Sigrdrífumál
Encyclopedia
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
text in Codex Regius
Codex Regius
Cōdex Rēgius is an Icelandic manuscript in which the Poetic Edda is preserved. It is made up of 45 vellum leaves, thought to have been written in the 1270s. It originally contained a further 8 leaves, which are now missing...
.
It follows Fafnismal
Fáfnismál
Fáfnismál is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows Reginsmál and precedes Sigrdrífumál, but modern scholars regard it as a separate poem and have assigned it a name for convenience.The poem forms a more coherent whole than...
without interruption, and it relates the meeting of Sigurðr with the valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
Brynhildr
Brynhildr
Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...
, here identified as Sigrdrífa ("victory-bringer").
Its content consists mostly of verses concerned with runic magic
Runic magic
There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word...
and general wisdom literature
Wisdom literature
Wisdom literature is the genre of literature common in the Ancient Near East. This genre is characterized by sayings of wisdom intended to teach about divinity and about virtue...
, presented as advice given by Sigrdrifa to Sigurd.
The metre
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
is fornyrðislag, except for the first stanza.
The end is in the lost part of the manuscript but it has been substituted from younger paper manuscripts. The Völsunga saga
Volsunga saga
The Völsungasaga is a legendary saga, a late 13th century Icelandic prose rendition of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan . It is largely based on epic poetry...
describes the scene and contains some of the poem.
Name
The name Sigrdrífa means "victory-urger" or "inciter to victory",)and is in an epithet of the valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
Brynhildr
Brynhildr
Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...
.
It occurs in Fafnismal
Fáfnismál
Fáfnismál is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows Reginsmál and precedes Sigrdrífumál, but modern scholars regard it as a separate poem and have assigned it a name for convenience.The poem forms a more coherent whole than...
(stanza 44), and the prose following stanza 4 of the Sigrdrifumal glosses it as the valkyrie's name.
Early editors of the text have followed this lead and given the title of Sigrdrifumal to this section of the Codex Regius text.
Contents
The Sigrdrifumal follows the FafnismalFáfnismál
Fáfnismál is an Eddic poem, found in the Codex Regius manuscript. The poem is unnamed in the manuscript, where it follows Reginsmál and precedes Sigrdrífumál, but modern scholars regard it as a separate poem and have assigned it a name for convenience.The poem forms a more coherent whole than...
without break, and editors are not unanimous in where they set the title.
Its state of preservation is the most chaotic in the Eddaic collection.
Its end has been lost in the Great Lacuna
Great Lacuna
The Great Lacuna is a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse poetry in the Codex Regius. The gap would have contained the last part of Sigrdrífumál and most of Sigurðarkviða...
of the Codex Regius. The text is cut off after the first line of stanza 29, but this stanza has been completed, and eight others have been added, on the evidence of the much later testimony of paper manuscripts.
The poem appears to be a compilation of originally unrelated poems. However, this state of the poem appears to have been available to the author of the Volsungasaga, which cites from eighteen of its stanzas.
The basis of the text appears to be a poem dealing with Sigurth's finding of Brynhild, but only five stanzas (2-4, 20-21) deal with this narrative directly.
Stanza 1 is probably taken from another poem about Sigurd and Brynhild.
Many critics have argued that it is taken from the same original poem as stanzas 6-10 of Helreid Brynhildar.
In stanzas 6-12, Brynhild teaches Sigurth the magic use of the runes. To this has been added similar passages on rune-lore from unrelated sources, stanzas 5 and 13-19.
This passage is the most prolific source about historical runic magic
Runic magic
There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word...
which has been preserved.
Finally, beginning with stanza 22 and running until the end of the preserved text is a set of counsels comparable to those in Loddfafnismal. This passage is probably an accretion unrelated to the Brynhild fragment, and it contains in turn a number of what are likely interpolations to the original text.
The valkyrie's drinking-speech
Stanzas 2-4 are spoken by Sigrdrifa after she has been awoken by Sigurd.What is labelled as stanza 4 by Bellows (1936) is actually placed right after stanza 2, introduced only by Hon qvaþ ("she said"), marking it as the reply of the valkyrie to Sigmund's identification of himself in the second half of stanza 1.
The following two stanzas (stanzas 2-3 in Bellows) are introduced by the annotator as follows:
- Sigurþr settiz niþr oc spurþi hana nafns. Hon toc þa horn fult miaþar oc gaf hanom minnisveig:
- "Sigurth sat beside her and asked her name. She took a horn full of mead and gave him a memory-draught."
Depictions of valkyries offering drinking horn
Drinking horn
A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a drinking vessel. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity especially in Thrace and the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic...
s are known from a number of image stones.
Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows
Henry Adams Bellows was a lawyer, state legislator, and jurist born in Rockingham, Vermont. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Littleton, New Hampshire in 1839. He was subsequently elected again to the House from Concord, New Hampshire in 1856–1857, and served as...
stated in his commentary that stanzas 2-4 are "as fine as anything in Old Norse poetry
Old Norse poetry
Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century...
