Description: Surtr and
Freyr
fighting each other at the Battle of Ragnarök. Surtr will be the
victor and kill Freyr. This scene is from the Eddaic poem
Völuspá in Karl Gjellerup's Den
Ældre Eddas Gudesange.
Source: Den Ældre Eddas Gudesange
Folio or Page: 16
Medium: Not known
Date: 1895
Dimensions (mm): 70 x 60
Provenance:
Gift of Estate of Richard Beck to Special Collections at the
University of Victoria. This illustration from Den Ældre Eddas Gudesange was photographed by
P. A. Baer in August 2011.
Call number: PT7234 A2G5
Rights:
This illustration from Den Ældre Eddas
Gudesange is in the public domain.
Bibliography:
Editions
Ældre Eddas
Gudesange.
Translated by
Karl
Gjellerup,
Kjøbenhavn: P.G. Philipsens
Forlag, 1895.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Surtr (non.)
Giant with a bright or flaming sword who guards the boundaries of
Muspell and leads the sons of Muspell at Ragnarok. He kills Freyr in the
battle and is responsible for the fire that burns the world
afterwards.
Gods and Goddesses
Freyr (non.)
A fertility god and one of the Vanir. He is the son of Njörðr and the
twin brother of Freyja.
Myths
The Battle of
RagnarökThe myth concerning the final great battle between
the gods and the giants.
Mythological Events
Ragnarök (non.)
Ragnarok (en.)
The final great battle between the gods and the giants.
Source Materials:
EddukvæðiPoetic Edda
This collection of eddic poems was compiled by an anonymous scholar in
Iceland in the twelfth century. It was for a time mistakenly attributed
to a scholar named Sæmundr hinn fróði (1056–1133) and thus was known as
Sæmundar Edda.
Völuspá (non.)
Prophecy of the Seeress (en.)
One of the mythological poems in the Poetic Edda. A Völva, or seeress,
recites the history of the world to Óðinn. She then goes on to
prophesize the destruction of the world at the Battle of Ragnarok and
its rebirth after the battle. Völuspá is preserved in the late
thirteenth-century Codex Regius manuscript, a.k.a. GKS 2365 4º, and in
the fourteenth-century Hauksbók manuscripts, i.e., AM 371 4to, AM 544
4to and AM 675 4to.
Ældre Eddas
Gudesange (da.)
An edition of the Poetic Edda with
illustrations by Lorenz Frølich.
Source Persons
Frølich,
Lorenz (da.)
b. 1820
d. 1908
Nationality: Danish
Frolich was a painter, illustrator and etcher.
Gjellerup,
Karl (da.)
b. 2nd June 1857
d. 13th October 1919
Nationality: Danish
Gellurup was a Danish poet and novelist who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1917.
