UPPHAF
Stanza 1-5 of the Völuspa.
Translation by Henry Adams Bellows, 1936.
Lyrical arrangement and adaptation by Johan Hegg

Hearing I ask
From the holy races
From Heimdall’s sons
Both high and low
Thou wilt Valfather
That well I relate
Old tales I recall
Of men long ago

I remember yet
The giants of yore
Who gave me bread
In the days gone by
Nine worlds I knew
The nine in the tree
With mighty roots
Beneath the mold

Of old was the age
When Ymir lived
Sea, nor cool waves,
Nor sand there were
Earth had not been
Nor heaven above
But a yawning gap
And grass nowhere

Then Bur’s sons lifted
The level land
Midgard the mighty
There they made
The sun from the south
Warmed the stones of earth
And green was the ground
With growing weeds

The sun the sister
Of the moon, from the south
Her right hand cast
Over heaven’s rim
No knowledge she had
Where home should be
The moon knew not
What might was his

The stars knew not
Where their stations were