2024-02-12

Poem of the Week, week 7: From Voluspå: "Wolf-age"

Read a weekly poem by authors from Norway, throughout the year.

WOLF-AGE

Brother will fight brother and be his slayer,
sister’s sons will violate the kinship-bond;
hard it is in the world, whoredom abounds,
axe-age, sword-age, shields are cleft asunder,
wind-age, wolf-age, before the world plunges headlong;
no man will spare another.

From: Voluspå, 10th Century

Translated by Carolyne Larrington in The Poetic Edda, Second edition, Oxford World’s Classic, Oxford, 2014, p. 9.

See the poem in Norse and Norwegian

Poem of the Week

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