Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

is also Saxo's statement, that the doors are covered with the soot of ages. Thus fires must
be kindled near these doors. Of this, more below.
77.
THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT (continued). THE HALL IN NASTROND.
Without allowing myself to propose any change of text in the Völuspá strophes
above quoted, and in pursuance of the principle which I have adopted in this work, not to
base any conclusions on so-called text-emendations, which invariably are text-debasings,
I have applied these strophes as they are found in the texts we have. Like Müllenhoff
(Deutsche Altertumskunde 5, 121) and other scholars, I am, however, convinced that the
strophe which begins sá hún þar vaða, etc., has been corrupted. Several reasons, which I
shall present elsewhere in a special treatise on Völuspá, make this probable; but simply
the circumstance that the strophe has ten lines is sufficient to awaken suspicions in
anyone's mind who holds the view that Völuspá originally consisted of exclusively eightlined
strophes - a view which cannot seriously be doubted. As we now have the poem, it
consists of forty-seven strophes of eight lines each, one of four lines, two of six lines
each, five of ten lines each, four of twelve lines each, and two of fourteen lines each -- in
all fourteen non-eight lined strophes against forty-seven eight-lined ones; and, while all
the eight-lined ones are intrinsically and logically well constructed, it may be said of the
others that have more than eight lines each, partly that we can cancel the superfluous
lines without injury to the sense, and partly that they look like loosely-joined
conglomerations of scattered fragments of strophes and of interpolations. The most recent
effort to perfectly restore the poem to its eight-lined strophes has been made by
Müllenhoff (Deutsche Altertumskunde 5.); and although this effort may need revision in
some special points, it has upon the whole given the poem a clearness, a logical sequence
and symmetry, which of themselves make it evident that Müllenhoff's premises are
correct. 13
In the treatise on Völuspá which I shall publish later, this subject will be
thoroughly discussed. 14 Here I may be permitted to say, that in my own efforts to restore
Völuspá to eight-lined strophes, I came to a point where I had got the most of the
materials arranged on this principle, but there remained the following fragment:
13 Of Karl Müllenhöff, Sigurður Nordal says: "He edited Völuspá with a translation and a detailed
commentary and maintained that the poem was totally heathen in spirit and matter, that it was composed in
Norway but that it's essense was common to all Germanic poetry. …But there is no point in writing at
length about his essay, for it is, in spite of all differences of opinion, the basis of my commentary, as of
most others of his successors." Saga Book of the Viking Society, vol. 18, 1970-1973. Translated by B.S.
Benedikz and J.S. McKinnell. Nordal himself argues for an Icelandic author of Völuspá.
14 To my knowledge, this treatise never appeared. As Rydberg himself emphasizes that nothing can be built
on emendations, this chapter is beyond much commentary. Each reader can decide for him or herself the
value of the conclusions arrived at in this manner.