“A sword age, an axe age. A wind age, a wolf age.” Those exact words are taken from an english translation of the Prophecy of the Völva, specifically the part where she describes the state of humanity immediately before Ragnarok. In that poem they refer to the same age. Shatterbird is making a direct reference to the mythology Hookwolf named his group after.
“A sword age, an axe age. A wind age, a wolf age.“ These are in fact describing the same age – the run-up to Ragnarok – in a quote from passage 45 of the Voluspa or Poetic Edda. Wikisource has the Icelandic text, which I have the impression is closest to the original Old Norse: "skeggjöld, skálmöld / skildir ‘ru klofnir / vindöld, vargöld / áðr veröld steypisk”. (Yeah, Shatterbird swapped the positions of the axe and the sword.)
I think Shatterbird is referring the Fimbulwinter, the three years of uninterrupted winter preceding Ragnarok. I even think I saw it once separated in three winters, one of them being of wolves and the last one being of blades. If the other one is associated with wind her comment would make sense. Then again I last saw that years ago, so I might be completely wrong and remembering things incorrectly.
“Sword and axe make sense, but wind? Also, are these in order, or describing the same age? I can’t really tell.” I believe this is a famous quote from the Norse sagas, describing Ragnarok
Oh!
I know a fair bit of Norse mythology, but I haven’t actually read all that much of the source material. That’s not really a good excuse, though, considering I recently tried to fix that and ended up reading specifically Völuspá (which, for the record, is only the first poem in the Poetic Edda, not an equivalent name for it).
I do suppose it may have been a different translation… Actually, let me look up the passage in the translation I read:
46. Hard is it in the world, great whoredom, an axe age, a sword age, shields shall be cloven, a wind age, a wolf age, ere the world sinks.
Ah, yeah, there it is. Neat!
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