''Baldrs draumar'' (Old Norse: ' Baldr's dreams') or ''Vegtamskviða'' is an Eddic poem which appears in the manuscript AM 748 I 4to. It describes the myth of Baldr's death consistently with ''

Gylfaginning ''Gylfaginning'' ( Old Norse: 'The Beguiling of Gylfi' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi'; c. 20,000 words; 13th century Old Norse pronunciation ) is the first part of the 13th century '' Prose Edda'' after the Prologue. The ''Gylfaginning'' deals wi ...

''. Bellows suggest that the poem was composed in the mid 10th century as well as the possibility that the author also composed ''

Völuspá ''Vǫluspá'' (also ''Völuspá'', ''Vǫlospá'' or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress'; reconstructed Old Norse: ) is the best known poem of the '' Poetic Edda''. It tells the story of the creation of the world an ...

'' or at least drew from it, pointing at the similarity of stanza 11 in ''Baldrs draumar'' and stanzas 32-33 in ''Völuspá''.

Synopsis and text

Baldr has been having nightmares. Odin rides to Hel to investigate. He finds the grave of a ''

völva In Germanic paganism, a seeress is a woman said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They are also referred to with many other names meaning "prophetess", "staff bearer", "wise woman" and "sorceress", and they are f ...

'' and resurrects her. Their conversation follows, where the völva tells Odin about Baldr's fate. In the end Odin asks her a question which reveals his identity and the völva tells him to ride home.

Form and date

The poem is one of the shortest Eddic poems, consisting of 14 ''

fornyrðislag In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The ...

'' stanzas. Some late paper manuscripts contain about five more stanzas, those are thought to be of young origin.

Sophus Bugge Elseus Sophus Bugge (5 January 1833 – 8 July 1907) was a Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scholarly work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic ...

believed them to have been composed by the author of '' Forspjallsljóð'', which is thought to have been written in the 17th century. Bellows, on the other hand, suggests the poem is much older but could not date it earlier than the tenth century.

Influence

The confrontation between The Wanderer (Wotan) and Erda in Act 3, Scene 1 of

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

's opera

Siegfried Siegfried is a German-language male given name, composed from the Germanic elements ''sig'' "victory" and ''frithu'' "protection, peace". The German name has the Old Norse cognate ''Sigfriðr, Sigfrøðr'', which gives rise to Swedish ''Sigfrid' ...

is based upon ''Baldrs draumar''. The poem inspired a

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

, '' Baldurs draumar'' (''Baldur's Dreams''), by the Norwegian composer

Geirr Tveitt Geirr Tveitt (born Nils Tveit; 19 October 1908 – 1 February 1981) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. Tveitt was a central figure of the national movement in Norwegian cultural life during the 1930s. Life Early years Tveitt was born in ...

, first staged in 1938.

References

Bibliography

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External links

English translations

Baldrs Draumar
Translation and commentary by H. A. Bellows

Old Norse editions

's edition of the manuscript text
Baldrs draumar
Guðni Jónsson's edition of the text with normalized spelling

Facsimile of the original manuscript