Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 105

Voluspa

The translation of the stanza from the Voluspa below looked funny to me, so I checked a couple of other translations and the original in Old Norse.

I think it should be translated as:

The sun turns black.
Earth sinks into sea.
Bright stars
fall from the sky.
Steam and fire
gush forth.
Intense heat plays
with heaven.

Not much different, except for lines five and six, which were the lines that puzzled me.

I could easily be wrong. My Old Norse is very old.

In any case, it sounds like a volcanic eruption.

I Keep Finding More...

Stars above. Lightning flashing in the ash plume.

On the Ground in Iceland During a Volcanic Eruption

From the Iceland Review Online:

"We tried driving into the darkness and it was like we had stepped into another dimension. We felt it was the end of the world as described in Völuspá, the old Icelandic Poem that tells the story of the end of the world called Ragnarök or Götterdämmerung in the famous opera by Wagner.

"We saw nothing. The windshield filled with ash and we did not dare leave the car. It was like the sun had gone out in the middle of the day," said Iceland Review editor Bjarni...

On the Ground in Iceland

From the Iceland Review Online:

"We tried driving into the darkness and it was like we had stepped into another dimension. We felt it was the end of the world as described in Völuspá, the old Icelandic Poem that tells the story of the end of the world called Ragnarök or Götterdämmerung in the famous opera by Wagner.

"We saw nothing. The windshield filled with ash and we did not dare leave the car. It was like the sun had gone out in the middle of the day," said Iceland Review editor Bjarni...

Duluth

Patrick and I drove up to Duluth and spent a few hours wandering around Canal Park. The sky and the lake were both bright blue.

Coming back, I worried about money. We have both been out of work for a year now. I wonder if it's time to admit defeat and say we are not going to work again.

As far as I know, 15-20% of the working population is still unemployed or underemployed. It looks as if the government is just going to live with this -- and with the kids who are not going to find jobs when t...

What Can I Say?

Daily Report

I had a very unproductive day: exercised in morning, then went grocery shopping, then finished reading a Diana Wynne Jones fantasy, then made tea and looked for volcano pictures on the Internet.

I was planned to write or clean house, but the day was warm, and I was sleepy.

Radar Image of Volcano

The First Eruption

I need to stop this and get back to writing. However, in my defense, it's a better and saner way to goof off than reading political and economic blogs, which is what I usually do.

Most volcanic eruptions cause a lot less harm than the US Senate (to give one example) and are more interesting and lovelier. Look at the photo above and then look at a US senator. Which gives you more of a sense of awe and wonder and delight?

I Just Love These Pictures

The one on top is the volcano plume above an Icelandic farm. The one on the bottom is the "glacier leap," the flood of water melted by the eruption.