The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson - Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English , livre ebook

Read Books Ltd. - Benjamin Thorpe

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

156 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

In the following grand and ancient lay, dating most probably from the time of heathenism, are set forth, as the utterances of a Vala, or wandering prophetess, as above described, the story of the creation of the world from chaos, of the origin of the giants, the gods, the dwarfs, and the human race, together with other events relating to the mythology of the North, and ending with the destruction of the gods and the world, and their renewal.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Sujets

Folk Tales

Fairy Tales

Legends

Mythology

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	17 septembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781528760850
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Norr na

The
History and Romance of Northern Europe

A Library of Supreme Classics Printed in Complete Form
NORR NA
T HE E LDER E DDAS
OF SAEMUND SIGFUSSON.
Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English
BY
BENJAMIN THORPE,
AND THE
YOUNGER EDDAS
OF SNORRE STURLESON.
Translated from the Original Old Norse Text into English
BY
I. A. BLACKWELL.
______
HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, LL.D.,
EDITOR IN CHIEF.
J. W. BUEL, Ph.D.,
MANAGING EDITOR.
______
PUBLISHED BY THE
NORR NA SOCIETY,
LONDON STOCKHOLM COPENHAGEN BERLIN NEW YORK
1906
LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURES.
(E LDER AND Y OUNGER E DDAS .)
______
Frontispiece-Gunnar (Gunther).
Siegfried Awakens Brynhild
Death of Atli
A Feast in Valhalla
Odin s Rune Song
The Lay of Hymir
The Lay of Thrym, or the Hammer Recovered
The Lay of the Dwarf Alvis
The Lay of Harbard
The Journey, or Lay of Skirnir
The Lay of Rig
gir s Compotation, or Loki s Altercation
The Lay of Fiolsvith
The Lay of Hyndla
The Incantation of Groa
The Song of the Sun
The Lay of Volund
The Lay of Helgi Hiorvard s Son
The First Lay of Helgi Hundingcide
The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingcide
Sinfiotli s End
The First Lay of Sigurd, or Gripir s Prophecy
The Lay of Fafnir
CONTENTS
Gudrun s Incitement
The Lay of Hamdir
THE YOUNGER EDDAS OF STURLESON.
The Deluding of Gylfi
Of the Primordial State of the Universe
Origin of the Frost-Giants
Of the Cow Audhumla, and Birth of Odin
The Making of Heaven and Earth
Creation of Man and Woman
Night and Day, Sun and Moon
Wolves that Pursue the Sun and Moon
The Way that Leads to Heaven
The Golden Age
Origin of the Dwarfs, and Norns of Destiny
The Ash Yggdrasill and Mimer s Well
The Norns that Tend Yggdrasill
The Wind and the Seasons
Thor and His Hammer
Balder and Njord
Njord and His Wife Skadi
The God Frey and Goddess Freyja
Tyr and Other Gods
Hodur the Blind, Assassin of Baldur
Loki and His Progeny
Binding the Wolf Fenrir
The Goddesses and their Attributes
Frey, and Gerda the Beautiful
The Joys of Valhalla
The Wonderful Horse Sleipnir
The Ship Adapted to Sail on Sea or Land
Thor s Adventures in the Land of Giants
The Death of Baldur
Baldur in the Abode of the Dead
Loki s Capture and Punishment
Destruction of the Universe
Restoration of the Universe
How Loki Carried Away Iduna
The Origin of Poetry
Odin Beguiles the Daughter of Baugi
Glossary
PREFACE.
______
S AEMUND , son of Sigfus, the reputed collector of the poems bearing his name, which is sometimes also called the Elder, and the Poetic, Edda, was of a highly distinguished family, being descended in a direct line from King Harald Hildetonn. He was born at Oddi, his paternal dwelling in the south of Iceland, between the years 1054 and 1057, or about 50 years after the establishment by law of the Christian religion in that island; hence it is easy to imagine that many heathens, or baptized favourers of the old mythic songs of heathenism, may have lived in his days and imparted to him the lays of the times of old, which his unfettered mind induced him to hand down to posterity.
The youth of S mund was passed in travel and study, in Germany and France, and, according to some accounts, in Italy. His cousin John Ogmundson, who later became first bishop of Holum, and after his death was received among the number of saints, when on his way to Rome, fell in with his youthful kinsman, and took him back with him to Iceland, in the year 1076. S mund afterwards became a priest at Oddi, where he instructed many young men in useful learning; but the effects of which were not improbably such as to the common people might appear as witchcraft or magic: and, indeed. S mund s predilection for the sagas and songs of the old heathen times (even for the magical ones) was so well known, that among his countrymen there were some who regarded him as a great sorcerer, though chiefly in what is called white or innocuous and defensive sorcery, a repute which still clings to his memory among the common people of Iceland, and will long adhere to it through the numerous and popular stories regarding him (some of them highly entertaining) that are orally transmitted from generation to generation. 1
S mund died at the age of 77, leaving behind him a work on the history of Norway and Iceland, which is now almost entirely lost.
The first who ascribed to S mund the collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda, 2 was Brynjolf Svensson, bishop of Skalholt. This prelate, who was a zealous collector of ancient manuscripts, found in the year 1643, the old vellum codex, which is the most complete of all the known manuscripts of the Edda; of this he caused a transcript to be made, which he entitled Edda Saemundi Multiscii . The transcript came into the possession of the royal historiographer Torf us; the original, together with other MSS., was presented to the King of Denmark, Frederick III., and placed in the royal library at Copenhagen, where it now is. 1 As many of the Eddaic poems appear to have been orally transmitted in an imperfect state, the collector has supplied the deficiencies by prose insertions, whereby the integrity of the subject is to a certain degree restored.
The collection called S mund s Edda consists of two parts, viz., the Mythological and the Heroic. It is the former of those which is now offered to the public in an English version. In the year 1797, a translation of this first part, by A. S. Cottle, was published at Bristol. This work I have never met with; nor have I seen any English version of any part of the Edda, with the exception of Gray s spirited but free translation of the Vegtamskvida.
The Lay of Volund (Volundarkvida) celebrates the story of Volund s doings and sufferings during his sojourn in the territory of the Swedish king Nidud. Volund ( Ger . Wieland, Fr . Veland and Galans) is the Scandinavian and Germanic Vulcan (Hephaistos) and D dalus. In England his story, as a skillful smith, is traceable to a very early period. In the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf we find that hero desiring, in the event of his falling in conflict with Grendel, that his corslets may be sent to Hygelac, being, as he says, the work of Weland; and king lfred, in his translation of Boethius de Consolatione, renders the words fidelis ossa Fabricii, etc . by Hw t (hw r) Welondes? (Where are now the bones of the famous and wise goldsmith Weland?), evidently taking the proper name of Fabricius for an appellative equivalent to faber. In the Exeter Book, too, there is a poem in substance closely resembling the Eddaic lay. In his novel of Kenilworth, Walter Scott has been guilty of a woeful perversion of the old tradition, travestied from the Berkshire legend of Wayland Smith. As a land-boundary we find Weland s smithy in a Charter of king Eadred A. D. 955.
On the Lay of Helgi Hiorvard s Son there is nothing to remark beyond what appears in the poem itself.
The Lays of Helgi Hundingcide form the first of the series of stories relating to the Volsung race, and the Giukungs, or Niflungs.
The connection of the several personages celebrated in these poems will appear plain from the following tables:

