Talk:Völuspá

Hard to Understand

The Voluspa is hard to understand.

I agree to a certain extent. The main problem is that the narrator assumed a lot of knowledge about names etcetera to be common knowledge. This makes it for a modern person hard to read as he knows not all the names and whether they are significant or not. Shinobu (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, many editions have notes or a glossary explaining those names, just like editions of ancient Greek tragedies or the poems of Ovid or Pindar - the victory hymns of Pindar are much thicker with obscure names and allusions to myths then anything in the Poetic Edda.

List of Dwarves vs. Lord of the Rings

I note that the list of visiting dwarves in Lord of the Rings strongly parallels the list of dwarves in the Völuspá. Shinobu (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's because that's where Tolkien got them from. No surprise - he was a scholar of English and Scandinavian literature after all. --Gwern (contribs) 03:42 24 November 2007 (GMT)

Actually it is the list of dwarves found in The Hobbit, not Lord of the Rings. This is mentioned in the last page of the forward (written by Christopher Tolkien) in the enhanced edition of The Hobbit. This edition includes a photocopy of an original manuscript page, wherein JRR Tolkien listed the dwarf names... Gandalf also appears here, and Christopher says he was originally the head dwarf when his father started writing. --Bhymer (talk) 05:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Modern Translation?

Is there a colloquial rhyming version of the Voluspa? A certain series of lines has been echoing in my head for some time now. Paraphrasing, "Then once again in the grass are found draughtsmen all of gold. The draughtsmen that the gods had used in the glorious days of old." I'm certain this refers to one of the closing lines of the Voluspa, though obviously its a more flexible, modern translation than any of the versions linked at the bottom of the article.

Canisaquilus (talk) 21:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Versions differ according to Baldur's return?

The article currently states:

"Versions differ, for example Baldr's return is present in Codex Regius, but absent in others."

I think the author has perhaps confused Baldur with the Unnamed One of H57, which, indeed, only appears in the Hauksbók. Baldur's return is described in both the Konungsbók (R60) and the Hauksbók (H54) editions. 84.75.168.38 (talk) 18:49, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Typo

"Völuspá has and is still one of the most discussed poems" - obviously something is missing here, I suggest inserting "been". --ErastFandorin (talk) 09:17, 25 September 2015 (UTC)