This volume presents five Norse poems, originally of oral composition, from the late ninth to the early eleventh century. Each has a translation and commentary, intoduction, analysis of structure and meaning, provenance and date. Voluspa traces the history of the earth and its deities, Rigspula pursues the divinely programmed progress of man from ancinet thralldom to contemporary kingship, Volundarkvida concerns the torn halfs of human nature, in the swan-woman and the elf-man, Skirnismal tells of the earth's feminine obstinacy that denies the sun-god his love and Lokasenna tells scandalous...