Völuspá is the Poetic Edda poem in which a seeress recounts the history and fate of the Norse cosmos to Odin.
The poem begins with the seeress addressing Odin and describing creation, the first beings, the gods’ deeds, and the coming catastrophe of Ragnarök. It then looks beyond that destruction to the renewal of the world. This broad chronological scope makes Völuspá one of the most important literary sources for Norse mythology.
Völuspá survives mainly in the Codex Regius and in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, which quotes several of its verses. Its title means “The Prophecy of the Seeress.” Readers sometimes confuse the poem with Vafþrúðnismál, another wisdom poem in which Odin questions a giant rather than receiving a long prophetic vision.
The poem’s exact date and authorship are unknown, but it was probably composed in Iceland during the Viking Age.