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The poetic Edda

Note 1 — The Lament of Oddrun

Henry Adams Bellows translation

Olden tales: this may be merely a stock phrase, or it may really mean that the poet found his story in oral prose tradition. Morningland: the poem’s geography is utterly obscure. “Morningland” is apparently identical with “Hunland” (stanza 4), and yet Oddrun is herself sister of the king of the Huns. Vigfusson tries to make “Mornaland” into “Morva land” and explain it as Moravia. Probably it means little more than a country lying vaguely in the East. With stanza 28 the confusion grows worse.

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