The Sólarljóð is an Old Norse poem, written in Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 ca 1200. It is written in the traditional metric style of the Poetic Edda

Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...

, but with a content from Christian visionary poems.

The poem is anonymous, even though it is in some manuscripts assigned to Sæmund. In 82 ljóðaháttr stanzas it gives a narrative, in which a deceased father is addressing his son from another world. The father doesn't reveal his identity until the lasts stanzas.

The title of the poem is given in the 81. stanza, and no doubt derives from the allusion to the Sun at the beginning of the stanzas 39-45, all beginning with Sól

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 ek sá ... "The Sun I saw ...". The first stanzas (1-24) gives examples of the lives, death and fate of different, anonymous persons. Stanzas 25-32 are advices, similar to those in Hávamál

Hávamál

Hávamál is presented as a single poem in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. The poem, itself a combination of different poems, is largely gnomic, presenting advice for living, proper conduct and wisdom....

, while 33-38 is a "psychological biography" of the narrators life. No 39-45 are the sun stanzas; followed by a section (46-56) where the narrator is placed in some limbo

Limbo

In the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. Limbo is not an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church or any other...

 between life and death. The next section, stanzas 57-80, describes his impressions of Hell and Heaven, often compared to The Divine Comedy. The last two stanzas are addressing the son, and the hope for resurrection.

Though written in the traditional metric style of the old Norse religious and wisdom poetry, the poem draws heavily on inspiration from the European medieval visionary literature and the metaphores of conteporary Christian literature. Despite its references to the Norse mythology, it bears no signs of syncretism, but bears a convinced testimony of the new faith.

Excerpt

The two last stanzas in the edition of Ólafur Briem follow.

81. Kvæði þetta,

er þér kennt hefig,

skaltu fyr kvikum kveða:

Sólarljóð,

er sýnast munu

minnst að mörgu login.

82. Hér við skiljumst

og hittast munum

á feginsdegi fira;

drottinn minn

gefi dauðum ró,

en hinum líkn, er lifa.

Editions

• Sophus Bugge
  Sophus Bugge
  Sophus Bugge was a noted Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scientific work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic alphabet and the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. -Background:Elseus Sophus Bugge was...
  
  (1867), Sólarljóð (old norse)
• Björn M. Ólsen's 1915 edition in pdf format at septentrionalia.net (icelandic)
• Sólarljóð Guðni Jónsson's edition with normalized spelling (old norse)
• Bergmann, "Les Chants de Sol", Strasbourg & Paris, 1858.