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Völuspá

File:Odin_og_Völven_by_Frølich.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Also known as Prophecy of the völva

Völuspá (also Vǫluspá, Vǫlospá, or Vǫluspǫ́; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress') is the best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It dates back to the tenth century and tells the story from Norse Mythology of the creation of the world, its coming end, and its subsequent rebirth that is related to the audience by a völva addressing Odin. Her name is given twice as Heiðr. The poem is one of the most important primary sources for the study of Norse mythology. Parts of the poem appear in the Prose Edda, but the earliest known wholly preserved version of the poem is in the Codex Regius and Hau

Key facts

Poem.name
Völuspá
Poem.image
Odin og Völven by Frølich.jpg
Poem.image_size
300px
Poem.caption
"Odin and the Völva" (1895) by Lorenz Frølich
Poem.original_title
Vǫluspǫ́
Poem.original_title_lang
non
Poem.language
Old Norse
Poem.meter
Fornyrðislag
Poem.wikisource
Völuspá

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Main subject
Norse mythology
Image
Afzelius Edda Sæmundar (1818) Völuspá sid1.jpg
Show 4 more facts
Commons category
Völuspá
Commons gallery
Völuspá
language of work or name
Old Icelandic
title
Völuspá
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~8 min read

Encyclopedic overview

9 sections
Contents
  • Preservation
  • Synopsis
  • Reception
  • In popular culture
  • References
  • Relevant literature
  • External links
  • English translations
  • Old Norse editions

Völuspá (also Vǫluspá, Vǫlospá, or Vǫluspǫ́; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress') is the best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It dates back to the tenth century and tells the story from Norse Mythology of the creation of the world, its coming end, and its subsequent rebirth that is related to the audience by a völva addressing Odin. Her name is given twice as Heiðr. The poem is one of the most important primary sources for the study of Norse mythology. Parts of the poem appear in the Prose Edda, but the earliest known wholly preserved version of the poem is in the Codex Regius and Hauksbók manuscripts.

== Preservation == Many of stanzas of Völuspá appear first in the Prose Edda (composed , of which the oldest extant manuscript dates from the beginning of the fourteenth century, ), in which the stanzas are quoted or paraphrased. The full poem is found in the Icelandic Codex Regius manuscript () and in the Haukr Erlendsson Hauksbók Codex (); the Codex Regius version is usually taken as a base for editions of the poem.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Völuspá” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (4)