Edda Discussion: Völuspá

[Heka]

[Rae'ya]

Okay, I'm only going to address some of these points since it appears that most of the rest is based on UPG and we could argue back and forth eternally because it all boils down to differences in experiences and thoughts and the others I addressed in my post on verse 35 and the half verse before that.

...

I really can't say where I got this. I think it might be a case of a childhood story that got supported by UPG and therefore I never really questioned it the way I do most things. Sort of like the theory of acceleration, since experience corroborates the theory, we had to get all the way to Einstein until Newton was disproven.
These stories are rife in Danish culture, particularly in children's literature. Seriously we even have several book series for children and a comic book series, no it has nothing to do with that Marvel abomination this one actually get a lot of it right and when it deviates it's mostly to create a whole and continuous story, plus a lot of other stuff to numerous to name here. In the adult section we have a history of the Danish nation titled 'Odins Hvisken' (Odin's Whispers). So these stories are anywhere and everywhere. And even though we a usually seen as being comfortably Lutheran nation most kids have a greater likelihood of being well acquainted with the Norse mythology than with the stories of the Bible.
So I have 30+ years of these stories in my backlog and this one could come from anywhere, it might even be my mother's embellishment on them. She did that a lot when she told them. Most of them were in hindsight obvious in the extreme, but some are harder to spot.
I don't have much contact with any of the male Aesir with exception of Ullr, him on the other hand I have quite a close relationship to. But the few times I have had to deal with Odin there have always been an underlying animosity that I got the impression was due to my close relationship with exactly Ullr. Whether the low key hostility, which really seems to be a one-way street from Odin towards Ullr, is actually due to the time Ullr took over the ruling seat or whether it is something else I have never asked, the precise reason never did seem all that important and it appeared to me as likely a reason as any so I assumed.

So you do put store in pure UPG. Though you sort of missed the point by spending all that time trying to justify it with children's stories and comic books. lol

Seeing as you don't want to discuss my UPG does that mean you don't want us to discuss yours?

I don't know if Fenrir's binding is done before or after Baldr's death. I thought perhaps Loki was having retribution. It almost seemed like a prisoner exchange.

This is an interesting idea. I don't know the chronology either, though I assume that Fenrir is bound first. The Aesir take two of Loki's children by Angrbodha, though it could be argued that Loki and Angrbodha allowed it to happen in much the same way that Othinn allowed Baldr to be killed. Angrbodha at least is supposed to be a prophetess and it would make sense to me that as Hagia of the Iron Wood She would have some understanding of the workings of the Nornir. That wouldn't necessarily stop them from wanting retribution for the binding of their children, though.

I always thought that Hela's role in these things was underplayed also. She is not completely unbiased in the whole process of Ragnarok, as she sides with the Jotnar and unleashes the dead on the ship Naglfar. What is Her role in these events? Jormungandr and and Fenrir are Her siblings and surely having Baldr in her keeping would be a boon? The whole thing has a feel of being more complicated than it seems to me.

[MoonRaven]

So you do put store in pure UPG. Though you sort of missed the point by spending all that time trying to justify it with children's stories and comic books. lol

Seeing as you don't want to discuss my UPG does that mean you don't want us to discuss yours?

Well it appears I do . Actually I think there's much of my own personal beliefs that are complete UPG without any lore to support it, but most of the time I can tell which part is what.
The point is I never questioned that UPG, I never saw the need to since it fit and I didn't really find anything to contradict it. The whole thing about children's literature wasn't meant as a defense but as an explanation of how much these stories are prevalent in my nation and there may crop up things in my answers that isn't lore but that I have always assumed were true because I got them told as stories as a little girl and never found anything to contradict it.
Apologies if it came over as defensive, it wasn't meant that way, but see below for more.


