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Not a problem, per se, but I recommend considering “Tell me this, Wayland”. It conveys the same meaning and is sort of the way this conversation would happen in English. Similar to some of the discussions we had around Vafþ. where I mentioned we'd want to use "this" instead of "that" when we're about to introduce new information into the conversation.

• I suggest "useful" instead of "of use" for þǫrf. It feels a little more natural.
• I suggest "he who" instead of "the one who" for þęim’s. Since in each of these verses you end up specifying "he" or "man" anyway, the gender neutrality of "the one" is a little awkward and probably unnecessary.

Do we know what this means?

Would it be more accurate to use passive language here like “what is said to me”? Same thing in stanza 43 with “what he said to thee”. Should it maybe be “what is said to thee”?

I understand what you're doing with both of these words, but I suspect a more general audience won't understand how to interpret them. I love your explanation of why you chose íviðjur over íviði, but it might be nice to define these terms as well.

Before the sons of Bur the flatlands did upwards lift, they who the renowned Middenyard shaped.

It took me a minute to understand that this wasn't saying Middenyard shaped the sons of Bur. Even though your word order matches the O.N. here and even though we can sometimes be a little flexible with word order in English poetry, I highly recommend in this case going with "they who shaped the renowned Middenyard".

Question - How do you determine the best translation for garði here? Couldn't it also be "yards" or "enclosures" in some way?

I wasn’t familiar with this word so I looked it up and discovered that I believe this is a typo. The word should be byrnies. Just a little metathesis going on in the English side.

The positioning of this phrase within the larger sentence caused me to struggle to wrap my head around it for a minute. I suggest replacing with "before going forth".

I understand what you're doing with word order at this point and I don't disagree with it as long as the phrase is comprehensible, which this is. But some of the ordering is unusual enough that I would suggest adding to your overall intro that the reader should expect some unusual word ordering and that this is done in order to preserve the right emphasis on the right words as we see in the poetry.

Something about this feels off to me but I’m having trouble expressing. Weirdly, some very small tweaks would fix it. Either “on a small island, which there was close to land” or “on the small island which was there close to land”.

This sentence is hard to understand. It sounds like you are saying the eighth winter is the subject performing the yearning. I believe that allan is the accusative form of allr in which case maybe you could try something like “But the eighth, they yearned for all [things]”? Or maybe it’s trying to say “they all yearned” for something. I’m not entirely sure.

This should be "thou gettest" or, if you don't want to conjugate the verb for "thou", I'd recommend "thou get" to match the second-person conjugation "you get". Adding the "s" feels very third-person.

I'm curious about this translation. Seems like a really important word to have to be filled in.

From what I can tell, nithe comes from the same root as níð but not nið. Wouldn't "netherworlds" or "netherfields" be a better translation?

Edit:
Looks like you translated this to "Nithfells" in st. 65.

Baldr just means brave or bold, right? With r being a nominative marker, you could probably just call him "Bold", unless you are aware of some attestation in English that would lead us to believe his name should have an "er" suffix on it.

Because of the poetic nature here, I can’t tell if “her” is meant to be a possessive pronoun, a subject pronoun, or an object pronoun. For example, it could mean “her swanfeathers drew [something],” or “it was her that drew swanfeathers,” or “it was her that was drawn by swanfeathers”. I’m not sure what “drew” means in this context either.

What’s your reasoning on using “orlaw” rather than something more familiar like fate or destiny here? I noticed that orlay seems to be an already-existing-though-lesser-known English “cognate”. (I have cognate in quotes because I suspect it may have been adapted directly from Old English by modern Anglo-Saxon Pagans.)

Also, IIRC, Cleasby/Vigfusson explains that the root of drýgja here has a connotation of an action being performed in a bad sense. For example, “what you two gods drýgðuð in the past should be left there.” If you agree with that, is the ON implying here with ørlǫg drýgja that these maidens’ arrival is maybe a portent of bad things to come? And if so I wonder if there’s a good way to capture that in the English. Maybe something along the lines of “thus bringing about a sore fate”.

