Note 39 — The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane

Here begins the final section (stanzas 39–50), wherein Sigrun visits the dead Helgi in his burial hill. Doom of the gods: the phrase “ragna rök” has been rather unfortunately Anglicized into the word “ragnarok” (the Norse term is not a proper name), and rök, “doom,” has been confused with rökkr, “darkness,” and so translated “dusk of the Gods,” or “Götterdämmerung.”