In:From Carving Runestones to Digitizing Skaldic Poetry: Studies in Germanic philology and historical linguistics
Edited by David Bolter, Erin Noelliste, Christopher D. Sapp and Lane Sorensen
[Studies in Germanic Linguistics 11] 2026
► pp. 114–133
Chapter 8Vǫluspá and the War in
Heaven
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This paper explores the diction of the poem Vǫluspá,
comparing one of its phrases to a similar phrase widely attested in Old
English religious poetry. In particular, the Old Norse phrase há timbroðo
‘built high’, which is used in the poem to describe heathen cultic sites, is
examined and compared to uses attested in Old Norse, Old High German, and
Old English works. Although rare in Old Norse poetry, in Old English sources
the phrase commonly describes heaven, and is used to juxtapose its light and
glory with the darkness of hell; the phrase is also formulaically associated
with the theme of the War in Heaven. When read in the context of these
resonances, Vǫluspá’s description of the Æsir’s early works take on a new
tone. The paper also explores the possibility that these literary traditions
may share overlapping oral and formulaic elements, highlighting the ways
that commonly inherited poetic formulas can take on new connotations within
new cultural and religious contexts.
Keywords: comparative poetics, religious poetry, syncretism, Norse mythology, eschatology
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1General remarks
- 2.Vǫluspá and “high-built” temples
- 3.Old English usage: The War in Heaven motif
- 4.Syncretism
- 5.Conclusions
- Author queries
Acknowledgements Notes Abbreviations References
References (54)
Primary sources
Augustine. 1972. City
of
God, vol. 7, Books 21–22. William M. Green (trans.). Loeb
Classical Library 417, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dronke, Ursula (ed.). 1997. The
Poetic Edda, vol. II: Mythological
poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jakob Benediktsson (ed.). 1968. Íslendingabók
& Landnámabók, Íslenzk Fornrit
I. Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag.
Jónas Kristjánsson & Vésteinn Ólason (eds.). 2014. Eddukvæði
I:
Goðakvæði. Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag.
Krapp, George Phillip (ed.). 1931. The
Junius manuscript, Anglo-Saxon Poetic
Records v. 1. New York: Columbia University Press.
Krapp, George Phillip & Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds). 1936. The
Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records v.
3. New York: Columbia University Press.
Secondary sources
Althochdeutsches
Wörterbuch. Leipzig: Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. ([URL]) (Accessed 2024-08-21)
Amodio, Mark C. 2004. Writing
the oral tradition: Oral poetics and literate culture in medieval
England. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Ármann Jakobsson. 2018. Remnants
of indigenous beliefs in the other world in saga
literature. In Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), The
Pre-Christian religions of the north: Research and reception, volume
I: From the Middle Ages to c.
1850, 127–136. Turnhout: Brepols.
Auerbach, Erich. 1984. Figura. In Ralph Mannheim (trans.), Scenes
from the drama of European literature: Six
essays, 11–76. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Boyer, Régis. 1983. On
the composition of
Vǫluspá. In Haraldur Bessason & Robert J. Glendinning (eds.), Edda:
A collection of
essays, 117–133. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
Brink, Stefan. 2008. Naming
the
land. In Stefan Brink & Neil Price (eds.), The
Viking world. London and New York: Routledge.
Butt, Wolfgang. 1981. Zur
Herkunft der
Vǫluspá. Beiträge
zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und
Literatur 91.83–103.
Dictionary of Old English: A
to Le online. Cameron, Angus, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (eds.). 2024. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. ([URL]) (Accessed 2024-08-20.)
Dictionary of Old Norse
Prose. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. ([URL]?) (Accessed 2024-08-19.)
Doane, Alger N. 1991. The
Saxon Genesis: An edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old
Saxon Vatican Genesis. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Dronke, Ursula. 1992. Vǫluspá
and Sibylline
Traditions. In Richard North & Tette Hofstra (eds.), Latin
culture and Germanic
Europe, 3–24. Groningen: Forsten.
Fidjestøl, Bjarne & Odd Einar Haugen. 1999. The
dating of Eddic poetry: A historical survey and methodological
investigation. Copenhagen: Reitzel.
Fitzgerald, Jill. 2019. Rebel
angels: Space and sovereignty in Anglo-Saxon
England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Foote, Peter. 1975. Observations
on ‘syncretism’ in early Icelandic
Christianity. Árbók Vísindafélags
Íslendinga, 69–86.
Frankis, John. 2016. From
Old English to Old Norse. Medium
Ævum Monographs vol.
