thing that the sun warms from the south is because it is told from a Scandinavic POV, for us it does in fact shine from the south. Though the Vikings did get out and about the never did make is to the southern hemisphere.


        Originally posted by Heka View Post
        5) Sun female, moon male? So the sun has her right hand cast over the edge of the earth? (footnote alluding to endless days?). But they don't know where they belong yet...
        The fact that the sun is female and the sun male isn't uncommon in mythologies from countries high to the north. In Russia and many parts of eastern Europe it's the same. Maybe the sun is female because to us when 'She' disappeared in winter the fertility went away and when 'She' came back in spring the world seemed to come alive again and there is a good acient tradition for connecting the female with fertility. Also the sun isn't very harsh in these latitudes, a few extreme summer days being the exception. So the warmth is gentler.
        The mentioning of none of the heavenly bodies knowing where they belong is an indication that even though the nine worlds and everything have been created there is no divine order to things yet. Until the arrival of the gods all is chaos.
        Last edited by MoonRaven; 20 Jul 2013, 07:36.
        Warning: The above post may contain traces of sarcasm.

        An apostrophe is the difference between a business that knows its shit, and a business that knows it's shit.

        "Why is every object we don't understand always called a thing?" (McCoy. Star Trek: The Moive Picture)

        Comment


          #5
          ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

          RIP

          I have never been across the way
          Seen the desert and the birds
          You cut your hair short
          Like a shush to an insult
          The world had been yelling
          Since the day you were born
          Revolting with anger
          While it smiled like it was cute
          That everything was shit.

          - J. Wylder

          Comment


            #6
            I like the Voluspa, it reads nicely though I think it helps to read it out loud
            I wish we had access to the same information that they had when writing this down, so much is not said as its assumed it is known and understood by the reader.
            I've tried to keep stuff from other sources in brackets,.

            1. Hearing I ask | from the holy races,
            From Heimdall's sons, | both high and low;
            Thou wilt, Valfather, | that well I relate
            Old tales I remember | of men long ago.

            This is a formulaic start used in most "Things", a ritualised "shut the hell up and listen everyone".
            Holy races are the tribes of gods.
            Heimdalls sons High and Low calls to the Nobility and common man.
            ((Heimdall is told to be the creator of the triple caste system, and fathering offspring on various people.))
            ((This is contested, and I believe only mentioned in one poem. In that poem it states that "Rig" is Heimdall , but there is the possibility it is Odin)).

            2. I remember yet | the giants of yore,
            Who gave me bread | in the days gone by;
            Nine worlds I knew, | the nine in the tree
            With mighty roots | beneath the mold.


            Giants were the first creatures, I have never been convinced that the Volva was a giantess, its equally possible she could be one of the first humans.

            Here she is just starting to qualify her knowledge.
            I had always assumed she was dead, and "summoned" by Odin from the dead and being coerced into giving her wisdom.
            As to why Odin had to do this I am unsure, he should know all she knows, but it is likely he is just verifying his knowledge.

            3. Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;
            Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;
            Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,
            But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.


            "It was a long time ago" I prefer some of the other translations for this part, they're more descriptive.
            ((Ymir was the first giant and was licked from the primordial ice by a cow.
            Its explained in the Eddas.))

            4. Then Bur's sons lifted | the level land,
            Mithgarth the mighty | there they made;
            The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,
            And green was the ground | with growing leeks.

            ((Bur/Bor is the father of Odin and son of Buri. ))
            ((Odins Mother is Bestla a giant/half-giant.
            Bur's sons are the three gods Odin,Vili and Ve, they killed Ymir the frost giant and created the world out of his carcass.
            Leeks can symbolize fertility and growth.))

            5. The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south
            Her right hand cast | over heaven's rim;
            No knowledge she had | where her home should be,
            The moon knew not | what might was his,
            The stars knew not | where their stations were.



