She sings of the world before the gods were made, of the coming and the meeting of the Aesir, of the origin of the giants, dwarfs and men, of the happy beginning of all things, and the sad ending that shall be in the chaos of Ragnarök. The latter part of the poem is understood to be a kind of necromancy--according to Vigfusson, "the raising of a dead völva"; but the mystical language of the whole, its abrupt transitions and terse condensations, and above all the extinct and mysterious cosmology, an acquaintance with which it presupposes, make the exact interpretation of the _Völuspá_ extremely difficult. The charm and solemn beauty of the style, however, are irresistible, and we are constrained to listen and revere as if we were the auditors of some fugual music devised in honour of a primal and long-buried deity. The melodies of this earliest Icelandic verse, elaborate in their extreme and severe simplicity, are wholly rhythmical and alliterative, and return upon themselves like a solemn incantation. _Hávamál_, the Lesson of the High One, or Odin, follows next; this contains proverbs and wise saws, and a series of stories, some of them comical, told by Odin against himself. The _Vafprúðnismál_, or Lesson of Vafprúðnir, is written in the same mystical vein as _Völuspá_; in it the giant who gives his name to the poem is visited by Odin in disguise, and is questioned by him about the cosmogony and chronology of the Norse religion. _Grimnismál_, or the Sayings of The Hooded One, which is partly in prose, is a story of Odin's imprisonment and torture by King Geirrod. _För Skirnis_, or the Journey of Skirnir, _Harbarðslióð_, or the Lay of Hoarbeard, _Hymiskviða_, or the Song of Hymir, and _Aegisdrekka_, or the Brewing of Aegir, are poems, frequently composed as dialogue, containing legends of the gods, some of which are so ludicrous that it has been suggested that they were intentionally burlesque. _Thrymskviða_, or the Song of Thrym, possesses far more poetic interest; it recounts in language of singular force and directness how Thor lost his hammer, stolen by Thrym the giant, how the latter refused to give it up unless the goddess Freyia was given him in marriage, and how Thor, dressed in women's raiment, personated Freyia, and, slaying Thrym, recovered his hammer. _Alvíssmál_, or the Wisdom of Allwise, is actually a philological exercise under the semblance of a dialogue between Thor and Alvis the dwarf. In _Vegtamskviða_, or the Song of Vegtam, Odin questions a völva with regard to the meaning of the sinister dreams of Balder. _Rígsmál_, or more properly _Rígspula_, records how the god Heimdall, disguised as a man called Rig, wandered by the sea-shore, where he met the original dwarf pair, Ai and Edda, to whom he gave the power of child-bearing, and thence sprung the whole race of thralls; then he went on and met with Afi and Amma, and made them the parents of the race of churls; then he proceeded until he came