Brünnhilde wakes and greets the day and Siegfried, illustration of the scene of Wagner's Ring inspired by the Sigrdrífumál, by Arthur Rackham (1911).
Sigrdrífa gives Sigurðr a horn to drink from. Illustration by Jenny Nyström (1893).
Sigrdrífa giving Sigurd a drinking horn. Illustration on the Drävle Runestone.

Sigrdrífumál (also known as Brynhildarljóð[1]) is the conventional title given to a section of the Poetic Edda text in Codex Regius.

It follows Fáfnismál without interruption, and it relates the meeting of Sigurðr with the valkyrie Brynhildr, here identified as Sigrdrífa ("driver to victory").[2] Its content consists mostly of verses concerned with runic magic and general wisdom literature, presented as advice given by Sigrdrífa to Sigurd. The metre is differing throughout the poem. Most staves are wrote in ljóðaháttr, but there are also some in fornyrðislag and a few in galdralag.

The end is in the lost part of the manuscript but it has been substituted from younger paper manuscripts. The Völsunga saga describes the scene and contains some of the poem.

Name

The compound sigr-drífa means "driver to victory"[2] (or "victory-urger", "inciter to victory"[3]) It occurs only in Fáfnismál (stanza 44) and in stanza 4 of the Sigrdrífumál. In Fáfnismál, it could be a common noun, a synonym of valkyrie, while in Sigrdráfumál it is explicitly used as the name of the valkyrie whose name is given as Hildr or Brynhildr in the Prose Edda.[2] Bellows (1936) emphasizes that sigrdrífa is an epithet of Brynhildr (and not a "second Valkyrie").[4]

Contents

The Sigrdrífumál follows the Fáfnismál without break, and editors are not unanimous in where they set the title. Its state of preservation is the most chaotic in the Eddaic collection. Its end has been lost in the Great Lacuna of the Codex Regius. The text is cut off after the first line of stanza 29, but this stanza has been completed, and eight others have been added, on the evidence of the much later testimony of paper manuscripts.

The poem appears to be a compilation of originally unrelated poems. However, this state of the poem appears to have been available to the author of the Völsungasaga, which cites from eighteen of its stanzas.

The basis of the text appears to be a poem dealing with Sigurd's finding of Brynhild, but only five stanzas (2-4, 20-21) deal with this narrative directly. Stanza 1 is probably taken from another poem about Sigurd and Brynhild. Many critics have argued that it is taken from the same original poem as stanzas 6-10 of Helreid Brynhildar.

In stanzas 6-12, Brynhild teaches Sigurd the magic use of the runes. To this has been added similar passages on rune-lore from unrelated sources, stanzas 5 and 13-19. This passage is the most prolific source about historical runic magic which has been preserved.

Finally, beginning with stanza 22 and running until the end of the preserved text is a set of counsels comparable to those in Loddfáfnismál. This passage is probably an accretion unrelated to the Brynhild fragment, and it contains in turn a number of what are likely interpolations to the original text.

The valkyrie's drinking-speech

The first three stanzas are spoken by Sigrdrífa after she has been awoken by Sigurd (stanza 1 in Bellows 1936 corresponds to the final stanza 45 of Fáfnismál in the edition of Jonsson 1905).

What is labelled as stanza 4 by Bellows (1936) is actually placed right after stanza 2, introduced only by Hon qvaþ ("she said"), marking it as the reply of the valkyrie to Sigmund's identification of himself in the second half of stanza 1.

The following two stanzas are introduced as follows:

Sigurþr settiz niþr oc spurþi hana nafns. Hon toc þa horn fult miaþar oc gaf hanom minnisveig:
"Sigurth sat beside her and asked her name. She took a horn full of mead and gave him a memory-draught."

Henry Adams Bellows stated in his commentary that stanzas 2-4 are "as fine as anything in Old Norse poetry" and these three stanzas constituted the basis of much of the third act in Richard Wagner's opera Siegfried. This fragment is one of the few direct invocations of the Norse gods which have been preserved, and it is sometimes dubbed a "pagan prayer".[5]

The first two stanzas are given below in close transcription (Bugge 1867), in normalized Old Norse (Finnur Jónsson 1932) and in the translations by Thorpe (1866) and of Bellows (1936):

Heill dagr
heilir dags synir
heil nott oc nipt
oreiþom ꜹgom
litiþ ocr þinig
oc gefit sitiondom sigr

Heilir ęsir
heilar asynior
heil sia in fiolnyta fold
mal oc manvit
gefit ocr męrom tveim
oc lęcnishendr meþan lifom

(ed. Bugge 1867)[6]

Hęill dagr,
hęilir dags synir,
hęil nótt ok nipt;
óręiðum augum
lítið okr þinig
ok gefið sitjǫndum sigr.

Hęilir æsir,
hęilar ǫ́synjur,
hęil sjá hin fjǫlnýta fold,
mál ok manvit
gefið okr mærum tvęim
ok læknishęndr, meðan lifum.

(ed. Finnur Jónsson 1932)[7]

Hail Dag,
Hail Dag's sons,
Hail Nat and Nipt!
Look down upon us
With benevolent eyes
And give victory to the sitting!

Hail Asas,
Hail Asynjes,
Hail bounteous earth!
Words and wisdom
give to us noble twain,
and healing hands in life!

(Thorpe 1866)[8]

Hail, day!
Hail, sons of day!
And night and her daughter[9] now!
Look on us here
with loving eyes,
That waiting we victory win.

Hail to the gods!
Ye goddesses, hail,
And all the generous earth!
Give to us wisdom
and goodly speech,
And healing hands, life-long.

