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Hyndluljoth

43.[1] A heart ate Loki,—  in the embers it lay,And half-cooked found he  the woman's heart;—With child from the woman  Lopt soon was,And thence among men  came the monsters all.
44.[2] The sea, storm-driven,  seeks heaven itself,O'er the earth it flows,  the air grows sterile;Then follow the snows  and the furious winds,For the gods are doomed,  and the end is death.
45.[3] Then comes another,  a greater than all.Though never I dare  his name to speak;Few are they now that  farther can seeThan the moment when Othin  shall meet the wolf.
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  Freyja spake:46.[4] "To my boar now bring  the memory-beer,So that all thy words,  that well thou hast spoken,

  1. Nothing further is known of the myth here referred to, wherein Loki (Lopt) eats the cooked heart of a woman and thus himself gives birth to a monster. The reference is not likely to be to the serpent, as, according to Snorri (Gylfaginning, 34), the wolf, the serpent, and Hel were all the children of Loki and Angrbotha.
  2. Probably an omission, perhaps of considerable length, before this stanza. For the description of the destruction of the world, cf. Voluspo, 57.
  3. Cf. Voluspo, 65, where the possible reference to Christianity is noted. With this stanza the fragmentary "short Voluspo" ends, and the dialogue between Freyja and Hyndla continues.
  4. Freyja now admits the identity of her boar as Ottar, who

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