By all means discuss away. I think my reluctance to bring up UPG so far, is that usually the only ones I have to discuss things with are recons or fairly fundamentalist heathens. This is probably also the reason why I felt a need to justify the whole thing. And I am therefore also a bit at a loss at how to approach other's UPG when brought up, thus my reluctance to discuss it. So all in all it I'm terribly gun shy on this subject.
But I'd very much like it if I could learn not to be and how to discuss this is a respectful manner.
So don't hold yourself back. Just don't expect me to jump right into the discussion, I'm the type of person who tends to linger on the edges for a while, learning the rules, before I jump into the fray.

[Optimistic discord]

Yes yes I know, I'm late! Sorry! Crazy busy. And I only just noticed that the last post was all black. I'll try not to do that this time.

41. 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?


42. 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.


43. Then to the gods | crowed Gollinkambi,
He wakes the heroes | in Othin's hall;
And beneath the earth | does another crow,
The rust-red bird | at the bars of Hel.


44. 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.


45. Brothers shall fight | and fell each other,
And sisters' sons | shall kinship stain;
Hard is it on earth, | with mighty whoredom;
Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered,
Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls;
Nor ever shall men | each other spare.

I have always liked 45, it does a nice job of describing the chaos around the battle I also think it hints at just how complicated some of the relationships amongst the Aesir/vanie/jotunn are. As well as the inevitable human conflict.

[Rae'ya]

Well it appears I do . Actually I think there's much of my own personal beliefs that are complete UPG without any lore to support it, but most of the time I can tell which part is what.

The trick is making sure that everyone else knows which part is which.

One of my pet peeves when reading published authors (especially Heathen ones) is that they will begin with primary sources and scholarly discussions, and then throw in bits of UPG or personal bias without distinguishing. So when the readers are people who don't know much about the primary or secondary sources, they assume that everything stems from that. It's not the UPG or bias that is the issue... everyone here should know my stance on UPG by now lol... it's the fact that they don't delineate. And in some cases try to pass off their UPG as supported by primary sources when it isn't. I dislike that lack of transparency. But if an author is upfront and says 'now my own personal opinion...' or 'from personal experience I have decided...' or whatever, well that's great. Tell me all your UPG because I love it and I think it's just as important as primary and secondary sources. Sometimes more important.

That's one of the reasons that I'm so upfront about my stance on UPG vs the Lore. Transparency is important to me, and it's really easy to flip from an academic point to a personal experience point in the same paragraph without letting other people know which is which.

By all means discuss away. I think my reluctance to bring up UPG so far, is that usually the only ones I have to discuss things with are recons or fairly fundamentalist heathens. This is probably also the reason why I felt a need to justify the whole thing. And I am therefore also a bit at a loss at how to approach other's UPG when brought up, thus my reluctance to discuss it. So all in all it I'm terribly gun shy on this subject.
But I'd very much like it if I could learn not to be and how to discuss this is a respectful manner.
So don't hold yourself back. Just don't expect me to jump right into the discussion, I'm the type of person who tends to linger on the edges for a while, learning the rules, before I jump into the fray.

I think we all have that fear when we're in Heathen or NT circles. Because it does happen. A LOT. In fact it's happening right now in another thread here at PF.

But you can be pretty sure that if you're talking to me, I'll probably respect your UPG more than I respect your academic research. I just ask that the same is awarded to me in return. You don't have to believe me or agree with me. And you're allowed to debate against or for it. We're not going to agree on everything... that's the nature of being two different people from two different backgrounds practicing two different versions of our faith. But doesn't mean we can't talk about it lol

I got less gun shy about it all out of experience lol. And coming from a Demonolatry background as well... you get used to being dismissed, argued against, patronised or vilified and eventually you learn not to take it personally and how to respond to it without getting all emotional and snarky.

In specific regards to Ullr, I've never met Him, I've never been to Asgardhr and I've never tried to contact Him. So in this particular case your UPG is a source for me when the only other sources about Ullr are limited. When I asked 'where did you get that from' I wasn't meaning 'you're wrong, I've never read that'. I just meant 'that's not in the primary sources, where did you learn it?'. I'm good with UPG lol.

