Praise the Gods

I do not wish to give just a summary of Voluspa here. This information can be found all over the internet and in various translations of the Poetic Edda. Here, I wish to do something different and by the end of this post, I hope to draw personal meaning from the text.

It is worth noting that in the beginning of Voluspa that Sol (sun), Mani (moon) and the stars are all young. (stanza 5) Then, the gods shape time in stanza 6. By stanza 7 and 8 the gods are meeting in Idavollr (Activity Plain, Eternal Plain, Eddy Plain, Renewal Plain…the meaning is unclear) and “played games”, perhaps tafl, which is a strategic game. This game is similar to chess in that one person is protecting the king while the other is trying to capture the king. The moves by each player will ultimately determine whether the king is captured (fate). Precise movements become crucial at the end game in order to avoid mistakes.

Edward Pettit in his dual language Poetic Edda makes an excellent observation here: If they did so [played games] not just for simple entertainment, their play might have enacted the struggle between gods and [jotnar] (often translated as giants, although I think “forces of chaos” or “devourers” might be a better translation but I am not a scholar in Old Norse language.)

In stanza 17, fate is introduced to the world when it is given (among other things) to the humans Askr and Embla. Yggdrasil is green and standing tall at this point. Then comes Urd (past), Verdandi (present), and Skuld (a debt owed to the past).

Beginning in stanza 21, there is the first war. From here, things begin to unravel. There is mention of the death of Baldr, venom drops falling from a roof-vent, Nidhoggr sucking on corpses, Fenrir breaks free from his bonds, brothers fight each other…and so begins Ragnarok led by Loki. The sun turns black, earth sinks into the sea, and the stars vanish from the sky.

Starting in stanza 57, the earth comes back out of the sea, and the Aesir are back on Idavollr, with the same game pieces mentioned in the beginning. Nidhoggr returns with corpses. And so the cycle begins again.

It is interesting to note that the fate, war, and struggle between order and chaos introduced in the beginning of the poem is the same thing that will destroy everything. Then the cycle begins again. Like the game tafl, our lives are a series of strategic moves…those from the past (urd) and present (verdandi), will determine how things will end for us (debt owed to the past-skuld). Long before we give this debt we owe to the past, our lives unfold in a tapestry of struggle, chaos, and order. For me, the lesson here is to think about the moves I make now. Because those moves will ultimately determine what my life will like by the end.

-Raysdottir