Poetic Edda Quotes

Men brave and generous live the best lives, seldom will they sorrow; then there are fools, afraid of everything, who grumble instead of giving.

When a real battle starts, you’ll always find that there is no bravest man.

It’s a long and crooked walk to a bad friend, even if he lives nearby. But it’s an easy road to a good friend, no matter how long the journey.

That is the true mingling of kinship when a man can tell   someone all his thoughts;   anything is better than to be fickle;   he is no true friend who only says pleasant things.

It is like a man | whom no one loves,-- Why should his life be long?

Tell your secret to one person, never to two— everyone knows, if three people know.

And I said to him that I had made a vow in my turn, that I would never marry a man who knew the meaning of fear.

But she awoke to the cold death of her hopes,

Men become friends when they can share their minds with one another. Anything is better than being lied to: a real friend will disagree with you openly.

Obłęd i szał, rozczarowanie i żal, Siądź tu, a opowiem tobie o męce tęsknoty I zdwojonym bólu.

Exchange of words | with a witless ape Thou must not ever make.

A man shall not boast of his keenness of mind, But keep it close in his breast; To the silent and wise does ill come seldom

The giantess old in Ironwood sat, In the east, and bore the brood of Fenrir; Among these one in monster's guise Was soon to steal the sun from the sky.

Fire is best for mortals, and sunshine— and also good health, if you have it, and living beyond reproach.

Wolf-time, wind-time, axe-time, sword-time, shields-high-time,

I bid thee be wary, | but be not fearful; (Beware most with ale or another's wife,

A brand from a brand | is kindled and burned, And fire from fire begotten; And man by his speech | is known to men, And the stupid by their stillness.

Wiem, gdzie jesion stoi, Yggdrasill się zowie, Lśniącą wilgotnością pień jego zroszony; Z niego idzie rosa, co w dolinach spada, Koło Urs studni wciąż zielony stoi.

What hast thou to ask? | why comest thou hither? Othin, I know | where thine eye is hidden.

The head alone knows what dwells near the heart.

Kostir ro betri heldr en at klökkva sé, hveim er fúss er fara; einu dægri mér var aldr of skapaðr of allt líf of lagit.

The best value translations of the Poetic Edda are by Hollander from Texas Uni Press, or by Larrington of Oxford Uni Press.

It is probable, as Anthony Faulkes suggests, that the pagan religion was never systematically understood by those who practiced it. Different areas of Scandinavia worshipped different gods at different times in the pre-Christian era; the localized nature of cults and rituals produced neither dogma nor sacred texts, as far as we know. Rather pre-Christian religion was 'a disorganized body of conflicting traditions that was probably never reduced in heathen times to a consistent orthodoxy such as Snorri attempts to present'.

Hethin was at home with his father, King Hjorvarth, in Norway. Hethin was coming home alone from the forest one Yule-eve, and found a troll-woman ; she

An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name, With water white is the great tree wet; Thence come the dews that fall in the dales, Green by Urth's well does it ever grow. Thence come the maidens mighty in wisdom, Three from the dwelling down 'neath the tree; Urth is one named, Verthandi the next,-- On the wood they scored,-- and Skuld the third. Laws they made there, and life allotted To the sons of men, and set their fates.

Don’t praise the day until it’s night, don’t praise your wife until she’s buried, don’t praise the sword till after the fight, nor your daughter till she’s married, don’t praise the ice until it’s crossed, nor the ale until you’re sloshed.

The tales underlying the heroic lays are clearly of foreign origin: the Helgi story comes from Denmark, and that of Völund from Germany, as also the great mass of traditions centering around Sigurth (Siegfried), Brynhild, the sons of Gjuki, Atli (Attila), and Jormunrek (Ermanarich).

Swords I know lying in Sigarsholm, Fifty there are save only four; One there is that is best of all, The shield-destroyer, with gold it shines. 9. “In the hilt is fame, in the haft is courage, In the point is fear, for its owner’s foes; On the blade there lies a blood-flecked snake, And a serpent’s tail round the flat is twisted.