[Wednesday]

[Rae'ya]

Sorry if this was mentioned already!

One of my 'aha' moments was in learning that Baldr's death was the First Death. Ever. Gullveig didn't die. Mimir didn't die. Beings were always being decapitated or killed without actually becoming dead. Until Baldr.

I think this puts an interesting spin on the lore. Loki didn't just kill Baldr, he brought Death to the nine worlds. He fathered Hel (the grave) and he had the power to resurrect (immortality), but he refused. Loki is god of the Underworld and Baldr's death was his full transformation. Bound and tied he is always death, or, death is always final. Bound and tied Loki doesn't have the power to resurrect and so no one leaves*hel (or the transformation of death). It is only when Loki breaks his bonds that death is escaped from earth and the dead come back at Ragnarok.

This is a really interesting concept. As far as I know, death and the journey to Helheim already existed for the other races... Hella was not the first steward of Helheim, at least for the jotnar, and there are countless stories of jotnar who were killed and gone. But the Aesir are a different story... their longevity and immortality is a product of Idunna's apples, and perhaps the above theory plays into it also. Every Aesir or Aesir-sworn entity who 'died' up until that point either came back or had a tangible presence after death (Mimir of course being the prime example of that). It's a part of the mystique of the Aesir versus other races in the Nine Worlds, and one of the things that supports the idea of their supremacy within the Nine Worlds. Baldr's death-death has an effect on that.

[MoonRaven]

The trick is making sure that everyone else knows which part is which.

One of my pet peeves when reading published authors (especially Heathen ones) is that they will begin with primary sources and scholarly discussions, and then throw in bits of UPG or personal bias without distinguishing. So when the readers are people who don't know much about the primary or secondary sources, they assume that everything stems from that. It's not the UPG or bias that is the issue... everyone here should know my stance on UPG by now lol... it's the fact that they don't delineate. And in some cases try to pass off their UPG as supported by primary sources when it isn't. I dislike that lack of transparency. But if an author is upfront and says 'now my own personal opinion...' or 'from personal experience I have decided...' or whatever, well that's great. Tell me all your UPG because I love it and I think it's just as important as primary and secondary sources. Sometimes more important.

That's one of the reasons that I'm so upfront about my stance on UPG vs the Lore. Transparency is important to me, and it's really easy to flip from an academic point to a personal experience point in the same paragraph without letting other people know which is which.

That pet peeve is one of mine too, and I try to keep UPG as well as personal readings of the text clearly apart from the more official stuff. The Ullr/Odin thing I obviously missed, though in hindsight it should have been obvious. After all, we know so little of Ullr that nearly all information on him is UPG.
So if you see anything else please call me on it. I will continue to do my best to keep the things separate but I can't promise 100% that there won't crop up something similar.

I think we all have that fear when we're in Heathen or NT circles. Because it does happen. A LOT. In fact it's happening right now in another thread here at PF.

If you are referring to the Androgynous/Homosexual.... thread, yeah I've saw it.

But you can be pretty sure that if you're talking to me, I'll probably respect your UPG more than I respect your academic research. I just ask that the same is awarded to me in return. You don't have to believe me or agree with me. And you're allowed to debate against or for it. We're not going to agree on everything... that's the nature of being two different people from two different backgrounds practicing two different versions of our faith. But doesn't mean we can't talk about it lol

I got less gun shy about it all out of experience lol. And coming from a Demonolatry background as well... you get used to being dismissed, argued against, patronised or vilified and eventually you learn not to take it personally and how to respond to it without getting all emotional and snarky.

Well you're not the only one reading this, are you?
More seriously, I just tend to walk away because most of the time it feels like arguing with a fundamentalist, a waste of time and breath.

I'd love to discuss Ullr in more detail but I've been super busy this week so I'm just sticking to the verses.



