Ancient text
The Poetic Edda
EvidenceDocumentedA primary record or a faithful public-domain copy of one. This page says what the file is and where it comes from; it does not say every claim in it is true.
What this means
Primary records exist: an original document, a published text, an official file or a dated report. We link to them. This level says the record exists and what it says, not that every claim in it is true.
The old Norse poems that tell how the world began, how the gods drink, quarrel and die, and how it all ends in Ragnarok. Bellows gives the poems and notes in English.
Public domain copy
Where this comes from
This is a public-domain copy. The line below says where the file comes from and why we may host it.
Why we can share it: Internet Archive metadata: possible-copyright-status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT, copyright-region US. Published 1923 in New York, before 1931; translator Bellows died 1939 but the 1923 publication is public domain in the US.
Read the story behind it
TextVoluspaA seeress tells Odin everything: the first giant, the falling stars, the sun turning black and the world burning. Then the poem does something odd. The earth rises green again, and the surviving gods find golden game pieces lying in the grass. Scholars still argue how much of this is truly pagan.BeingYmirIn Norse myth, the world was built from a butchered giant: his flesh became earth, his blood the sea, his skull the sky. The story says the gods themselves descend from giants. How did a cow, a flood of blood and a lone survivor get the cosmos started? Read what the old poems and Snorri tell.PlaceGinnungagapBefore anything existed, the Norse sources describe a yawning void with fire at one end and ice at the other, and life began where they met. Later, Icelandic geographers reportedly reused the name for a real stretch of sea. What did the name actually mean, and why do scholars still argue about it?PlaceBifrostThe Norse bridge to the gods is said to be partly made of burning fire, to keep giants out. Its guard can hear grass grow and see a hundred leagues at night. The poems say it will break when the enemy rides across at the end of the world. Who built it, and what is it really?
Advertisement
Updated