The Poetic Edda
Henry Adams Bellows (translator)
3,671 passages indexed from The Poetic Edda (Henry Adams Bellows (translator)) — Page 11 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Poetic Edda, passage 1803
11. “Not far was I | from the lord of the folk,
Yester morn, | when the monarch was slain;
Though crafty the son | of Sigmund, methinks,
When he speaks of the fight | in slaughter-runes.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2714
22. “First the heart of Hogni | shall ye lay in my hands,
All bloody from the breast | of the bold one cut
With keen-biting sword, | from the son of the king.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 277
83. By the fire drink ale, | over ice go on skates;
Buy a steed that is lean, | and a sword when tarnished,
The horse at home fatten, | the hound in thy dwelling.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3537
Sig′-geir, husband of Signy, 302, 303, 332, 455.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3564
Skûr′-hild, daughter of Skekkil, 224.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3436
Kost′-ber-a, wife of Hogni, 449, 500, 502–506, 510.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2647
25. “But close from Guthrun | kept they hid
What first of all | she ought to have known.
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . .
The Poetic Edda, passage 2113
Sigurth took Fafnir’s heart and cooked it on a spit. When he thought
that it was fully cooked, and the blood foamed out of the heart, then
he tried it with his finger to see whether it was fully cooked. He
burned his finger, and put it in his mouth. But when Fafnir’s
heart’s-blood came on his tongue, he understood the speech of birds. He
heard nut-hatches chattering in the thickets. A nut-hatch said:
The Poetic Edda, passage 2963
78. Some editions add lines 3–4 to stanza 79; Finnur Jonsson marks them
as probably spurious.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3197
Ed′-da, Great-Grandmother, 204, 205.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1871
11. Slaughter-runes: equivocal or deceptive speech regarding the
battle. The word “rune” had the meaning of “magic” or “mystery” long
before it was applied to the signs or characters with which it was
later identified.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1723
55. Swift as a storm | there smote together
The flashing blades | at Frekastein;
Ever was Helgi, | Hunding’s slayer,
First in the throng | where warriors fought;
(Fierce in battle, | slow to fly,
Hard the heart | of the hero was.)
The Poetic Edda, passage 324
130. I rede thee, Loddfafnir! | and hear thou my rede,—
Profit thou hast if thou hearest,
Great thy gain if thou learnest:
If thou fain wouldst win | a woman’s love,
And gladness get from her,
Fair be thy promise | and well fulfilled;
None loathes what good he gets.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1994
45. According to the Volsungasaga, Sigurth remembers his oaths to
Brynhild almost immediately after his return to Gunnar’s house.
Brynhild, on the other hand, knows nothing until the famous quarrel
between herself and Guthrun at the bath (another reminiscence of the
German story), when she taunts Guthrun with Sigurth’s inferiority to
Gunnar, and Guthrun retorts with the statement that it was Sigurth, and
not Gunnar, who rode through the flames.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1495
19. “At Nithuth’s girdle | gleams the sword
That I sharpened keen | with cunningest craft,
(And hardened the steel | with highest skill;)
The bright blade far | forever is borne,
(Nor back shall I see it | borne to my smithy;)
Now Bothvild gets | the golden ring
(That was once my bride’s,— | ne’er well shall it be.)”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2520
4. From the Thing ran Grani | with thundering feet,
But thence did Sigurth | himself come never;
Covered with sweat | was the saddle-bearer,
Wont the warrior’s | weight to bear.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3333
Her′-borg, queen of the Huns, 411, 413, 414.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2086
7. “If thou mightest grow | thy friends among,
One might see thee fiercely fight;
But bound thou art, | and in battle taken,
And to fear are prisoners prone.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2002
Finnur Jonsson has divided the Reginsmol into two poems, or rather into
two sets of fragments, but this, as the foregoing analysis has
indicated, does not appear to go nearly far enough. It accords much
better with the facts to assume that the compiler of the collection
represented by the Codex Regius, having set out to tell the story of
Sigurth, took his verse fragments pretty much wherever he happened to
find them. In this connection, it should be remembered that in the
fluid state of oral tradition poems, fragments, and stanzas passed
readily and frequently from one story to another. Tradition, never
critical, doubtless connected with the Sigurth story much verse that
never originated there.
The Poetic Edda, passage 579
51. Drunk art thou, Geirröth, | too much didst thou drink,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Much hast thou lost, | for help no more
From me or my heroes thou hast.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3618
Tȳr, a god, 18, 140–143, 147–149, 152, 163, 164, 228, 391.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1915
The complete lack of contemporary material makes it impossible for us
to speak with certainty regarding the character and content of the
Sigurth legend as it existed in the Rhine country in the seventh
century. It is, however, important to remember the often overlooked
fact that any popular traditional hero became a magnet for originally
unrelated stories of every kind. It must also be remembered that in the
early Middle Ages there existed no such distinction between fiction and
history as we now make; a saga, for instance, might be anything from
the most meticulously accurate history to the wildest of fairy tales,
and a single saga might (and sometimes did) combine both elements. This
was equally true of the Frankish traditions, and the two principles
just stated account for most of the puzzling phenomena in the growth of
the Sigurth story.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2323
Prose. The prose follows the concluding prose of the Brot without
indication of a break, the heading standing immediately before stanza
1. Fafnir’s heart: this bit of information is here quite without point,
and it is nowhere else stated that Guthrun understood the speech of
birds. In the Volsungasaga it is stated that Sigurth gave Guthrun some
of Fafnir’s heart to eat, “and thereafter she was much grimmer than
before, and wiser.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2148
30. Something has evidently been lost before this stanza. Sigurth
clearly refers to Regin’s reproach when he was digging the trench (cf.
