SOURCE: "Some Comments on Voluspa, Stanzas 17-18," in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Symposium, edited by Edgar C. Polome, University of Texas Press, 1969, pp. 265-90.

In the following essay, Polome analyzes an important creation episode in the Voluspa, one of the greatest Eddic poems.

Among the controversial problems of Eddic cosmology, the identification of the Scandinavian trinity that presides over the creation of man is certainly one of the most disputed. This creation episode is related in two stanzas of the Voluspá ("The Seeress' Prophecy"), whose wording reads as follows in Dr. Hollander's rhythmical translation:¹

To the coast then came,    kind and mighty,
 from the gathered gods    three great Æsir;
 on the land they found,    of little strength,
 Ask and Embla,    unfated yet.

Sense they possessed not,    soul they had not,
 being nor bearing,    nor blooming hue,
 soul gave Óthin,    sense gave Hœnir,
 being, Lóthur...