One other thought I had after seeing this phrase reappear in stanza 4 is that maybe ørlǫg drýgja is a reference to valkyries picking those who die in battle. In any case it seems to be the thing they long to do just before deciding to leave.

I think "Spae of the Wallow" sounds really cool so I tried to reverse engineer how you got here from völuspá. As far as I can tell, it looks like you've engineered "spae" as a cognate for spá (at least, I'm not aware of this word in Middle/Modern English). However, if you're looking for an English descendant of *spehōną, even though we took "spy" from French, it's originally Frankish and does appear to come from that PGmc root.

Wrt to wallow, I'm really curious about this choice. "Wallow" in English means, like, to unrestrainedly indulge in something and, as far as I can tell, I don't think it comes from the same root as völva. On the other hand, we do have "wale" which does come from the right root and is preserved in words such as "gunwale". A woman wielding a wale might pretty easily be called a "wale-woman" or even "waless" (although I think -ess is French).

Maybe you have a super cool explanation for "spae of the wallow", but if a lot of that is just theoretical cognate work, maybe you could call it something like "The Spying of the Walewoman"

Sun knew not, where halls she owned; stars knew not, where steads they owned; Moon knew not, what of might he owned.

Some of the word order in here feels a bit awkward to me. I recommend...

Sun knew not, where she owned halls; stars knew not, where they owned steads; Moon knew not, of what might he owned.

Couldn’t “við Vǫlund dǿma’k” also be interpreted as “to pass judgment against Wayland”?

I recommend something more like "the guileful form recognizable as Locke". "Similar" has a very strong connotation here that the form we are seeing is not actually Locke. By being similar, it is implied to be not one and the same, if that makes sense.

In this case we'd need "leeks" in the plural. Also, it looks like your footnote 6 is in the wrong place here. Should be right after "sons of Bur"

Of hearing I bid all holy kinds, the greater and lesser sons of Homedall

I don't understand what is meant by "of hearing". It looks as though hljóðs is genitive, and I'm having a hard time converting that literally into English as well. Is she asking for an audience to listen to her? If so, I wonder if a more understandable phrasing might be something like: "Hearing, I bid, from all holy kinds"

Should just be “dared to travel”

I realize that at the time I looked at this you hadn't yet completed translating all of the stanzas but I figured I'd just add this here since, at a quick glance, the stanza appears completed.

This is a pretty common interpretation, but I think it might be a misreading. Given that we only have Snorri's narrative to go by, Thor is absent for the entirety of the story until he is called upon to deal with the Builder who has decided to go on a rampage in Asgard. It's a pretty common theme for Thor to be completely absent from a story and then suddenly show up when invoked to deal with a problem-causing individual. I think it's less likely that "he seldom sits, when of such he learns" is a reference to him being angry over the oath-breaking and deception wrought by the Ease upon the ettin since his killing of said ettin is participatory to that oath-breaking. I think it's more likely that he gets mad when he learns of ettins "doing stuff" more generally.

I'm curious as to whether you have a philosophy on translating O.N. genitives to English possessives. At face value, I would think you might want to use 's instead of of whenever possible as it seems closer to the O.N. So in this case Weird's Well instead of Well of Weird. I also suspect (but haven't looked into it) that heavy reliance on of comes from French influence.

Edit:
Related, it occurs to me that Slainfather, Slain-Father, and Slain Father all work equally well for Valfǫðr in English. You probably don't need to use Father of the Slain if you'd prefer a construction closer to the O.N.

Likewise, the Horn of Yell from st. 46 would sound way better as the Yellhorn IMO. There are likely others.

Need a comma after "Ale is not so good". Important both to demarcate the poetic break and also for comprehensibility. I actually thought really hard about this verse since the direct English translation feels weird and redundant, but I couldn't think of a better solution that just adding in the missing comma.

At this point I'm starting to get a feel for the direction you've chosen for English-ifying words so I won't suggest calling this "Dripper", but I do think it would be good to call out that the name is etymologically related to "drip" and that using this word as slang for impressive attire is not an invention of Gen Z as per Snorri (Skld. 32, 35) it "drips" out more gold.

