As expected, the giant ends up slain by Thor, the mightiest of the gods, which infuriates the giants who eagerly battle the Æsir. When the giant assigned the task demands the love goddess Freyja as a reward, Loki is requested to play a trick on him to prevent this from happening. In a sudden change of topic, we then get a glimpse of other major mythical events, such as the rebuilding of Asgard, the fortress of Odin and his family, and possibly one of the nine worlds the prophetess was speaking of. The fates reappear in stanza 20, where they carved runes on wood and made laws. After this section with the many dwarves, three gods, Odin, Hönir, and Lothur, continue their work and create mankind out of two trees, ash and elm (Ask and Embla).

Sigurd is the tragic legendary hero who killed a dragon with a cursed treasure, inspiring many authors among whom, once again, Tolkien. Then we have Andvari, the one who tells in a poem called Reginsmál about how Loki, the trickster god, stole his wealth, causing him to curse the treasure that brought the death of Sigurd. Another one, Dvalin, is important, too, since he seems to have given the dwarves magic runes which made them very skillful, as told in the second poem of the Edda, the Hávamál. One of them, Gandalf, was turned into a wizard by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. A council is held during which we are given a catalogue of the race of dwarves very few of them are mentioned elsewhere. The Norns were creatures even more powerful than the gods since they decided the fate of everyone. The outcome of the war between the godly families of the Æsir & the Vanir was that all gods received equal right to worship.Īt their dwelling, three giant-maids arrive, a possible reference to the Norns.

The gods meet at Ithavoll, a mysterious place only mentioned twice in the poem, where they set forges and make tools and set up temples. The three brothers shape the earth, take their assembly seats, and then name the stars in the skies, thus giving an order to the universe.

The creation of the universe seems to have been the work of the sons of Borr: Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé, whose names we know from another poem called the Lokasenna. There was 'a yawning gap' at the beginning of time (Hildebrand, stanza 3). She answers him by mentioning the nine worlds that make up the universe and the ash-tree Yggdrasil, as well as Ymir, a giant out of whose limbs the universe was made. He asks a völva, an ancient seeress, to rise from the grave and tell him, the father of the slain (Valfǫþr) – because he takes warriors into his famous hall of Valhalla) – stories of the past. Unknown (Public Domain) How the World BeganĪccording to the Völuspá, Odin, the leader of the Æsir gods, as the most important and mightiest family was called, was always eager for knowledge.

The Poetic Edda by Unknown