Ageless Age with Edge

Ageless Age with Edge
welcomes you twofold

Monday 7 July 2008

Win-Driving Wife

Sigrdrífomál, The Lay of Sigrdrífa,
‘Victory-Provoker’

from the body of mytho-poetic verse called Elder Edda,
mainly preserved in Codex Regius (1270-1280),
translated from Old Icelandic
by Nathan Paul Hillman

Sigurðr* rode up to Hindarfjall, the Mountain Behind, and made south for Frankenland. Upon the fell, he saw a large light like a burning fire – its glow glanced into the sky. When he reached it he saw a wall of shields beneath a banner. Sigurðr went into the shield-wall and saw a man lying down in his weapons of war. Before anything else, he took the helm off his head. Then he saw it was a woman. Her corslet clung skin tight, as if grown into her flesh. With Gramr* he sliced straight down her corslet, neck to base and along both arms. Then he peeled it off her. She woke and sat up. She saw Sigurðr and said to him:

1. Sigurðr < *Sigi-warður, ‘Toward Victory’. Cp. English surname Siward.
2. ‘Grim’, Sigurðr’s sword inherited from Óðinn who hilt stuck it in a hall’s tree trunk for the fated man to yank out.


‘What bit my corslet? What broke my sleep?
Who slit from me the blanching chains?’


‘Sigmundr’s son, and Sigurðr’s sword –
used to cut a copse made of carrion,
newly made corpses for corbies.’


‘Long I slept, long was I sleeping,
Long are the woes of the world;
Óðinn ordained I’d have no might
to doff the dozing spells.’


Sigurðr sat, he sought her name.
A mead-filled horn he handed her
to drink a remembrance draught.


'Hail day, hail sons of day!
Hail night and sister of night!
With wrathless eyes
here stare on us,
and win us victory
while we wait.


'Hail Æsir!* Hail Ásynjor!*
Hail the worth of all earth!
Give words and wisdom to us both,
to us two twinned in fame,
and hands of healing while we live.'

1,2. 'gods'; 'goddesses'.


Sigrdrífa she was, a Valkyrja,*
a chooser of the slain.
He heard her tell
a tale of two kings,
Hj
álmgunnarr and Agnarr,
in a fight to the end.

1. 'slain-chooser', a valkyrie. German Walküre, Old English wælcyrige.


Sigrdrífa said:

'For Helm-Gunnarr, hard and old,
Óðinn availed a victory.
Agnarr, brother of
Auða,
welcomed no man nor wight.

'In the fray, Sigrdrífa felled him,
inciting a counter from
Óðinn,
who banned her choice
to choose the slain,
and commanded her to marry.
He stuck her with a slumberthorn.


'For my turn, I told Óðinn
I'd sworn a fierce oath
to wed no man who knew fear.'


Sigrdrífa said to Sigurðr:

'Man-tree of turmoil, I bring you beer
mingled with might and mighty fame.
It's filled with songs, and soothing staves,
with splendid spells, and runes of joy.


'Runes for winning you must learn
if you want to vouchsafe victory

cut them on hilt of hewing sword,
some on blade ridge, some on blade flat,
and invoke
Týr’s name twice.


'You must know ale-runes
if you don't want another's wife
to trick you in trust,
even when you believe her.
Carve them on horn, on your hand's back,
Upon your nails write Need.

'Sign a token over the cup filled up
and beware of danger

Sink a leek in your liquid.
In this way I'll know

No harm will mingle in your mead.

'Rescue-runes you must know
if you desire to save,
and unbind babies
from women's wombs.
Carve them on your palms,
Gird them on your loins,
then pray to D
ísir* to empower them.

1. "Ladies", "Goddesses", an order of female powers bound to the earth and fostering lifecycles.


'Sea-runes you must make
for surety's sake
for ships upon the sea,
for oar-horses on the sound.
Carve them on the prow,
write them on the rudder,
etch them with fire on the oars.
No breaker's so craggy,
No waves are so black
you won't come whole to harbour.

'You must know limb-runes
if you yearn to heal others
and help their wounds.
Cut them on bark,
in the tree trunk's wood,
on limbs leaning east.


'You must master speech-runes,
so none will make feud
for any sorrows felt.
Wind them around,
weave them around,
set them around
the people's court of doom,
the field of full judgment.

'You must know mind-runes
to make all see
you've the keenest mind of men.
Hroptr* conceived them,
cut them and ordered them
from the draught that dropped
from Glory-Gusher's head,
from Hoard-Reaver's horn*.

1. Hroptr =
Óðinn
2. Glory-Gusher and Hoard-Reaver = Hei
ðdraupnir and Hoddrofnir, alternate names for Mímir/Mímr, the god whose wise head floats in Mímir's Well, one of three great wells nourishing the cosmic tree, Yggdrasill. He is all head, and his horn is for drinking the liquid in the well. This liquid includes bark dew dripping down from Yggdrasill and mead emitted from Óðinn's eye (floating in the same well).



Hroptr stood high on the cliff,
bearing Brimir's* sword,
wearing helm on head.
Then M
ímr's head
mouthed the first word,
spoke in wisdom,
told true letters.


MORE TO COME