The Comparative Völuspá: The Viking Age Prophecy of Birth, Death, & Rebirth Linguistically dated to the end of the pagan period of Viking Age Scandinavia, no poem in the Old Norse corpus is more celebrated than the harrowing masterpiece Völuspá, the ‘prophecy of the völva’. A völva was a type of esteemed seeress, a figure comparable to contemporary notions of a witch. In Völuspá, a völva tells the wisdom-seeking god Odin about the deep past and foretells a horrific future followed by a lush, green rebirth. This unique and beautiful edition features three historic translations next to an Old Icelandic edition of the text. It also contains an original introduction from scholar Lyonel Perabo and a comparative look at the related poem Baldrs draumar and the mysterious eddic fragments. 260 pages. First Edition, revised 2025.
