Description: Óðinn
consulting an unnamed seeress, who tells
him about the creation of the world, its destruction in the
battle of Ragnarök, and the aftermath of the battle when the
the earth will be reborn. This scene is from Louis Moe's Ragnarok: En
Billeddigtning.
Source: Ragnarok: En Billeddigtning
Folio or Page: [3]
Medium: Not known
Date: 1929
Dimensions (mm): 1253 x 1253
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: NE962 N67M64
Rights:
This illustration from Ragnarok: En
Billeddigtning is in the public domain.
Research notes, early print reviews, etc.:
Some of the illustrations in Ragnarok: En Billeddigtning have two digit
numbers, along with Louis Moe's name, within the illustration. This one has the
number 28, likely referring to the year 1928.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources
Moe,
Louis Maria Niels Peder
Halling. Ragnarok: En
Billeddigtning. København, A.F.
Høst, 1929.
Secondary Sources
Cleasby, Richard
and
Vigfússon
Guðbrandur
. An Icelandic-English Dictionary.
Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957.
Simek,
Rudolf.
Angela
Hall
. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. W
Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer,
2007.
Huginn (non.)
One of Óðinn´s pair of ravens that he sends out in the morning to
gather news and whisper it into his ear when they come back. Huginn's
name means "thought."
Muninn (non.)
One of Óðinn´s pair of ravens that he sends out in the morning to
gather news and whisper it into his ear when they come back. Muninn's
name means "memory."
Gods and Goddesses
Óðinn (non.)
Odin (en.)
The chief god of the Æsir in The Prose Edda.
However, in Heimskringla he was a mortal who
tricks the King of Sweden into believing that he was a god.
Mythological Events
Ragnarök (non.)
Ragnarok (en.)
The final great battle between the gods and the giants.
Ragnarok: En Billeddigtning (da.)
Louis Moe's illustrated retelling of the Battle of Ragnarok and the
events that preceded it.
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.
Source Persons
Moe,
Louis (no.)
b. 1857
d. 1945
Nationality: Norwegian/Danish.
Occupation: illustrator
Residence: Copenhagen
Moe was an illustrator who was born in Norway but became a Danish
citizen in 1919.
