Prose Edda — Old Norse facing a living language
Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hvárt lifa nökkur goðin þá, eða er þá nökkur jörð eða himinn?" Hárr segir: "Upp skýtr jörðunni þá ór sænum ok er þá græn ok fögr. Vaxa þá akrar ósánir. Víðarr ok Váli lifa, svá at eigi hefir særinn ok Surtalogi grandat þeim, ok byggja þeir á Iðavelli, þar sem fyrr var Ásgarðr, ok þar koma þá synir Þórs, Móði ok Magni, ok hafa þar Mjöllni.
Then Gangleri said: "Will any of the gods still be alive then — will there be any earth or sky at all?" High said: "The earth will rise up out of the sea then, green and beautiful, and unsown fields will bear crops. Vidar and Vali will still be alive — the sea and Surt's fire will not have harmed them — and they'll live at Idavoll, where Asgard once stood. Then Thor's sons, Modi and Magni, will come there too, bringing Mjollnir with them.
Því næst koma þar Baldr ok Höðr frá Heljar, setjast þá allir samt ok talast við ok minnast á rúnar sínar ok ræða of tíðendi þau, er fyrrum höfðu verit, of Miðgarðsorm ok um Fenrisúlf. Þá finna þeir í grasinu gulltöflur þær, er æsirnir höfðu átt. Svá er sagt: 68. Víðarr ok Váli byggva vé goða, þá er sortnar Surtalogi; Móði ok Magni skulu Mjöllni hafa Vingnis at vígþroti.
After that Baldr and Hod will come up from Hel, and they'll all sit down together and talk, recalling their old secrets and speaking of what happened before — the Midgard Serpent, and Fenris-Wolf. Then they'll find, lying in the grass, the golden game-pieces the Aesir once owned. So it's said: Vidar and Vali will live in the gods' shrines, / once Surt's fire has died down; / Modi and Magni will have Mjollnir, / once the fighting is over.
En þar, sem heitir Hoddmímisholt, leynast menn tveir í surtaloga, er svá heita, Líf ok Leifþrasir, ok hafa morgindöggvar fyrir mat, en af þessum mönnum kemr svá mikil kynslóð, at byggvist heimr allr, svá sem hér segir: 69. Líf ok Leifþrasir, en þau leynask munu í holti Hoddmímis; morgindöggvar þau at mat hafa, en þaðan af aldir alask.
And in the place called Hoddmimir's Holt, two people will lie hidden through Surt's fire — they're called Lif and Lifthrasir, and they'll live on the morning dew, and from these two will come such a great line of descendants that the whole world will be peopled again, as it says here: Lif and Lifthrasir — / they will lie hidden / in Hoddmimir's Holt; / the morning dew / will be their food, / and from them come the generations of men.
Ok hitt mun þér undarligt þykkja, er sólin hefir getit dóttur eigi ófegri en hon er, ok ferr sú þá stigu móður sinnar, sem hér segir: 70. Eina dóttur berr alfröðull, áðr hana fenrir fari; sú skal ríða, er regin deyja, móður brautir mær.
And here's a stranger thing still: the sun will have borne a daughter no less lovely than herself, and she'll walk the same path her mother once walked, as it says here: The sun bears one daughter, / before the wolf takes her; / she will ride, when the gods perish, / her mother's road, that maiden.
En ef þú kannt lengra fram at spyrja, þá veit ek eigi, hvaðan þér kemr þat, fyrir því at engan mann heyrða ek lengra segja fram aldarfarit, ok njóttu nú sem þú namt."
And if you're able to ask still further, I honestly don't know where any answer could come from, because I've never heard anyone tell the world's history any further forward than this — so make what use you can of what you've heard."