Völuspá hin skamma, Völuspá the Less or the Short Völuspá, is an Old Norse poem which survives as a handful of stanzas in Hyndluljóð

Hyndluljóð

Hyndluljóð or Lay of Hyndla is an Old Norse poem often considered a part of the Poetic Edda. It is preserved in its entirety only in Flateyjarbók but some stanzas are also quoted in the Prose Edda where they are said to come from Völuspá hin skamma.In the poem, the goddess Freyja meets the völva...

, in the Poetic Edda

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...

, and as one stanza in the Gylfaginning

Gylfaginning

Gylfaginning, or the Tricking of Gylfi , is the first part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda after Prologue. The Gylfaginning deals with the creation and destruction of the world of the Norse gods, and many other aspects of Norse mythology...

section of Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...

's Prose Edda

Prose Edda

The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...

. The name of the poem is only known due to Snorri's citation of it in Gylfaginning (chapter 5):

[...] ok var sá nefndr Ymir, en hrímþursar kalla hann Aurgelmi, ok eru þaðan komnar ættir hrímþursa, svá sem segir í Völuspá inni skömmu: 7. Eru völur allar frá Viðolfi, vitkar allir frá Vilmeiði, en seiðberendr frá Svarthöfða, jötnar allir frá Ymi komnir.

And that man is named Ymir Ymir In Norse mythology, Ymir, also called Aurgelmir among the giants themselves, was the founder of the race of frost giants and was later killed by the Borrs.-Etymology:... , but the Rime-Giants call him Aurgelimir; and thence are come the races of the Rime-Giants, as it says in Völuspá the Less: - All the witches Völva A vǫlva or völva is a shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology.... spring from Witolf, All the warlocks are of Willharm, And the spell-singers spring from Swarthead; All the ogres of Ymir come.

The additional stanzas that remain appear in Hyndluljóð. In his translation of Hyndluljóð, 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...

 comments that the preserved fragment of Völuspá hin skamma shows that it was a "late and very inferior imitation of the great Voluspo

Völuspá

Völuspá is the first and best known poem of the Poetic Edda. It tells the story of the creation of the world and its coming end related by a völva addressing Odin...

", and he dates it to the twelfth century. He further suggests that its appearance in Hyndluljóð is due to the blunder of a copyist who confused the two poems, and he does not consider them to be of any great value either as poetry or as mythology.