Völuspá hin skamma,
Völuspá the Less or the
Short Völuspá, is an
Old Norse poem which survives as a handful of stanzas in
Hyndluljóð, in the
Poetic Edda, and as one stanza in the
Gylfaginning section of
Snorri Sturluson's
Prose Edda. The name of the poem is only known due to Snorri's citation of it in
Gylfaginning (chapter 5):
The additional stanzas that remain appear in
Hyndluljóð. In his translation of
Hyndluljóð,
Henry Adams Bellows comments that the preserved fragment of
Völuspá hin skamma shows that it was a "late and very inferior imitation of the great
Voluspo", and he dates it to the twelfth century. He further suggests that its appearance in
Hyndluljóð is due to the blunder of a copyist who confused the two poems, and he does not consider them to be of any great value either as poetry or as mythology.