The Poetic Edda

Edward Pettit

Description

This book is an edition and translation of one of the most important and celebrated sources of Old Norse-Icelandic mythology and heroic legend, namely the medieval poems now known collectively as the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda.


Included are thirty-six texts, which are mostly preserved in medieval manuscripts, especially the thirteenth-century Icelandic codex traditionally known as the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda. The poems cover diverse subjects, including the creation, destruction and rebirth of the world, the dealings of gods such as Óðinn, Þórr and Loki with giants and each other, and the more intimate, personal tragedies of the hero Sigurðr, his wife Guðrún and the valkyrie Brynhildr.


Each poem is provided with an introduction, synopsis and suggestions for further reading. The Old Norse texts are furnished with a textual apparatus recording the manuscript readings behind this edition’s emendations, as well as select variant readings. The accompanying translations, informed by the latest scholarship, are concisely annotated to make them as accessible as possible.


As the first open-access, single-volume parallel Old Norse edition and English translation of the Poetic Edda, this book will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars of Old Norse literature. It will also interest those researching other fields of medieval literature (especially Old English and Middle High German), and appeal to a wider general audience drawn to the myths and legends of the Viking Age and subsequent centuries.
 

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Medieval
• Poetic Edda

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 03 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800647756
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 23 Mo

Extrait

The Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda
A Dual-Language Edition
Edward Pettit





https://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2023 Edward Pettit




This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text, and to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes, providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Edward Pettit, The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition . Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2023, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0308
Further details about the CC BY-NC license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0308#resources
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-80064-772-5
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-80064-773-2
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-80064-774-9
ISBN Digital ebook (EPUB): 978-1-80064-775-6
ISBN Digital ebook (AZW3): 978-1-80064-776-3
ISBN XML: 978-1-80064-777-0
ISBN HTML: 978-1-80064-778-7
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0308
Open Book Publishers recommends that you use the pdf or hard-copy versions of this book for citations involving note numbers. This is because, for technical reasons, the EPUB and HTML versions of this book use a different numbering system.
Front cover image: ‘The Two Corbies’ by Arthur Rackham, from Some British Ballads (London, [1919])
Back cover image: The god Heimdallr blowing his horn, from a seventeenth-century Icelandic manuscript (AM 738 4to, fol. 35v)
Images on pp. 27 and 861 : ‘Two Ravens’ (CC-BY 4.0) by M. Barran, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MarleenaBarranDesign
Cover design by Katy Saunders.

In memoriam
Alan Paul Pettit
24 January 1918–15 May 1995
Hazell Macdonald Pettit
4 October 1923–16 March 2016
Robert Charles Pettit
20 June 1955–10 March 2011
kveld lífir maðr ekki    eptir kvið Norna

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Signs and Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Poems from the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda (Gammel kongelig Samling 2365 4 to ) 29
Vǫluspá (Codex Regius) 31
Hávamál 73
Vafþrúðnismál 135
Grímnismál 165
Fǫr Skírnis 207
Hárbarðsljóð 231
Hymiskviða 259
Lokasenna 283
Þrymskviða 325
Vǫlundarkviða 341
Alvíssmál 365
Helgakviða Hundingsbana in fyrri 385
Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar 409
Helgakviða Hundingsbana ǫnnur 433
Frá dauða Sinfjǫtla 457
Grípisspá 461
Reginsmál 480
Fáfnismál 496
Sigrdrífumál 520
Brot af Sigurðarkviðu 538
Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta 552
Sigurðarkviða in skamma 568
Helreið Brynhildar 596
Dráp Niflunga 606
Guðrúnarkviða ǫnnur 610
Guðrúnarkviða in þriðja 630
Oddrúnargrátr 640
Atlakviða in grœnlenzka 658
Atlamál in grœnlenzku 680
Guðrúnarhvǫt 716
Hamðismál 728
Poems from Other Manuscripts 746
Vǫluspá ( Hauksbók ) 748
Baldrs draumar 772
Rígsþula 784
Hyndluljóð 806
Svipdagsmál ( Gróugaldr and Fjǫlsvinnsmál ) 832
Index 864

Acknowledgements
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many former editors and translators of, and commentators on, the Poetic Edda , and to my former teachers of medieval language and literature at the University of London. Among my teachers, thanks are especially due to Mr John Porter for his help with this book in the earliest years of its development at King’s College London, and to Professor Alison Finlay, who taught me Old Norse at Birkbeck, University of London.
Without four years of postgraduate funding from the British Academy in the 1990s, during which I completed masters and doctoral degrees in medieval English literature at King’s College, this book would have been neither envisaged nor started. It represents, in part, a long-deferred by-product of that formative period in my life, for which I remain most grateful.
I thank the managerial, editorial and production staff of Open Book Publishers for their acceptance of, and diligent work on, this unusually long and demanding volume; special thanks are due to Adèle Kreager for her editing, bibliographical assistance and advice on how to create the index.
I also thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this book for their comments. Among other things, they recommended that I take more account of the sensitivities of minority audiences—something I have endeavoured to do in the published edition.
On that topic, given the prejudiced misuse of Old Norse literature by various groups and individuals past and present, I condemn, and reject any association with, any use of this book to justify or promote discrimination, whether on grounds of race, skin colour (or other aspects of physical appearance), gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, nationality, religion, wealth or social status.
I bear sole responsibility, and apologize, for any shortcomings of design, questionable opinions, inconsistencies and outright errors that, despite my best efforts, persist in this book. I hope they do not greatly mar the enjoyment that it is intended to bring to a wide range of readers.
Edward Pettit
August 2022

Signs and Abbreviations
*
hypothetical or reconstructed word or name
acc.
accusative
corr.
corrected
dat.
dative
ed.
edited (by)
edn
edition
fem.
feminine
fol.
folio(s)
gen.
genitive
l(l).
line(s) (before a line number or numbers)
masc.
masculine
ME
Middle English
neut.
neuter
nom.
nominative
n.pl .
no place
OE
Old English
OHG
Old High German
ON
Old Norse
pl.
plural or plate(s)
pr.
prose (following a numbered stanza)
rpt.
reprint(ed)
sg.
singular
st.
stanza (before a stanza number), pl. stt.
v.l.
varia lectio ‘variant reading’
vol(s).
volume(s)
Manuscripts of Eddic Poetry
A
AM 748 I a 4 to , Arnamagnæan Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
F
Flateyjarbók, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Gammel kongelig Samling (GkS) 1005 fol., Reykjavík, Iceland
H
Hauksbók , Stofnun Árna Magnússonar AM 544 4 to , Reykjavík, Iceland
R
Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda , Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Gammel kongelig Samling (GkS) 2365 4 to , Reykjavík, Iceland
W
Codex Wormianus , AM 242 fol., Arnamagnæan Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
Eddic Poems and Prose Passages
Akv.
Atlakviða in grœnlenzka
Alv.
Alvíssmál
Am.
Atlamál in grœnlenzku
BDr.
Baldrs draumar
Br.
Brot af Sigurðarkviða
Dr.
Dráp Niflunga
Fj.
Fjǫlsvinnsmál
Fm.
Fafnismál
FSk.
Fǫr Skírnis
Gðr. I
Guðrúnarkviða in fyrsta
Gðr. II
Guðrúnarkviða ǫnnur
Gðr. III
Guðrúnarkviða in þriðja
Gg.
Gróugaldr
Ghv.
Guðrúnarhvǫt
Grm.
Grímnismál
Grp.
Grípisspá
Háv.
Hávamál