An open record of the factual corrections made during the review against primary sources and scholarship, with a rationale and a source reference for each.
All editorial content on Northern Tales is checked systematically against primary sources and established scholarship. This page documents the corrections openly: what the text said, what it was changed to, and on what evidential basis. Each correction cites a primary source (stanza or chapter number, manuscript shelfmark) and the relevant secondary literature. Wikipedia, where linked, serves only as an entry point and never as the source for a claim.
The review follows the site's epistemic standard: A (attested in the manuscript, broad consensus), B (a reasonable but contested reconstruction), C (gaps, lost texts, modern interpretation). A correction usually means that a claim presented as A was in fact B or C, or that a statement was contradicted by the primary source.
The factual corrections are set out individually below. Mechanical and structural adjustments are summarised at the end. The review is ongoing, and the list grows as further sections are examined.
Grípisspá is composed throughout in fornyrðislag, the narrative metre that carries the heroic poems of the Codex Regius, and not in ljóðaháttr, the metre of dialogue and wisdom poetry. The metre is directly observable in the stanza structure and is therefore an A claim.
Sources: Grípisspá, i E. Pettit (utg.), The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition (Open Book Publishers, 2023); Grípisspá (encyklopedisk ingång)
According to Völsunga saga (ch. 27) Gunnarr's horse refused the fire, and Grani likewise would not carry him through. Sigurðr and Gunnarr then exchanged shapes, and Sigurðr rode Grani through the wavering flame. Attributing the deed itself to Gunnarr conflates the two figures and obscures the saga's central motif of deception.
Sources: Völsunga saga, kap. 27 (Wikisource); R. G. Finch (utg./övers.), The Saga of the Volsungs (London: Nelson, 1965)
Fjölsvinnsmál 26 states explicitly that Loptr forged the weapon fyr nágrindr neðan, below the corpse-gates. The claim about Mímir's well has no basis in the source text and moreover contradicted the site's own commentary on Svipdagsmál. The revised text instead gives the attested link to the tree Mímameiðr, and notes that the name Lævateinn is Sophus Bugge's emendation of the manuscript reading Hævateinn.
Sources: Fjölsvinnsmál 26, i E. Pettit (utg.), The Poetic Edda: A Dual-Language Edition (Open Book Publishers, 2023); Lævateinn (encyklopedisk ingång)
Skáldatal is preserved in two redactions: in DG 11 and in Kringla, the principal manuscript of Heimskringla, which was lost in the Copenhagen fire of 1728 but survives in copies. The two versions differ in the poets and rulers they list.
Sources: DG 11 (U), Codex Upsaliensis (skaldic.org); Skáldatal (encyklopedisk ingång)
The first element nið- means dark (below, the waning moon). The established translation of Niðavellir (Völuspá 37) is the dark fields, with nether or low fields as an alternative reading tied to niðr, down. Sunken is not present in the etymology. Because the reading is contested it belongs to category B.
Sources: Völuspá 37 (Neckel/Kuhn 1983); Niðavellir (encyklopedisk ingång)
The English translation had merged two Old Norse lines into one, so stanzas 4 and 14 showed seven lines against eight in the Old Norse and the Swedish. The line structure was restored so that the three parallel texts follow the stanza's build. No meaning was changed.
Sources: Hamðismál 4 och 14 (Neckel/Kuhn 1983)
Two of the broken references were imprecise forms of Ursula Dronke's collected edition (1969–2011) and were consolidated. Three were genuine works missing from the list and were added: R. G. Finch, The Saga of the Volsungs (1965); Sigurður Nordal, Völuspá (1923); Jens Peter Schjødt, Initiation between Two Worlds (2008).
Ásatrúarfélagið was founded on the summer solstice of 1972, but state recognition as a religious organisation came the following year, 1973. The text had conflated the two dates into one.