Loki hid in the Falls of Frananger in the shape of a salmon, but the gods caught him. He was tied up with the intestines of his son Nari... Skathi took a poisonous snake and tied it up over Loki; poison dripped on his face from its mouth... this hurt him so badly that he trembled, and all the world with him. This is what is called an earthquake.

Even though great were this cruelty, oppression, and tyranny, though numerous were the oft-victorious clans of the many-familied Erinn; though numerous their kings, and their royal chiefs, and their princes; though numerous their heroes and champions, and their brave soldiers, their chiefs of valour and renown and deeds of arms; yet not one of them was able to give relief, alleviation, or deliverance from that oppression and tyranny, from the numbers and multitudes, and the cruelty and the wrath of the brutal, ferocious, furious, untamed, implacable hordes by whom that oppression was inflicted, because of the excellence of their polished, ample, treble, heavy, trusty, glittering corslets; and their hard, strong, valiant swords; and their well-riveted long spears, and their ready, brilliant arms of valour besides; and because of the greatness of their achievements and of their deeds, their bravery, and their valour, their strength, and their venom, and their ferocity, and because of the excess of their thirst and their hunger for the brave, fruitful, nobly-inhabited, full of cataracts, rivers, bays, pure, smooth-plained, sweet grassy land of Erinn"—(pp. 52-53).

The Lokasenna (Loki's taunts): Njorth, you were sent from the west as a hostage for the gods. The daughters of Hymir used your mouth as a urinal, and you’ve tasted plenty of piss. ... Freyja, you are a witch, and have dealt out many curses. I hear the gods found you lying with your brother, and that you farted then. ... “Tyr, or don’t you know your own wife had a son by me? You poor fool, I’ll never pay you a penny in compensation for that. ... “Sif, I alone know how you were unfaithful to your husband Thor— and I was the one you slept with. ... And you, Odin, you always judge battles unfairly for humans. You have often given defeat to the better side, when you shouldn’t have. And Odin said: “Even if I did judge unfairly, and made the better side lose, I know that you, for eight years, lived on the earth down below as a cow in milk, and as a woman, and you’ve given birth to children— I call that a pervert’s way of living!

on a wolf, and had snakes in place of a bridle. She asked Hethin for his company. “Nay,” said he. She said, “Thou shalt pay for this at the king’s toast.” That evening the great vows were taken; the sacred boar was brought in, the men laid their hands thereon, and took their vows at the king’s toast. Hethin vowed that he would have Svava, Eylimi’s daughter, the beloved of his brother Helgi ; then such great grief seized him that he went forth on wild paths southward over the land, and found Helgi, his brother.

They came to the treasure chest, they asked for the keys. They realized Volund’s skill when they peered inside. The boys saw many ornaments, all of them made of gold and gems. Volund said, “Come back alone, just you two, the day after tomorrow. I will give all this gold to you if you do. Don’t tell the ladies, don’t tell the men— don’t tell anyone at all that you’re meeting with me. Early on the appointed day, one boy said to the other: “Let’s go see the rings.” So the two boys came and asked for the keys. They realized Volund’s skill when they peered inside. He cut off the heads of those young boys, he hid their bodies under his bellows. But he took their skulls and scalped them, set them with silver, and sent them as cups to Nithuth. And from the eyes of those young boys he made jewels for their mother.

Thor spake: "In a single breast I never have seen More wealth of wisdom old; But with treacherous wiles must I now betray thee: The day has cought thee dwarf! (Now the sun shines here in the hall.)

In a single breast I never have seen More wealth of wisdom old; But with treacherous wiles must I now betray thee: The day has cought thee dwarf! (Now the sun shines here in the hall.)

In a single breast I never have seen More wealth of wisdom old; But with treacherous wiles must I now betray thee: The day has caught thee, dwarf! (Now the sun shines here in the hall.)