The Eddaic series of the Volsung and Niflung lays terminates with the Lay of Hamdir; the one entitled Gunnar s Melody is no doubt a comparatively late composition; yet being written in the true ancient spirit of the North is well deserving of a place among the Eddaic poems. Nor, indeed, is the claim of the Lay of Grotti to rank among the poems collected by S mund, by any means clear, we know it only from its existence in the Skalda; yet on account of its antiquity, its intrinsic worth, and its reception in other editions of the Edda, both in original and translation, the present work would seem, and justly so, incomplete without it.
The Prose, or Younger Edda, is generally ascribed to the celebrated Snorre Sturleson, who was born of a distinguished Icelandic family, in the year 1178, and after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice the supreme magistrate of the Republic, was killed A. D . 1241, 1 by three of his sons-in-law and a step-son. When Snorre was three years old, John Loptson of Oddi, the grandson of S mund the Wise, took him into fosterage. Snorre resided at Oddi until his twentieth year, and appears to have received an excellent education from his foster father, who was one of the most learned men of that period. How far he may have made use of the manuscripts of S mund and Ari, which were preserved at Oddi, it is impossible to say, neither do we know the precise contents of these manuscripts; but it is highly probable that the most important parts of the work, now known under the title of The Prose Edda, formed a part of them, and that Snorre-who may be regarded as the Scandinavian Euhemerus-merely added a few chapters, in order to render the mythology more conformable to the erroneous notions he appears to have entertained respecting its signification. Be this as it may, the Prose Edda, in its present form, dates from the thirteenth century, and consists of-1. Formali (Fore discourse); or the prologue. 2. Gylfaginning (The deluding of Gylfi). 3. Braga-roedur (Conversations of Bragi). 4. Eptirmali (After discourse); or Epilogue. The Prologue and Epilogue were probably written by Snorre himself, and are nothing more than an absurd syncretism of Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian myths and legends, in which Noah, Priam, Odin, Hector, Thor, neas, c., are jumbled together much in the same manner as in the romances of the Middle Ages. These dissertations, utterly worthless in themselves, have obviously nothing in common with the so-called Prose Edda, the first part of which, containing fifty-three chapters, forms a complete synopsis of Scandinavian mythology, derived principally from the Poetical Edda.
THE TRANSLATOR.
1 The following, the first among many, may serve as a spe