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Voluspd JOJ
munu berjask", etc., and where the present is used the
future meaning is obvious. The prophecy itself is only
st. 45-65.
One of the means of differentiating between the three
parts of V olusPd are the so-called refrains. V oluspd is
alone among the Eddaic poems in having refrains, except
for its imitation, the "short V oluspd". What has
sometimes been called the sibyl's refrain in Baldrs draumar
is of an entirely different nature. But though the
refrains of Voluspd point to its relationship to the
skaldic poems, the differences must not he forgotten.
No drdpa has three refrains of different kinds, as Voluspd
has, and none of these three refrains is of exactly the same
kind as the skaldic refrains. The first (pd gengu regin iill...
st. 6, 9, 23, 25) is the beginning of a stanza, the third (st.
44) is a complete stanza, and the second (vituo er enn ­
eoa hvat?) is only a last-line refrain. The poet has
followed his own taste and desire, but no rules. He
uses the refrain to control the mood of the poem: in the
first part it emphasises the power and might of the
young gods; in the second the uncertainty, fear and the
jeering question of the sibyl- "Shall I stop - or dare you
listen longer?" ; in the third the danger itself and the fate
of the gods.
Yet it cannot be denied that the third refrain may have
been repeated at precise intervals, although the poem is
not well enough preserved for it to be possible to
reconstruct it according to this view. What Brate and
Akerblom have written about V oluspd from that viewpoint."
throws no light on it. Nor will I deny that the
return of the second refrain at st. 62-63 is suspicious.
But if the poet liked it like that, then there is no more to
be done about it.
Boer 49 has said about V oluspd that "now the poem goes
.8 E. Brate, 'Voluspa', Arkio xxx (I9I4), 43 ff.; A. Akerblom, 'Om Voluspas
komposition och syfte', ibid., XXXVI (I920), 58 ff •
•• Kritik, 29I.