I don’t believe this is a recognized compound in English. Looks like it should either be “bast rope” or “bast-rope” as you used in St. 14.

Does this mean they took them off the rope and put them back on again except for the one which they kept off? “Let off” and “let on” aren’t phrases I’ve ever heard in English.

Does this phrase mean traveling a long distance? Also shows up in St. 10. It's the occurrence of "of" that's tripping me up.

I see you have chosen not to side with Simek on this one haha. I do think it might be nice to have a footnote regarding the debate though. Either way, I'm hesitant to agree that this stanza tells us definitively that anyone was defeated. After all, Weden remains in charge afterward, Saxo notes that the Æsir won the primordial war, and there is no victor in either of Snorri's accounts (Heimskringla calls it a draw).

was there not sand nor sea, nor cool waves.

My brain refuses to parse this word order as anything other than a question. What about "sand there was not, nor sea, nor cool waves"?

The earth was never found, nor up-heaven; a gap was of ginnings, but grass nowhere.

I had no idea ginnungr meant hawk. That's fascinating. It looks like this could also be related to English "begin". Is it possible that gap vas ginnunga is supposed to be something more like "a gap was in the beginning"?

When I first saw this in st. 6, I thought "gin-holy" was somehow a reference to the alcohol called gin. My brain immediately accepted it for "alu" reasons, but then here in st. 9 I suddenly realized the etymology doesn't work. For that reason, I recommend finding a way to handle ginn other than porting it directly to English. Cleasby has this:

GINN-, or perhaps better gínn-, [cp. A.S. gin or ginn = vast, wide; it seems however better to derive it from the verb beginnan, Engl. begin, a word used in all Teutonic languages, except the old Scandinavian tongue, where it is unknown, unless in this mythological prefix] :-- only used as a prefix: I. in old mythol. words, great, holy: ginn-heilög (adj. pl.) goð, the most holy gods, the supreme gods, as opposed to Asir and Vanir, the lower gods, Vsp. passim: ginn-regin, n. pl. 'magna numina,' Hm. 143, Haustl. 13, in the same sense as ginnheilög goð in Vsp.; in Hým. 4 opp. to tívar (dii); in Alm. goð and ginnregin are distinguished, cp. also Hm. 79: ginnungar, m. pl., seems used in the same sense as ginnregin, whence Ginnunga-gap, n. chaos, the formless void, in which abode the supreme powers, before the creation, Edda, Vsp.: later, in the 11th century, the sea between Greenland and America was called Ginnunga-gap, A.A. 295: Ginnunga-himin, m. of the heavenly vault of Ginnunga-gap, Edda 5: Ginnunga-vé, n. pl. the holy places of the Ginnungar, the universe, Haustl. 15: Ginnarr (Ginnir), m., is a name of Odin, prop. = aetherius, and also used of the eagle, the falcon. II. in an intensive sense only in poets; ginn-viti, a, m. a large fire, Sighvat; perhaps also we may read, Vkv. 5, ginn-fasti, a, m. a great fire in a smithy, for gim fasti.

This makes me suspect that ginn was originally related to the West Germanic meaning and was only rigidly preserved as an archaism in O.N. poetic structures. If so, I wonder if the real meaning here ought to be something like an origin point or genesis of the cosmos. In other words ginnungagap could be the gap serving as the beginning of all things and the ginnheilög goð might be the holy creators, those who began things. What do you think?

Sidenote:
Your footnote "I think that the poem simply telling of" is missing the word "is".

Or which killed her each time but didn't force her to stay dead. I like Larrington's interpretation here: "three times they burned her, three times she was reborn, over and over, yet she lives still."

I think "often unseldom" sounds a lot like it's supposed to express the idea of "repeatedly". And "thrice born" does seem to correspond to "thrice burned". Why else be thrice born?

Edit:
You mentioned double-checking Snorri in a TODO. I don't believe the Prose Edda or Heimskringla mention Gullveig at all. Also, thank you for not saying Gullveig is Freyja as I am highly skeptical about this.

