The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

This is the story of the creation of the first people, Askur 60 and Embla 61 , two
pieces of wood found on the shore, without life force and without örlög –‘fate’. Those
three (þrír or þríar), who then arrived, gave life and örlög to the logs. In every printed
edition of the poem, those three are said to be þrír (three, masculine) male gods.
However, when looked at closer we find that in both manuscripts, Codex Regius and
Hauksbók, those three are said to be þríar (three, feminine), probably the same þríar as in
the preceding and the following (see below) stanza, the þursameyjar or nornir. In the
Hauksbók manuscript it even says, “unz þríar komu úr því liði, þussa meyjar” (‘till three
came from the group of giant maidens’ or ‘till three came from that group, giant
maidens’). Scholars like Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (1962) and Sigurður Nordal (1923) find
the feminine reference to the creators, to be so unacceptable, that they immediately
dismiss it as an error in both manuscripts. I admit that the stanza may seem strange this
way, but in these old poems sentences are often broken and continued some lines later.
There is some confusion between the Æsir and the nornir, since both are
mentioned in the same context, but that doesn’t mean that we automatically dismiss the
nornir and keep the Æsir. The nornir are mentioned in the preceding stanza, the Æsir
again in the following one:
Önd þau né áttu
óð þau né höfðu
lá né læti
né litu góða;
önd gaf Óðinn,
óð gaf Hænir,
lá gaf Lóðurr
og litu góða.
Völuspá, st.18
They had no breath
they had no life force
no blood no temper
nor good looks;
Óðinn gave breath,
Hænir gave life force,
Lóðurr gave blood
and good looks.
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