The Wanderer's Havamal by Crawford Jackson;
Author:Crawford, Jackson;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated
Published: 2019-10-20T16:00:00+00:00
Related Texts
Darraðarljóð
The poem Darraðarljóð is included in the text of chapter 157 of Brennu-Njáls Saga “Saga of Burned Njál,” the longest and one of the most famous of the Sagas of Icelanders, during a vision of a character named Dorruđ. Darraðarljóð would thus mean “Dorruđ’s Poem/Song,” but the poem is probably much older than the saga in which it is framed, and rather than a man’s name the meaning of the poem’s title was likely originally intended as “Song of the Spear (dǫrruðr).”
Below, I include the immediately preceding text of the saga as well.
*
On Friday morning it so happened on Caithness that a man named Dorruđ walked outside. He saw twelve people riding together to a wealthy woman’s quarters, and then they all disappeared. He looked through a window that was there, and he saw that there were women inside and they had set up a loom. They were using men’s heads for the weights, men’s guts for the weft and yarn, and swords and arrows for the rods. They spoke these stanzas:
1. The threads are open,
meaning death in battle!
It’s raining blood
from the crossbeam.
Now a gray weave
of men is here,
which the son-killer’s
lady-friends
will fill in
with red cloth.
2. The weave is woven
with men’s guts,
and weighed down hard
with their heads.
Blood-covered spears
are the rods,
the beam is iron-covered,
and arrows shake it.
We make our war-weave
out of swords.
3. Hild is weaving
and Hjorthrimul,
Sanngríđ, and Svipul
use drawn swords.
Spear will break,
shield will break,
a helmet-chopping sword
will ruin shields.
4. We spin, we spin,
a weave of spears,
which the young king
had before.
We’ll go forward
and wade into the fight,
where our friends
exchange weapon-blows.
5. We spin, we spin
a weave of spears,
and then we follow
the young king.
Guđ and Gondul,
who guarded him,
saw the fighters’
bloody shields.
6. We spin, we spin
a weave of spears,
where able fighters’
flags are flying.
Let us not
be careless with his life;
we Valkyries have
the choice of the dead.
7. Those armies
from the settlements
in the far peninsulas
will rule these lands;
I say the rich king
is marked to fall.
Now the ruler falls,
pierced by spearpoints.
8. And now the Irish
will suffer miserably,
that agony will never
leave the Irish people.
Now the weave is woven,
the field is bloody,
this enormous loss of life
will become famous.
9. Now it is horrible
to look upon
as bloody clouds
cross the sky.
The very sky is red
with men’s blood,
while we battle-watchers
sing away.
10. We spoke right
about the young king,
many victory-songs,
we sing well!
Let the one listening
learn our spear-flight song,
let him say it
to others!
11. Let us leave, ride our
bare-back horses hard,
with drawn swords
we’ll ride away.
Eiríksmál and Hákonarmál
Eiríksmál (“Words of/for Eirik”) is a poem in Eddic style commissioned in memory of Norwegian King Eirík Bloodaxe (Old Norse Eiríkr blóðøx) by his wife Gunnhild after his death in AD 954. The poem is not preserved in its entirety, but the nine stanzas that survive paint a picture of Óđin preparing Valhalla for Eirík’s arrival while speaking to Bragi (a god of poetry) and the famous human heroes Sigmund and Sinfjotli (well known from The Saga of the Volsungs).
Hákonarmál (“Words of/for Hakon”) is a poem of similar style and content, composed in honor of Norwegian King Hákon the Good (Old Norse Hákon góði) after his death in AD 961 at the Battle of Fitjar on the island of Stord.
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