The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

Remembering
Þar munu eftir
undursamligar,
gullnar töflur
í grasi finnask,
þær er í árdaga
áttar höfðu.
Völuspá, st. 62 20
Part one
1. Re-collecting the Golden Tablets
There they again
wondrous will find,
the golden tablets
in the grass,
those they owned
in olden days.
How do I remember? How do I collect and reflect my memory? What is
remembrance? Every word, every thought written on the following pages is reflecting my
memory, my personal “well of remembrance” 21 . Even the words and thoughts quoted
literally from other remembering scholars, poets and dreamers, are from my memory,
those chosen were the ones I remembered as worth quoting. Sometimes because they
reflect so clearly what I remember from other inner and outer sources, sometimes because
they are a reflection of a memory different from my own.
The golden tablets in Völuspá are the tablets lost to the old goð 22 (gods and
goddesses). I have chosen those golden tablets as a symbol for the scattered pieces of the
old wisdom, lost and then found again after Ragnarök 23 , the destruction of the world of
goð, and the birth of a new earth.
Völuspá is a poem of the saga of our world and the world of the goð, from
beginning to end. It is told by a völva to Óðinn. In Völuspá the völva remembers, she
sees. The word spá originally has the meaning ‘to see’ and is related to English ‘spy’ and
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