Hervararkviða

Hervor claiming her sword, by Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein.

Hervararkviða (or The Waking of Angantyr, The Incantation of Hervor) is an Old Norse poem from the Hervarar saga, and which is sometimes included in editions of the Poetic Edda.

The poem is about the shieldmaiden Hervor and her visiting her father Angantyr's ghost at his barrow. She does so in order to make him give her heirloom, the cursed sword Tyrfing.

The French poet Leconte de Lisle adapted the Hervararkviða as he wrote a poem entitled L’Épée d’Angantyr ("Angantyr's sword").

External links

• A translation with comments on Old Norse, Todd B Krause & Jonathan Slocum
• A translation into English by WH Auden & AR Taylor
• A translation at Stavacademy
• English translation from 1763
• Smith-Dampier "The Waking of Angantheow" (from The Norse King's Bridal, 1912)
• (French) L’Épée d’Angantyr

Bibliography

• Else Roesdahl (Editor), Sorensen Preben Meulengracht (Editor), Preben Meulengracht Sorensen (Editor), The Waking of Angantyr: The Scandinavian Past in European Culture (ISBN 87-7288-435-5)
• Lee M Hollander: The Most Important Non-Skaldic Verse Not Included in the Elder Edda, Columbia University Press, 1936
• Patricia Terry: Poems of the Elder Edda (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).