            Reading it out loud helps make it clearer when she is talking about past/future/ present, it helps to remember this is a person speaking to an audience not a written accounting so it does not always go A-B-C

            Comment


              #7

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                #8
                * * *
                You can find some of my creative writing at http://libbyscribbles.com

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                  #9
                  http://theheathenstudyclub.proboards.com/

                  Comment


                    #10
                    http://etext.old.no/Bugge/voluspa/, there are several others out there but this one had the best formatting in my opinion.
                    Since the Old Norse verse is going to be pure gibberish to most I'll put an English translation below it. This is my own translation, there is absolutely nothing official whatsoever about it please keep that in mind, but I'll use it to elaborate a bit on what some of the stanzas might mean so you'll find that this version doesn't focus much on keeping meter and rhyme. When something in the verse is given in soft brackets () it is an alternate interpretation of a word or line, something in sharp brackets [] is additional information which is at times necessary since this is a poem that was meant to be told to people who already knew the story so many details has been left out, after all they weren't necessary for the audience, but it makes it very difficult for a modern reader to understand it and at times it is downright impossible since we don't have the knowledge base any more.
                    Finally I will give my interpretation of what the verse means. Hope everyone can live with this. If not just skip this post.



                    allar kindir

                    meiri oc miNi

                    mavgo | heimdallar

                    uel fyr telia




                    Silence I bid you all

                    both you of holy blood,

                    and the line of Heimdall,

                    low as well as high,

                    Would you, Valfather,

                    that I tell all I know

                    of ages past,

                    of all the worlds?



                    In the first half of this verse, as Optimistic Discord so eloquent put it, she says 'sit down, shut up and listen to me, whether you be gods (you of holy blood) or the line of Heimdall (man)'. The second half she asks Odin (Valfather is one of his many pseudonyms, it refers to him as the god of those slain on the battlefield, the Val. An ancient Nordic way of saying that you went to battle was to say that you went the the Val) if he want her to tell him (that is the audience) about the ancient past and how men came to be. Since she goes on we must assume that he answered with an affirmative.
                    To address what others have brought up. The Volva in this poem is thought to be dead, though it is never specifically stated. This line of reasoning might be because this Volva is thought to be the same one who shows up in the story of the death of Baldur, where a Volva who is buried at the gates of Hella, the realm of the dead, is raised by Odin (or in some version Frigga his wife) to tell him (her) first how to prevent his death and then, after he dies, how to get him back. The Volva in that story is said to be the most powerful one who ever lived and with the clearest vision. And since see back through the mists of time to the beginning of all things would require a powerful Volva indeed the one from the death of Baldur and the who tells Voluspa is thought to be one and the same and thus that Odin has raised her from the dead to tell us this story. But it is not really stated in any detail anywhere so it may be an erroneous conclusion. Particular since Volva appears to be the Old Norse word for sibyl.
                    Secondly, why Odin does this? Well, though he is said to be allseeing that term isn't exact. While he could see anywhere in the nine worlds from his throne Lidskjadf (sometimes Lidskjadf is said to be a tower rather than a throne, but throne is the most commonly used translation) he could only have his attention at one place at any given time, so he could see all but not everything at once. Also much of his knowledge about what went on was told to him by his two raves, Huginn and Muninn, who flew about by day watching the worlds, and by his two wolves, Gere and Freke, who roamed the worlds at night. And there was one thing he was not, and that was a seer. While he was the wisest of the Aesir, though that title is sometimes given to Mimir (Mim?) who is technically a Giant, he didn't know the future nor did he know the past from before he was born. The gift of Sight was a solely female thing among the Germanic tribes, the Vikings is counted among these. The reason that Odin was thought to do know the future has likely to do with two things. One is him being the first one who learned to carve the runes, and since runes are used for divination Odin must have know things about the future, right? Just one problem with that, the runes wasn't used for divination until mid-19th century, so that is a distinct modern day invention. So while Odin could have told us at least some of what happened from the time he was born and up until and including the present, he wouldn't know what transpired before, nor would he know what was yet to happen. The second, and probably more important factor, is entirely Snorri's fault. When he edited Voluspa for his Edda he completely wrote her out of the story making it sound as if it was Odin, and at some points Mimir (the Aesir who was also a Giant) and have led people to believe that Odin could see the future.


