Hervararkviða

Hervararkviða, (published in English translation as The Waking of Angantyr, or The Incantation of Hervor) is an Old Norse poem from the Hervarar saga, and which is sometimes included in editions of the Poetic Edda.

The poem is about the shieldmaiden Hervor and her visiting her father Angantyr's ghost at his barrow. She does so in order to make him give her an heirloom, the cursed sword Tyrfing.

For a fuller analysis of the text as a whole, including manuscript sources, and stemmatics, see Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks.

Translations and other adaptions
As well as appearing in translations of the Hervarar saga, the poem is also found translated in some editions of the Poetic Edda including, and

A key scene in the later medieval Ormars rímur, in which the hero awakens his father from the dead to retrieve his sword, was probably inspired by Hervararkviða.

The poem was first translated into English by George Hickes in the early 18th century, as "The Waking of Angantyr", and republished in amended form by Thomas Percy as "The Incantation of Hervor"  (1763). These works led to the poem's popularity as a subject for poetic translation in the late eighteenth century.

Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle created a French translation in 1862 as L'Epée d'Angantyr [The Sword of Angantyr].

Translations and interpretations

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