21                        
Illa létu             Bad, they left                    They let known     
orðið hafa          became had                      that it became         
erindisleysu      the mission lost                of bad litlle glory,        
oflítilfræga;       of little glory;                    and that they failed their mission.
vant að væla     Wont at bemoan              Hard to ask whiningly         
verða myndi,    that it would happen        so as to make happen        
svo af svanna   such of a woman                that could be obtained         
svars of gæti.    of an answer receive.       an answer from such a woman.


22                
Ansar Ómi,             Ómi answers,        
allir hlýddu:            all listen :         
“Nótt skal nema     “Night will learn        
nýræða til;               to new powers;        
hugsi til myrgins     Think until morning         
hver sem orkar       who so works         
ráð til leggja             advice to put in place        
rausnar ásum!”       for the splendor of the Aesir!”.        

Ómi is yet another of Óðinn's names: the noisy one.
During the sumbel clearly shown that Heimdall's mission has been a failure. Óðinn is left with the embittered conclusion, given in a pompous way, that night brings advice.


23                        
Rann með röstum   It flew with eddies         Tired, the full-of-lard-hay (or vagina)         
Rindar móður         of Rindr the tired        of Fenrir of the-meadows-         
fóðurlarður         hay (or the vagina) of lard        of-Rindr flew         
fenris valla;         of Fenrir of the meadows.        with eddies.        
gengu frá gildi         The Gods left                 
goðin, kvöddu         the feast, and greeted                
Hropt og Frigg,         Hroptr and Frigg,                
sem Hrímfaxa fór.         as Hrímfaxi raised.                

23
Rann með röstum	It flew with eddies Tired,	the full-of-lard-hay (or vagina)
Rindar móður	of Rindr the tired	of Fenrir of the-meadows-
fóðurlarður hay	(or the vagina) of lard	of-Rindr flew
fenris valla;	of Fenrir of the meadows.	with eddies.
gengu frá gildi	The Gods left
goðin, kvöddu	the feast, and greeted
Hropt og Frigg,	Hroptr and Frigg,
sem Hrímfaxa fór.	as Hrímfaxi raised.

  

In the first half-stanza, the complex kenning can be understood as follows: the tired hay-lard of Fenrir (i.e., the sun since a wolf chases the sun in order to eat it, and hay-lard evokes some juicy food) of the meadows of Rindr (the western meadows) (the sun of the western meadows = the setting down sun) flew with eddies.

Rindr is a Goddess loved by Óðinn. She begot him a son, Váli. She is sometimes linked to the West.

As complex as it is already, this kenning contains even more allusions. Recall that Fenrir is a 'he' and that the sun is a 'she' in Old Norse. This wolf running after a girl recalls strongly Grimm's tale “Little Red-Ridinghood” (Rotkäppchen). More than one century earlier, in 1697, Perrault reported a similar tale (Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) where Red-cap is eaten, and he provides a moral into which he underlines already the sexual innuendos of this tale. It happens here that the word fóðr means, besides 'hay', 'sheath, vagina' in such a way that the 'she-sun' is also called here a 'greasy vagina'. The double meaning of the two kinds of body appetites is thus found here. Note how much 'greasy hay' sounds awkward, while the sexual meaning is much easier to understand. In passing, note that least one kenning for the pelvic area is known (Meissner : “Schlecht ist die Kenning hjarta sals höll für Unterleib”).

Hroptr, the airy one, is Loki, Frigg Óðinn's wife, and Hrímfaxi is one of the horses of Night.

The Gods go back home while night sets up, and they say farewell to their hostess, Frigg, and their guest, Loki.

The word larðr in fóðurlarður of this stanza needs some more explanation. It exists in none of the Old Norse dictionaries. Cleasby only gives it, with the meaning of 'lard, fat' from the French lard. Cleasby comments and cites the poem that we are studying : “This poem however cannot be ancient, for this French word probably came to Iceland through the English trade of the 15th century”.
        

24
Dýrum settan	With expensive ones,	well put up, Delling's son
Dellings mögur	Delling's son	let go forward
jó fram keyrði	the horse forward let go	the horse well put up
jarknasteinum;	(with) precious stones;	with expensive precious stones.
mars of Manheim	of the horse over Manheim,	The mane of the horse glows
mön af glóar,	the mane glows	over Manheim,
dró leik	Dvalins carried along the game of Dvalin	the steed with its waggon
drösull í reið.	the steed with its waggon	carried along the game of Dvalin.

Delling is Sun's father. Manheim is the dwelling of the humans. Dvalin is the name of a dwarf, the first of a long line of dwarves.

The sun is 'the dwarves' game' (actually, we must understand the contrary, that the sun fools the dwarves) because its rays turns them into stone.
        