Presumably the first four lines is about one of the wolves from the last verse, maybe the sun-eater. I've always wondered how much this verse have been influenced by Christianity or whether it is a later addition, because its contents strikes me as being very similar to that of the event leading up to Armageddon, a sun shining black (though this may be a metaphor for a missing, that is swallowed, sun) bad weather, a world bathed in blood etc. I don't know.


Here we have yet another incongruence. The line ' can mean both 'the shepard of the giantess', that is a shepard employed by the unnamed giantess, but it can also mean 'the giantess' shepardgaldra' which is a for of spellsong or spellrecital in a particular form of voice. As a funny aside the word for a cocks crow in modern Danish is 'gale', in past tense 'gol', which is related to ''.


See above about the three cocks, I have nothing further to add.


This is an extremely interesting verse since it is the only verse that gets repeated, at least in my editions it is also verse 49, 54 and 58. Why this is I do not know.
Garm is, as I think I've mentioned before the dog that guards the entrance to the underworld and barks every time someone crosses Gjallar Bridge and enters Gnipa cave which is the entrance itself.
The fetters who are torn and the wolf that runs free doesn't refer to Garm but to Fenris who's chain is supposed to break only at Ragnarok.
Then there is the phrase ''. 'Sigtiva' is a combination of 'sig' that means victory or triumph and 'tiva' that means gods, therefore the translation 'triumphant gods' which is very ironic taken into consideration that they will lose this fight. '' I am less sure of but I think it means fight or battle usually. Here I have translated it though with defeat, since that is what happens to the gods.


Right, verse 45 have to wait until tomorrow, I'm beat.

[Heka]

[MoonRaven]

This is one of my favourite verses too, and may I add that the English translation Heka posts are giving me Tolkien feelings again, though not for the reasons Optimistic mentioned because I am less sure this verse is speaking of the human world at all. Unless it is a late addition to the poem, but I will return to that. This is my own theory so take it for what it is worth, but let's have a look at the evidence.
First off, the human world and the behaviour of humans goes unmentioned except for the fact that the gods created Midgard and gave life to humans, nothing else about us or our world is mentioned in this poem. We get more mentions as deceased, einhjers and the wandering dead, than we do alive. So either our nameless poet completely breaks pattern and makes a social commentary, which I grant is entirely possible I just don't find it very probable, or perhaps this verse is a late addition to the poem, like verse 41 this bears many resemblances to the Christian Armageddon; brothers turning on each other, whorishness rampant, etc.
Or maybe there is the base of an original verse than since got elaborated upon by a later scribe because some of the things brought up in the verse could easily refer to the actions of the gods. The brother mentioned in the first two lines could be either Balder and Hodur or alternately Hodur and Vali, the whole 'a time of axe...' could refer to preliminary skirmishes or battle between gods and giants.
Well just a thought.

I very much take exception to the translation of the line '' to 'ere the world falls' particularly the last word 'steypisk' to 'fall' since, at least as far as my English skills go, fall is a word that indicates something that requires neither intent nor deliberate action on anyone's part. To give a couple of examples: 'the apple falls from the tree' or 'I fall down the ladder'. Simple laws of nature, no will or deliberate action involved. 'Steypisk' on the other hand is a word, as far as my Old Norse skills go , that does bear in it an amount of deliberate action and intent that would more naturally translate into English with 'overthrown' or possibly 'thrown down' because in throw you have someone who is doing the throwing

[Heka]

[Rae'ya]

Thought, would Tuesday be a better posting day? I've noticed people seem to have more time on the weekends to do their posts, or later in the week even? Let me know.

I know I've skipped the last few batches... have just been really busy the last few weeks and my PF time has been occupied with certain other discussions lol.

But normally I'm online most of the day on a Monday, which means that's when I'm likely to post in here because it takes a lot of time to go through the verses and post up my interpretations. The rest of the week I tend to only be online for an hour or so, and that gets eaten up pretty quickly.

So take from that what you will, and I'll just manage around whatever you prefer lol

[MoonRaven]

[odinist]

[Heka]