Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Útsteinn Útkv 1VIII (Hálf 39)/8 — dísirdísir

Upp skulum rísa,         út skulum ganga
ok ramligar         randir knýja.
Hygg við hjálmum         hingat komnar
til Danmarkar         dísir várar.

Skulum rísa upp, skulum ganga út ok knýja ramligar randir. Hygg dísir várar komnar hingat til Danmarkar við hjálmum.

Let us arise, let us go out and bash our strong shields. I believe that our dísir have come here to Denmark with helmets.

notes

[8]: Dísir is the name for female guardian spirits, often considered to safeguard the interests of a particular individual or his or her family (cf. Ström 1961, 192-4; Turville-Petre 1964, 221-7). The claim that they have ‘come here to Denmark with helmets’ probably indicates the warlike state of mind of the dísir rather than their actual provision of helmets to Útsteinn. These dísir behave very much like valkyries.

grammar

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close

Word in text

This view shows information about an instance of a word in a text.