No need for the hyphen here, IMO. My guess is you’re trying to represent the “sęnda’k” contraction but similar contractions occur elsewhere without needing to be perfectly represented in the English.

I don’t recommend actually doing this, but this contraction sort of reminds me of a particular archaic way you can say certain things in English. For example, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.

I believe, in English, “nor” should only be used when showing that at least two alternative actions are not occurring. For example, “he neither sat nor slept”. You may be able to get away without using “neither” if you are conveying the same meaning. For example, “he sat not, nor did he sleep”. But since “sat” is something he did do, we wouldn’t use “nor” here.

I took a look at the ON to see if I could offer any suggestions and I’m seeing it a little differently than you are, very possibly because I’m a noob. I’m seeing…

ON: Sat hann né  svaf  ávalt  ||
EN: Sat he   nor slept always ||

ON: ok  sló    hamri;
EN: and struck hammer;

ON: vél  gęrði hęldr  ||
EN: wile made  rather ||

ON: hvatt  Níðaðí;
EN: sharp? Nithad;

As you can see, I struggled a little with hvatt (Is this where you're getting "keen"?) but it looks to me like what the poem is trying to say is something like, “He always sat, not sleeping, and struck the hammer; rather he devised a keen wile for Nithad.” This may not be perfect, but maybe it helps.

The way you're using "nought" here feels a bit awkward and, since this is such a powerful and emotional stanza, I would really love to see that captured in the English version. When I look at the ON, I’m seeing this:

ON: ek vætr                      hǫ́num       || vinna  kunnak,
EN: I  nought/nothing/not at all against him || to win knew how,

ON: ek vætr                      hǫ́num       || vinna  máttak
EN: I  nought/nothing/not at all against him || to win was able,

So my suggestion would be “I knew not at all how to win against him; I was not at all able to win against him.” Or even, "I knew not how to win against him at all; I was not able to win against him at all."

It’s probably obvious enough what these mean if you think for a second, but it might be worthwhile to add something like “[= sons of Nithad]” and “[= skulls]” here.

What if you said “need separated them” rather than “divorced” them? “Divorced” has a very particular meaning here because of the relationship context implying the legal dissolution of a marriage. That may be what’s going on here, but it isn’t explicitly stated as far as I can tell so, in that case, “separated” is a better word for a couple whose marriage is functionally dissolved but a divorce hasn’t actually been made official. It seems like that applies better for Wayland here as he sits around waiting to see if his “wife” (st. 7) returns.

There was Moodsowner become the worthiest of all dwarves

Suggest replacing "become" with "who became"

I might suggest changing “knew” to “found” for a more natural flow and to better convey the message that Wayland wakes up and realizes he’s been bound. Also, while it’s true that “tortuous” is a perfectly valid word, I predict that people will accidentally read it as “torturous” most of the time. Maybe something like “heavy” instead?

Why not just use "seems"? I feel like the English is just fine with a literal translation here.

I'm sure you already have this on your list but now you'll never forget!

They played Tavel in the yards, joyous were they: was for them no lack of gold

Not sure of the technical, grammatical way to say this but, "was" is like an equals sign and it's missing the left side of the equation here. We need something like "there was for them no lack of gold" or "no lack of gold was for them", or something along those lines.

Btw, I love "Ettinham".

Unless I'm mistaken, you translated this same word to "Leader of the Slain" in stanza 1.

At many places superfluous pronouns have been removed, and almost everywhere ek ‘I’, es (particle) ‘which, that, where, when’, and es (3rd sg. pres. ind. of vesa ‘to be’) have been contracted to ’k and ’s, respectively.

When we chatted previously, you mentioned that this was done for metrical reasons. I suggest calling that out here as well. I also wonder if this sort of information isn't better placed in an overall intro section, outside of the Voluspa heading, if you plan on using this technique throughout.

Usage of “that” in this phrase is pretty awkward in English. What about something like, “Nithad, Lord of the Nears, learns this: that lone Wayland remained in Wolfdale”? Also, the jump to present tense is a little jarring but I suppose I can’t fault you for what the poem does haha.