(Bellows 1936)[10]

Runic stanzas

Stanzas 5-18 concern runic magic, explaining the use of runes in various contexts.

In stanza 5, Sigrdrífa brings Sigurd ale which she has charmed with runes:

Stanza 6 advises to carve "victory runes" on the sword hilt, presumably referring to the t rune named for Tyr:[11]

The following stanzas address Ølrunar "Ale-runes" (7), biargrunar "birth-runes" (8), brimrunar "wave-runes" (9), limrunar "branch-runes" (10), malrunar "speech-runes" (11), hugrunar "thought-runes" (12). Stanzas 13-14 appear to have been taken from a poem about the finding of the runes by Odin. Stanzas 15-17 are again from an unrelated poem, but still about the topic of runes. The same holds for stanzas 18-19, which return to the mythological acquisition of the runes, and the passing of their knowledge to the æsir, elves, vanir and mortal men.

Gnomic stanzas

Stanzas 20-21 are again in the setting of the frame narrative, with Brynhild asking Sigurd to make a choice. They serve as introduction for the remaining part of the text, stanzas 22-37 (of which, however, only 22-28 and the first line of 29 are preserved in Codex Regius), which are gnomic in nature. Like Loddfáfnismál, the text consists of numbered counsels, running from one to eleven. The "unnumbered" stanzas 25, 27, 30, 34 and 36 are considered interpolations by Bellows (1936).

Editions and translations

References

  1. ↑ The title Brynhildarljóð is used especially in reference to those parts of the Sigrdrífumál which are quoted in the Völsunga saga. See Pétursson (1998), I.460f.
  2. 1 2 3 sigrdrífa occurs both as a common noun, a synonym of valkyrja, and as a proper name of the valkyrie named Hild or Brynhild in the Prose Edda. H. Reichert, "Sigrdrifa (Brynhildr)" in: McConnell et al. (eds.), The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia, Routledge (2013), p. 119. H. Reichert, "Zum Sigrdrífa-Brünhild-Problem" in: Mayrhofer et al. (eds.), Antiquitates Indogermanicae (FS Güntert), Innsbruck (1974), 251–265.
  3. ↑ Orchard (1997:194). Simek (2007:284).
  4. ↑ "Even its customary title is an absurd error. The mistake made by the annotator in thinking that the epithet "sigrdrifa", rightly applied to Brynhild as a "bringer of victory", was a proper name has already been explained and commented on (note on Fafnismol, 44). Even if the collection of stanzas were in any real sense a poem, which it emphatically is not, it is certainly not the "Ballad of Sigrdrifa" which it is commonly called. "Ballad of Brynhild" would be a sufficiently suitable title, and I have here brought the established name "Sigrdrifumol" into accord with this by translating the epithet instead of treating it as a proper name". "Victory-bringer: the word thus translated is in the original 'sigrdrifa.' The compiler of the collection, not being familiar with this word, assumed that it was a proper name, and in the prose following stanza 4 of the Sigrdrifumol he specifically states that this was the Valkyrie's name. Editors, until recently, have followed him in this error, failing to recognize that "sigrdrifa" was simply an epithet for Brynhild. It is from this blunder that the so-called Sigrdrifumol takes its name. Brynhild's dual personality as a Valkyrie and as the daughter of Buthli has made plenty of trouble, but the addition of a second Valkyrie in the person of the supposed "Sigrdrifa" has made still more". (Bellows 1936)
  5. ↑ Steinsland & Meulengracht 1998:72
  6. ↑ Sophus Bugge, Sæmundar Edda (1867). Cursive type indicates expansions from scribal abbreviations.
  7. ↑ Finnur Jonsson (1932), De gamle Eddadigte, digitalized at heimskringla.org
  8. ↑ Benjamin Thorpe (trans.), Rasmus B. Anderson (ed.), The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigufsson, Norroena Society (1906).
  9. ↑ Bellow's translation "her daughter" is based on the interpretation of the text as referring to Jörd.
    Sophus Bugge (1867) has argued against this interpretation, as the Earth is addressed directly in the following stanza.
    The literal meaning of nipt is "female relative" more generally and may refer to a sister, daughter or sister's daughter.
    The translation by Benjamin Thorpe renders the word as a proper name, as Nipt.
  10. ↑ Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda (1936)
  11. ↑ Enoksen, Lars Magnar. Runor: Historia, tydning, tolkning (1998) ISBN 91-88930-32-7
  12. 1 2 Jansson; 1987: p.15
  13. ↑ Bellows (1936). In brackets are the lines considered "spurious additions" to stanza 19 by this editor, who however cautions that "the whole stanza is chaotic".
  • Jansson, Sven B. F. (Foote, Peter; transl.)(1987). Runes in Sweden. ISBN 91-7844-067-X
  • Steinsland, G. & Meulengracht Sørensen, P. (1998): Människor och makter i vikingarnas värld. ISBN 91-7324-591-7
  • Einar G. Pétursson, Hvenær týndist kverið úr Konungsbók Eddukvæða? , Gripla 6 (1984), 265-291
  • Einar G. Pétursson, Eddurit Jóns Guðmundssonar lærða: Samantektir um skilning á Eddu og Að fornu í þeirri gömlu norrænu kölluðust rúnir bæði ristingar og skrifelsi: Þættir úr fræðasögu 17. aldar, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, Rit 46 (1998), vol I, pp. 402–40: introduction to Jón's commentary on the poem Brynhildarljóð (Sígrdrífumál) in Völsunga saga; vol. II, 95-102: the text of the commentary.
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