note on introductory prose), but the poem does not give such a passage.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3662
Vol″-u-spǭ′, the Wise-Woman’s Prophecy, 1–28, 52, 61, 62, 68, 69,
73–75, 77, 78, 80–83, 89–91, 93, 95–97, 99–102, 108, 110, 112–115, 129,
136, 140, 145, 146, 152, 154, 156, 160–164, 166, 170, 172–174, 176,
178, 179, 186, 188, 195, 196, 198, 200, 203, 217, 218, 220, 223,
227–232, 236, 242, 243, 245, 247, 254, 276, 291, 293, 296, 314, 319,
359, 360, 375, 393, 394, 416, 444, 508, 542.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1290
22. “Gunnar the Bulwark, | Grim the Hardy,
Thorir the Iron-shield, | Ulf the Gaper,
Brodd and Hörvir | both did I know;
In the household they were | of Hrolf the Old.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3609
Thrūth, daughter of Thor, 184.
The Poetic Edda, passage 724
4. “Of thy morning feats art thou proud, | but the future thou
knowest not wholly;
Doleful thine home-coming is: | thy mother, methinks, is dead.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2268
12. Early came evening, | and ale was drunk,
And among them long | and loud they talked;
They slumbered all | when their beds they sought,
But Gunnar alone | was long awake.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1372
5. “Charms full good | then chant to me, mother,
And seek thy son to guard;
For death do I fear | on the way I shall fare,
And in years am I young, methinks.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 116
60. The gods in Ithavoll | meet together,
Of the terrible girdler | of earth they talk,
And the mighty past | they call to mind,
And the ancient runes | of the Ruler of Gods.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1929
“To me, if thou knowest, | my mother’s brother,
Say what life | will Sigurth’s be.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3446
Lofn′-heith, daughter of Hreithmar, 363.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1758
35. Ylfings: cf. stanza 5 and note.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2014
6. “The gold is given, | and great the price
Thou hast my head to save;
But fortune thy sons | shall find not there,
The bane of ye both it is.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2102
Regin had gone to a distance while Sigurth fought Fafnir, and came back
while Sigurth was wiping the blood from his sword. Regin said:
The Poetic Edda, passage 2516
King Thjothrek was with Atli, and had lost most of his men. Thjothrek
and Guthrun lamented their griefs together. She spoke to him, saying:
The Poetic Edda, passage 1918
Such, briefly, appears to have been the development of the legend
before it came into Norway. Here it underwent many changes, though the
clear marks of its southern origin were never obliterated. The names
were given Scandinavian forms, and in some cases were completely
changed (e.g., Kriemhild becomes Guthrun). New figures, mostly of
secondary importance, were introduced, and a large amount of purely
Northern local color was added. Above all, the earlier part of the
story was linked with Northern mythology in a way which seems to have
had no counterpart among the southern Germanic peoples. The Volsungs
become direct descendants of Othin; the gods are closely concerned with
Fafnir’s treasure, and so on. Above all, the Norse story-tellers and
poets changed the figure of Brynhild. In making her a Valkyrie,
sleeping on the flame-girt rock, they were never completely successful,
as she persisted in remaining, to a considerable extent, the entirely
human daughter of Buthli whom Sigurth woos for Gunnar. This confusion,
intensified by a mixing of names (cf. Sigrdrifumol, introductory note),
and much resembling that which existed in the parallel cases of Svava
and Sigrun in the Helgi tradition, created difficulties which the Norse
poets and story-tellers were never able to smooth out, and which have
perplexed commentators ever since.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1092
11. “Answer me, Alvis! | thou knowest all,
Dwarf, of the doom of men:
What call they the heaven, | beheld of the high one,
In each and every world?”
The Poetic Edda, passage 2802
15. “Thy bed-covering saw I | in the flames burning,
And the fire burst high | through the walls of my home.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1356
40. In the manuscript this stanza stands after stanza 44. Regarding
Heimdall’s kinship to the three great classes of men, cf. Rigsthula,
introductory note, wherein the apparent confusion of his attributes
with those of Othin is discussed.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2419
3. Brynhild: on the winning of Brynhild by Sigurth in Gunnar’s shape
cf. Gripisspo, 37 and note. The poet here omits details, and in stanzas
32–39 appears a quite different tradition regarding the winning of
Brynhild, which I suspect he had in mind throughout the poem.
The Poetic Edda, passage 2119
37. “Most foolish he seems | if he shall spare
His foe, the bane of the folk;
There Regin lies, | who hath wronged him so,
Yet falsehood knows he not.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3332
Hel′-reith Bryn′-hild-ar, Brynhild’s Hell-Ride, 129, 255, 345, 346,
353, 387, 388, 390, 442–447, 450, 511.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1921
1. “Who is it has | this dwelling here,
Or what do men call | the people’s king?”
The Poetic Edda, passage 1305
36. Much have I told thee, | and further will tell;
There is much that I know;— | wilt thou hear yet more?
The Poetic Edda, passage 2370
23. The foeman cleft | asunder fell,
Forward hands | and head did sink,
And legs and feet | did backward fall.
The Poetic Edda, passage 1394
24. “Mengloth is she, | her mother bore her
To the son of Svafrthorin;
She is it that holds | and has for her own
The rule of the hall so rich.”
The Poetic Edda, passage 3340
Heth′-in, brother of Helgi, 271–273, 284–286, 288, 289.
The Poetic Edda, passage 3283
Grim″-nis-mǭl, the Ballad of Grimnir, 4, 5, 9, 12, 14, 17–20, 62, 68,
75, 84–108, 122, 130, 136, 138, 139, 152, 175, 179, 180, 196, 203, 221,
230, 234, 237, 253, 302, 303, 323, 329, 366, 376, 378, 384, 394, 472,
487, 494.