XXXIII, Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature.
Frog & William Lamb (eds.). 2022. Weathered
words: Formulaic language and verbal
art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gade, Kari Ellen. 2000. Poetry
and its changing importance in medieval Icelandic
culture. In Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Old
Icelandic literature and
society, 61–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2001. The
dating and attributions of verses in the skald
sagas. In Russel Poole (ed.), Skaldsagas:
Text, vocation, and desire in the Icelandic sagas of
poets, 50–74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
. 2007. Ælfric
in
Iceland. In Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop, and Tarrin Wills (eds.), Learning
and understanding in the Old Norse world: Essays in honour of
Margaret Clunies
Ross, 321–339. Turnhout: Brepols.
Gatch, Milton. 1978. The
achievement of Ælfric and his colleagues in European
perspective. In Paul E. Szarmach & Bernard F. Huppé, (eds.), The
Old English homily and its
backgrounds, 43–73. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Gísli Sigurðsson. 2007. Völuspá. In Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, and Heiko Steuer (eds.), Reallexikon
der Germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd
ed, 35.524–533. Berlin: De Gruyter.
. 2013. Vǫluspá
as the product of an oral tradition: What might that
entail? In Terry Gunnell & Annette Lassen (eds.), The
Nordic apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and nordic days of
judgment, 45–62. Turnhout: Brepols.
Graff, E. G. 1836,
repr. 1963. Althochdeutscher
Sprachschatz, V, 670–1. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung.
Hadley, Dawn M. & Julian D. Richards (eds.), 2000. Cultures
in contact: Scandinavian settlement in England in the ninth and
tenth
centuries. Turnhout: Brepols.
Hall, Thomas N. 2000. Old
Norse-Icelandic
sermons. In Beverly Mayne Kienzle (ed.), The
sermon, 661–709. Turnhout: Brepols.
Hermann, Pernille, Stephen A. Mitchell, Jens Peter Schjødt, and Amber J. Rose (eds.). 2018. Old
Norse mythology: Comparative
perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Higham, Nicholas J. & Martin J. Ryan. The
Anglo-Saxon world. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Hobson, Jacob. 2017. Euhemerism
and the veiling of history in early Scandinavian
literature. The Journal of English
and Germanic
Philology 116.24–44.
Hultgård, Anders. 2022. The
end of the world in Scandinavian mythology: A comparative
perspective on
Ragnarök. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kress, Helga. 1985. The
apocalypse of a culture: Vǫluspá and the myth of
the sources/sourceress in Old Icelandic
literature. In Teresa Paroli (ed.), Poetry
in the Scandinavian Middle Ages: Proceedings of the seventh
international Saga
Conference, 279–302. Spoleto: Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo.
Lindow, John. 1987. Norse
mythology and Northumbria: methodological
notes. Scandinavian
Studies 59.308–324.
McKinnell, John. 1994. Both
one and many: Essays on change and variety in late Norse
heathenism. Rome: Calamo.
. 2014. Vǫluspá
and the feast of
Easter. In Donata Kick & John D. Shafer (eds.), Essays
on Eddic
Poetry, 3–33. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Myrvoll, Klaus Johan. 2014. Kronologi
i skaldekvæde: Distribusjon av metriske og språklege drag i høve til
tradisjonell datering og
attributering. Oslo: University of Oslo dissertation.
North, Richard. 2006. End
time and the date of
Vǫluspá. In Catherine E. Karkov & Nicholas Howe (eds.), Conversion
and colonization in Anglo-Saxon
England, 213–236. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Ohlgren, Thomas H. 1988. The
pagan iconography of Christian ideas: Tree-lore in Anglo-Viking
England. Mediaevistik 1.145–173.
Sapp, Christopher. 2024. Dating
the Old Norse Poetic Edda: A multifactorial analysis of linguistic
features. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Sayers, William. 2023. The
endowing of Askr and Embla, and its reverberations in the poetry of
Egill Skallagrímsson. Scandinavian
Studies 95.345–366.
Thorvaldsen, Bernt Ø. 2016. The
dating of Eddic
poetry. In Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn, and Brittany Schorn (eds.), A
Handbook to Eddic poetry: Myths and legends of early
Scandinavia, 72–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Oort, Johannes. 2012. The
end is now: Augustine on history and
eschatology. HTS: Theological
Studies 68.1–7.
Vésteinn Ólason. 2013. Vǫluspá
and
time. In Terry Gunnell & Annette Lassen (eds.), The
Nordic apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and Nordic days of
judgment, 25–44. Turnhout: Brepols.