Note 111 — The Ballad of the High One

With this stanza begins the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111–138). Loddfafnir is apparently a wandering singer, who, from his “chanter’s stool,” recites the verses which he claims to have received from Othin. Wells of Urth: cf. Voluspo, 19 and note. Urth (“the Past”) is one of the three Norns. This stanza is apparently in corrupt form, and editors have tried many experiments with it, both in rejecting lines as spurious and in rearranging the words and punctuation. It looks rather as though the first four lines formed a complete stanza, and the last four had crept in later. The phrase translated “the speech of Hor” is “Hova mol,” later used as the title for the entire poem.