[46] “I have called myself Grim, I have called myself Wanderer, Warrior and Helmet-Wearer, Famed One and Third One, Thunder and Wave, Hel-Blind and One-Eye, [47] “Truth, and Swift, and True Father, Battle-Merry, Battle-Stirrer, Curse-Eye and Fire-Eye, Evildoer, Spellcaster, Masked and Shadowed-Face, Fool and Wise Man, {70} [48] “Long-Hat and Long-Beard, Victory-Father and War-Ready, Allfather, War-Father, Rope-Rider and Hanged-God. I have never been known by just one name since I first walked among men. [49] “They called me Shadowed-Facehere at Geirroth’s place,but Gelding at Asmund’s,they called me Driverwhen I pulled the sleds,and Mighty at the assembly.Among the gods I’m called Wish-Granter, Speaker, Just-as-High, Shield-Shaker, Wand-Bearer, Graybeard. [50] “Wise and Wisdom-Granter were my names at Sokkmimir’s hall, when I deceived that old giant and I killed his famous son. I was his killer. [51] “You are drunk, Geirroth! You have drunk too much. You have lost too much when you have lost my favor; you’ve lost the favor of Odin and all the Einherjar. [52] “I’ve told you much, and you’ll remember little— your friends will deceive you— I see the sword of my friend dripping with blood. {71} [53] “Now Odin will have a weapon-killed man— I know your life has ended. Your guardian spirits are anxious, they see Odin here before you. Approach me, if you can. [54] “Odin is my name. But before they called me Terror, and Thunder before that, and Waker and Killer, and Confuser and Orator-God, Heat-Maker, Sleep-Maker, both Gelding and Father! I think all these names were used for me alone.

[36] “They bring my horn, my Valkyries! Hrist and Mist, Skeggjold and Skogul, Hild and Thruth, Hlokk and Herfjot, Goll and Geirolul, Randgrith, Rathgrith, and Reginleif— they bring the Einherjar beer.

It seems poetic that the strength of our enemies be made to serve us.

Our principal sources of knowledge of this great Pagan religious system are the two Eddas of Iceland. These Eddas are collections of mythical and heroic poems and stories. One is called the Elder or Poetic Edda; the other, Snorri’s or the Prose Edda. The latter was discovered first; it came into the possession of appreciative scholars in the seventeenth century, by whom it was studied and carefully preserved. The

I expect a wolf when I see his ears.

It is noteworthy that about the year 1200, the Nibelungenlied, with its poetic version of the Siegfried story, was written, probably in Austria. At approximately the same time or within seven decades, The Saga of the Volsungs was compiled in Iceland with far fewer chivalric elements than its German counterpart. Almost all the Old Norse narrative material that has survived—whether myth, legend, saga, history, or poetry—is found in Icelandic manuscripts, which form the largest existing vernacular literature of the medieval West. Among the wealth of written material is Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, a thirteenth century Icelandic treatise on the art of skaldic poetry and a handbook of mythological lore. The second section of Snorri’s three-part prose work contains a short and highly readable summary of the Sigurd cycle which, like the much longer prose rendering of the cycle in The Saga of the Volsungs, is based on traditional Eddic poems (Jesse Byock)

wisdom is the comfort of the poor.

Most perilous it is, if with thy foot thou strikest, when thou to battle goest. Wily Disir stand on either side of thee, and wish to see thee wounded.

Out went Sigurd from that interview into the hall of kings, writhing with anguish; so that began to start the ardent warrior's iron-woven sark off from his sides.

in all its parts is the work thereby accomplished. But how is the earth fashioned?" "It is round without," replied Har,

For a Westerner living today, it is hard to imagine that ancient cultures were incapable of even conceiving the notion of nothingness and that this mental category was simply absent from their world. This was the case, however, in the Middle Ages, and most particularly in the Germanic world. There is also something else: the idea of temporality that we have manufactured, of how it is established, of its total cessation, as we all know, is something that exclusively haunts the modern mentality. History, as a science, would not have assumed the astonishing importance it has today without this temporality. The Völuspá, the gem of the Poetic Edda, introduces history into its story of the mythic events of the world with the battle of the Aesir against the Vanir, but Ragnarok, which it describes in apocalyptic terms, is not viewed even for an instant as an ending. To the contrary, it is immediately followed by a universal regeneration that relaunches the destinies of a primordial couple eloquently named Li Life and Liffthrasir Undying or Greedy to Live.