                    Ec man iotna |
                    mic fodda hofdo

                    fyr mold nedan.




                    Remember I do the Giants

                    the first born,

                    those that in olden day

                    raised me (fostered me or nurtured me);

                    Nine worlds I remember,

                    Nine Giantesses [in the roots of the tree, or at the very edge of the world]

                    the famous tree (the tree that is known to all)

                    with roots digging deep (that is hidden under the earth)



                    Again the first half is fairly obvious. She tells us that she remembers very far back indeed and that she too is old (those that in olden day raised me) and that she was either raised by Giants or possibly that she was one herself. Some theorises that to be a seeress you had to be close to nature, and that being 'raised by Giants' is a euphemism for that since the Giants appear to represent the primordial forces of the world.
                    The nine worlds mentioned are the nine worlds that make up Old Norse cosmology. Apart from Midgaard there are Asgard, realm of the gods; Utgaard (or Jotunheim), realm of the Giants; Niflheim, primordial realm of mists and sometimes said to be part of the underworld; Muspellsheim, primordial realm of fire and ruled by the fire Giant Surtur, the one who will destroy the world at Ragnarok in a blaze of fire, but we are getting ahead of things here; Hella, the realm of the dead, though this is sometimes seen as a sort of subrealm to Niflheim and Vanaheim, home of the 'other' line of gods the Vanir. Yes I know that only makes six, or seven if we count Hella as a separate realm, but the last ones are disputed and I'll leave them unmentioned.
                    The tree mention is Ash Yggdrasil, the World Tree, in which all nine worlds are said to be placed. We get around to this tree in more detail in a later verse so I'll say no more for now.
                    The nine Giantesses aren't mentioned again in this poem, and appears to a reader without prior knowledge to be completely unrelated to the whole, but there are indications from other sources that they refer to Heimdall's mothers (yes plural), he who is the originator of the three social groups, since he is said to have nine mothers and no father. (If you think this sounds weird just wait. Methods of procreation in Norse Mythology gets much stranger than this.) Strangely enough this would make him a Giant. Technically. Though as we will also see at a later point, the distinction between who was a Giant and who was a God was often hair fine.



                    I had meant to do all five verses, but it is getting late and I have to go to work tomorrow. So I am just going to post what I have on these two and leave the other three for tomorrow. It'll also make the post, slightly, more manageable in size.
                    Warning: The above post may contain traces of sarcasm.

                    An apostrophe is the difference between a business that knows its shit, and a business that knows it's shit.

                    "Why is every object we don't understand always called a thing?" (McCoy. Star Trek: The Moive Picture)

                    Comment


                      #11

                      Comment


                        #12

                        And here we go back to the very beginning of it all, nothing has been created yet. All that exists is the Ur(original) Giant Ymir and empty space (The Grinning Gap). Basically it's an attempt of describing the time before the world before anything was created, which is a challenge indeed.
                        Personally I have always read this as what was before the Big Bang, the nothingness is Ginnunga Gap and Ymir is the point of origin where all that is now the Universe was.

                        Okay here is where the lack of prior knowledge really hits, because a lot of things have happened between verse 3 and verse 4 and if you don't know what the whole thing becomes nigh on meaningless.
                        First of all, while Ymir drifted in the Grinning Gap, and fed of the cow Audhumbla, who isn't mentioned here and I think the only verifiable source is Snorri so her existence is dubious, his feet, well mated for the lack of a better word, and had children. There were also children born of his armpits. (You can stop laughing I'm not making this up. I'm not nearly that imaginative.) These were the second generation of Giants, so to speak. These Giants procreate, one supposes, in a more traditional fashion than their father/mother, and populate Ymirs body.
                        While Audhumbla stands there, in the middle of absolutely nothing, and feeds Ymir, she is licking a rock of salt. Don't ask me where that one came from either, I haven't the faintest clue. Of this rock was born Buri, the one being in this universe that wasn't a Giant, or a cow, he had the son Bur though we never learn who he had the son with or if, like Ymir, he made said son with himself. Well, Bur in turn married Bestla, who was one of the Giantesses. Together they had children, the old-fashioned way, who would become the gods. Odin is one of them, but who the others are we cannot be sure. Voluspa later names two of Odin's brothers as Hodur and Lodur, while Snorri names them Vile and Ve. Some say Snorri just made it up, others than he was borrowing from a different mythic tradition. Whatever the names of the brothers they could see that the procreation of the Giants was getting out of hand, and they decided to slay Ymir to stop it. Exactly how slaying the Urgiant was going to achieve that is not explained. Once they had slain Ymir and got rid of most, but not all of the other Giants, they set about building the world as it becomes known in the Norse mythology. His blood became the sea, his meat the earth, his bones the rocks of the earth, the top of his scull the heavens above, his eyes the Sun and Moon and his teeth the Stars.
                        Now the gods had a lush world (worlds) and nearly no Giants, and so they could live in peace. Though that was not to last as we will see in later verses.

