Page:Poeticedda00belluoft.djvu/272

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Poetic Edda

13.[1] "Then eighth will I chant thee,  if ever by night Thou shalt wander on murky ways:Yet never the curse  of a Christian woman From the dead shall do thee harm.
14. "Then ninth will I chant thee,  if needs thou must strive With a warlike giant in words:Thy heart good store  of wit shall have, And thy mouth of words full wise.
15. "Now fare on the way  where danger waits, Let evils not lessen thy love!I have stood at the door  of the earth-fixed stones, The while I chanted thee charms.
16.[2] "Bear hence, my son,  what thy mother hath said, And let it live in thy breast;Thine ever shall be  the best of fortune, So long as my words shall last."
  1. ↑ A dead Christian woman: this passage has distressed many editors, who have sought to emend the text so as to make it mean simply "a dead witch." The fact seems to be, however, that this particular charm was composed at a time when Christians were regarded by all conservative pagans as emissaries of darkness. A dead woman's curse would naturally be more potent, whether she was Christian or otherwise, than a living one's. Presumably this charm is much older than the poem in which it here stands.
  2. ↑ At this point Groa's song ends, and Svipdag, thus fortified, goes to seek Mengloth. All the link that is needed between the poems is approximately this: "Then Svipdag searched long for

[238]

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.