EDDIC TO ENGLISH
ANDY ORCHARD, 2011
The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore
Penguin Classics
384 pages
Publisher website
Translated poems (35):
Codex Regius (31)
Vǫluspá, Hávamál, Vafþrúðnismál, Grímnismál, Skírnismál, Hárbarðsljóð, Hymiskviða, Lokasenna, Þrymskviða, Vǫlundarkviða, Alvíssmál, Frá dauða Sinfjǫtla, Grípisspá, Reginsmál, Fáfnismál, Sigrdrífumál, Brot af Sigurðarkviðu, Sigurðarkviða hin skamma, Helreið Brynhildar, Dráp Niflunga, Oddrúnargrátr, Atlakviða, Atlamál, Guðrúnarhvǫt, Hamðismál, Helgakviða Hundingsbana (I, II), Helgakviða Hjǫrvarðssonar, Guðrúnarkviða (I, II, III)
Non-Codex Regius (4)
Baldrs draumar, Rígsþula, Hyndluljóð, Grottasǫngr
Other notable contents: Includes something of a timeline of the ancient Germanic peoples (pp. xi-xiii)
Note format: Marginalia and extensive endnotes
Dual Edition? No
Rendering: jǫtunn = “giant” (p. 5), þurs = “ogre” (p. 6)
Censorship: None (cf. p. 89)
Original illustrations? First edition cover features a photograph of the the Ramsund carving in southeastern Sweden. No other illustrations. Second edition cover features a stylized depiction of Yggdrasill by artist Petra Börner.
I. TRANSLATION SAMPLES
a.) Vǫluspá (p. 5):
19. An ash I know stands, Yggdrasil by name,
a high tree, drenched with bright white mud;
from there come the dews that drop in the dales,
it always stands green over Destiny’s well.
b.) Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (p. 143):
Sigrún went into the burial-mound to Helgi and said:
43. ‘Now I am as keen for us to meet
as Odin's hawks, eager to eat,
when they scent the slain, the warmth of flesh,
or, dew-bright, see the glint of the day.’
Margin note: "Odin's hawks ravens"
c.) Rígsþula (p. 254):
45. He contended in runes with the Earl Ríg,
he baited him with cunning and knew better than he;
then he won and gained the right
to be called Ríg and know about runes.
II. Reviews
Haukur Þorgeirsson. 2012. Review. Saga-Book. Vol. XXXVI, pp. 149-152. University of Iceland. Online.
Excerpt:
The preceding examples will suffice to show why I cannot without reservation call Orchard’s Edda an accurate translation. But a relative estimation is also in order. Orchard’s version is certainly more accurate than the poetic translations of Hollander, Bellows and Auden. And while the translation further propagates many of Larrington’s errors, Orchard’s version is, on the whole, somewhat more accurate. In particular, I find that Orchard’s version of Vǫluspá compares favourably with that of Larrington. Thorpe’s translation is woefully obsolete but tends to have different errors from the modern translations and is a valuable comparative tool. Ursula Dronke’s partial translation (1969–2011) is quite accurate but priced out of the reach of most students. Readers of German have some good options.
In summary, I know of no complete English translation of the Poetic Edda which is more accurate than Orchard’s. I would, therefore, recommend it—but I wish I could do so more wholeheartedly.
III. OBSERVATIONs
English academic Andy Orchard is perhaps best known in ancient Germanic studies for his Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend (1997, Cassell), one of the three major Norse mythology handbooks in the field (the other two are those of Rudolf Simek and John Lindow). Orchard's translation of the Poetic Edda is in many ways very similar to its immediate precursor, the first edition of Carolyne Larrington's translation published by Oxford University Press (1996). For example, Orchard translates exactly the same poems as Larrington’s first edition—no more and no less.
Larrington and Orchard evidently worked on their own editions in parallel for a period. According to Larrington:
At that point, it was not easy to tell who was working on what topics in the UK, and as it turned out my contemporary Andy Orchard was working at the same time on a translation of the Poetic Edda for Penguin. In the event he put his work on hold for some fifteen years and the translation was finally published in 2011 with an oddly outdated and misleading title (The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore), probably forced upon him in order to distinguish it from my version. (Larrington 2017: 166)
It would seem that Oxford University Press responded to Penguin’s 2011 edition by commissioning Larrington to expand her 1996 translation with several more poems and to make heavy revisions, and that this resulted in her 2014 revised edition.
Cited work
Larrington, Carolyne. 2017. “Translating and Retranslating the Poetic Edda” as published in Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation, pp. 165-182 eds. Birkett, Tom & Kristy March-Lyons.