                        In this the world is still young, newly created, and all things, Sun, Moon, Stars are learning where they fit in the grander scheme of things. The male moon/female sun thing I've already dealt with in my previous post.
                        One final thing for this verse. I've translated the word megin with power, alternately magic or essence, and it's one of these words that are impossible to translate even halfway correctly since there isn't any word even near in meaning, but I will try to give an explanation of what the Norse thought it meant. First off, megin was something everything possessed. Trees, rock, animals, Sun, Moon, all things had a megin. A things megin was the very embodiment of the thing, that which made it exactly that one thing and nothing else, what made a rock a rock, an oak an oak or a bear a bear. Its rockness, oakness or bearness if you will. The only thing, apart from the gods I suppose, that didn't have megin was humans, so no wonder if humanity is occasionally confused, after all we don't know who we are. On the other hand we had wyrd, sometimes translated as fate but it probably wasn't meant the way we usually use that word, but I digress. The only humans that did have megin was those who could use magic. Some times megin is equated with the Indian concept Prana or the Chinese/Japanese chi/qi. Though for me that is a bit like equating armchairs and park benches, both are used to sit on but they don't have much else in common.

                        Alright, this turned out much, much longer than I had planned. Thanks for reading it all.

                        - - - Updated - - -

                        Originally posted by Ula View Post
                        Since Odin is the son of Borr (grandson of Bur) and he is of the three who kills Ymir he would know most of this. I think it's her way of showing she is an actual and accurate seer and that she can see to the beginning and therefore, the end clearly or at least correctly.
                        Yes I agree with you.
                        Though I would like to add that it might also partially have been done for a story telling reason. We don't really know how or in what circumstances this poem might be performed and it is possible that having one person tell the whole story rather than having say Odin tell some and the Volva the rest would be easier technically when performing it. While having two people tell it might work in writing, it could very well become confusing in an oral performance. This is my completely own idea though.
                        Warning: The above post may contain traces of sarcasm.

                        An apostrophe is the difference between a business that knows its shit, and a business that knows it's shit.

                        "Why is every object we don't understand always called a thing?" (McCoy. Star Trek: The Moive Picture)

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                          #13
                          Last edited by Ula; 27 Jul 2013, 11:13.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Ula View Post
                            Not sure if it's relevant here or not but on doing some reading myself and make family trees you find the history of the giants and Asa but not the Vanir. They are never mentioned in here at all other than the war. There origins don't seem to traceable to Ymir. Just an observation.
                            And speaking of this where are all the goddesses? Apart from Freya who get mentioned in verse 25 and Frigga who is mentioned as crying over Baldur's death in verse 33 they are conspicuously absent. So where were/are they?

                            - - - Updated - - -

                            P.S. Heka when does the next 5 verses go up?
                            Warning: The above post may contain traces of sarcasm.

                            An apostrophe is the difference between a business that knows its shit, and a business that knows it's shit.

                            "Why is every object we don't understand always called a thing?" (McCoy. Star Trek: The Moive Picture)

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Last edited by Wednesday; 28 Jul 2013, 09:43.

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