Geburt und Tod im vorchristlichen Norden

One of the most enigmatic compositions in­cluded in the Poetic Edda is ‘Oddrúnargrátr’, or ‘Oddrun’s Lament’. This poem features a female heroine otherwise unknown to us: Oddrun, a healer who assists another woman, Borgny, during a difficult birth. Through Oddrun’s magic alone, Borgny is saved from certain death, as she finally manages to give birth to twins. Instead of celebrating the new life, however, Oddrun begins a long lament about her unhappy life and mourns the death of her lover Gunnar. ‘Oddrúnargrátr’ has received little scholarly appre­ciation—most scholars have considered this text to be a distorted version of an earlier poetic ideal, of heroic poetry proper. The reading of ‘Oddrúnargrátr’ proposed here shows that the first part of the song can be read as a remedy, indeed, as a fragment of a healing charm. In addition to a careful and unbiased examination of the struc­ture of the song, this article offers a detailed comparison with healing charms and magic formulae devoted to the topic of birth and death that have come down to us from the Viking Age and the Medieval North. Ultimately, it is argued here that ‘Oddrun’s Lament’ is a fragmentarily preserved testimony of a healing or parturition charm, which is integrated into the frame narrative of two women linked to the Nibelung story. ‘Oddrúnargrátr’ can thus allow us a rare insight into the role of poetry in the lives of medieval women.