" and these three stanzas constituted the basis of much of the third act in Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's opera Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
.
This fragment is the only direct invocation of the Norse gods which has been preserved, and it is sometimes dubbed a "pagan prayer".
Technically, it is an instance of minni
Minni
Minni may be:*an ethnonym attested in the Hebrew Bible, possibly the Mannaeans*the Old Norse for "remembrance", see minnisveig...
"remembrance", a poetic utterance honouring the gods at the beginning of a sumbel (ritual drinking).
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Dagr In Norse mythology, Dagr is day personified. This personification appears in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson... ! Nótt In Norse mythology, Nótt is night personified. In both the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, Nótt is listed as the daughter of a figure by the name of Nörvi and is associated with the... and her daughter Jörð In Norse mythology, Jörð and also called Jarð as in Old East Norse, is a female jötunn. She is the mother of Thor and Meili, and the personification of the Earth. Fjörgyn and Hlôdyn are considered to be other names for Jörð... now! Æsir In Old Norse, áss is the term denoting a member of the principal pantheon in Norse paganism. This pantheon includes Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldr and Tyr. The second pantheon comprises the Vanir... ! |
Runic stanzas
Stanzas 5-18 concern runic magicRunic magic
There is some evidence that, in addition to being a writing system, runes historically served purposes of magic. This is the case from earliest epigraphic evidence of the Roman to Germanic Iron Age, with non-linguistic inscriptions and the alu word...
, explaining the use of runes in various contexts.
In stanza 5, Sigrdrifa brings Sigurd ale which she has charmed with runes:
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Stanza 6 advises to carve "victory runes" on the sword hilt, presumably referring to the t rune
Tiwaz rune
The t-rune is named after Týr, and was identified with this god. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz.-Rune poems:Tiwaz is mentioned in all three rune poems...
named for Tyr:
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The following stanzas address Ølrunar "Ale
Alû
Alû is one of the Utukku, vengeful spirits in the lore of the ancient Assyrians.Stephen Herbert Langdon cites a translation of a cuneiform script by Major-General Sir H. C. Rawlinson. From v Pl. 50, A, line 42: "Whom in his bed the wicked Alû covered,/Whom the wicked ghost by night overwhelmed"...
-runes" (7),
biargrunar "birth-runes" (8),
brimrunar "wave-runes" (9),
limrunar "branch-runes" (10),
malrunar "speech-runes" (11),
hugrunar "thought-runes" (12).
Stanzas 13-14 appear to have been taken from a poem about the finding of the runes by Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
.
Stanzas 15-17 are again from an unrelated poem, but still about the topic of runes.
The same holds for stanzas 18-19, which return to the mythological acquisition of the runes, and the passing of their knowledge to the æsir
Æsir
In Old Norse, áss is the term denoting a member of the principal pantheon in Norse paganism. This pantheon includes Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldr and Tyr. The second pantheon comprises the Vanir...
, elves, vanir
Vanir
In Norse mythology, the Vanir are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr . After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir...
and mortal men.
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Gnomic stanzas
Stanzas 20-21 are again in the setting of the frame narrative, with Brynhild asking Sigurd to make a choice.They serve as introduction for the remaining part of the text, stanzas 22-37 (of which, however, only 22-28 and the first line of 29 are preserved in Codex Regius), which are gnomic
Wisdom literature
Wisdom literature is the genre of literature common in the Ancient Near East. This genre is characterized by sayings of wisdom intended to teach about divinity and about virtue...
in nature.
Like in Loddfafnismal, the text consists of numbered counsels, running from one to eleven.
The "unnumbered" stanzas 25, 27, 30, 34 and 36 are considered interpolations by Bellows (1936).
Editions and translations
- Benjamin ThorpeBenjamin ThorpeBenjamin Thorpe was an English scholar of Anglo-Saxon.-Biography:After studying for four years at Copenhagen University, under the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, he returned to England in 1830, and in 1832 published an English version of Caedmon's metrical paraphrase of portions of the...
(trans.), The Edda Of Sæmund The Learned, 1866 online copy northvegr.org - Sophus BuggeSophus BuggeSophus Bugge was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scientific work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. -Background:Elseus Sophus Bugge was...
, Sæmundar Edda, 1867 (edition of the manuscript text) online copy - Henry Adams BellowsHenry Adams BellowsHenry Adams Bellows was a lawyer, state legislator, and jurist born in Rockingham, Vermont. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Littleton, New Hampshire in 1839. He was subsequently elected again to the House from Concord, New Hampshire in 1856–1857, and served as...
(1936) (translation and commentary) online copy at sacred-texts.com - Guðni Jónsson, Eddukvæði: Sæmundar-Edda, 1949 (edition with normalized spelling)online copy
- W. H. AudenW. H. AudenWystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and P. B. Taylor (trans.), The Elder Edda: A Selection, 1969