25                
Jörmungrundar         Of Jörmungrund         
í jódyr nyrðra             by the Northern border,        
und rót yztu                under the root outlying the furthest         
aðalþollar                    from the main tree,        
gengu til rekkju          go lying on their bed         
gýgjur og þursar,       Giantesses and Thurs,        
náir, dvergar              dead ones, dwarves,        
og dökkálfar.               and dark Elves.        

This stanza provides more details on the way the mythic universe is organized. Under the furthest and the most northern root of Yggdrasil lies Hel, the dwelling of those who are not dead in combat. Here, Jotunheim, the Giants' dwelling is thus placed with Hel, the dwelling of the dwarves and the dark Elves. These last are the Elves who do not live in Ásgarðr since the Elves are usually beings of divine nature who live together with the Aesir in Ásgarðr.

You will find more detailed versions of this universe in Rydberg, as given by Björnsson and Reaves, or to the scholarly version of Jan de Vries (cited below, pp. 372-392, Das Weltbild) that you will find soon on this site.

This stanza rings gloomy and it announces the forthcoming disaster.
Jörmungrund is the earth, and its etymology is very interesting. The word grund means a field, the ground but the meaning of jörmun is more disputed. De Vries links it – in his dictionary – to a primitive form *ermuna meaning 'powerful, great'. Obviously, Earth is a gigantic field. The very same de Vries, however, in his History of the old Germanic religions (Berlin, 1970 – 1^st edition 1957) while describing the God Tyr, associates the two names Tîwaz et Irmin. That is obviously disputable, but we cannot dispute the documentation he gathers on various words such as Irmin, irmingot, eormengrund etc. the various Germanic deities (Hermegiselus, Ermanaricus, etc.) who have a similar name. In other words, Jörmungrund is indeed the 'gigantic earth' but is as well a God of the Earth, or the virile form of an earth Goddess.

26
Risu raknar,	Rose the Gods,
rann álfröðull,	ran the Elf-sun,
norður að	Niflheim North,	towards Niflheimr
njóla sótti;	Night proceeds;
upp nam Árgjöll	Up takes Árgjöll	The master of the horn's noise,
Úlfrúnar niður,	of Úlfrún the descendant,	Úlfrún's descendant,
hornþytvaldur	master of the horn's noise,	raises high Árgjöll,
Himinbjarga.	in Himinbjörg.	in Himinbjörg.

Úlfrún is a giantess, Heimdall's mother. Árgjöll, is “the one which rings strongly (gjöll) and early (ár)”. Himinbjörg. is Heimdall's dwelling.

Niflheimr is either the world (our world), or another realm of the dead, different from Niflhell, the underground world of the dead. The etymology of the root nifl- is disputed: it could be dark, or fog, or deep.

In this stanza, the day begins and Heimdall will ring his horn (the poem says that Heimdall raises his horn) in order to announce the Gods' judgment day, Ragnarök, during which even the structure of the universe will be modified.

Many see here a Christian influence, certainly because of the Christian myth of Doomsday. Ragnarök is indeed a day of doom, but the Gods are judged, not the humans. We already know that the Gods will be doomed, as rendered by the more classical translations of Ragnarök, as “twilight” (Wagner) or the “bitter fate” ( Boyer) of the Gods, or Genzmer's Schlachtgötter Sturz, “the fight of the God's collapse.” This myth is thus very different from the Christian one.

Conclusion

This text is certainly not a 'forgery' since it does not hide its age nor its geographical origin. The references to the Völuspa : vitið enn, eða hvað? in stanza 5, would be completely stupid if the author tried to claim a similar antiquity as Völuspa . This poem also constantly uses Swedish words or acceptations of the words, a fact I did not always point out in my comments. A few words are obviously more recent, such as larðr and sveifla, and maybe jamt. It is thus certainly a production of the 15th – 17th century. As long as the author's genuineness seems to be acceptable, this myth where Íðunn shows no naivety, and is a key to the start of Ragnarök, looks like a rectification to the classical story.

The surface contradictions in this text originate from quite understandable double meanings, and from a wavering from respect to irony relative to the Nordic Gods. One side of this wavering is feminist, this should not have been so much puzzling to the scholars who found this poem incomprehensible.

On the one hand, it is impossible to classify this poem among the Scandinavian Middle Age poetry. On the other hand, and as long as no deception is noticeable, it seems to me that it is not less valuable as the earlier productions, as a witness of the Scandinavian myths. My feeling is rather that the author of this poem, observing that an essential face of the myths was on the verge of disappearing in his/her time, wanted to put it in writing before it would become completely forgotten.