1. Once were the gods together met, And the goddesses came and council held,

2. And the far-famed ones the truth would find, Why baleful dreams to Baldr had come.

3. Then Othin rose, the enchanter old, And the saddle he laid on Sleipnir's back; Thence rode he down to Niflhel deep, And the hound he met that came from hell.

4. Bloody he was on his breast before, At the father of magic he howled from afar; Forward rode Othin, the earth resounded Till the house so high of Hel he reached.

5. Then Othin rode to the eastern door, There, he knew well, was the wise-woman's grave; Magic he spoke and mighty charms, Till spell-bound she rose, and in death she spoke:

6. "What is the man, to me unknown, That has made me travel the troublous road? I was snowed on with snow, and smitten with rain, And drenched with dew; long was I dead."

7. Othin: "Vegtam my name, I am Valtam's son; Speak thou of hell, for of heaven I know: For whom are the benches bright with rings, And the platforms gay bedecked with gold?"

8. The Wise-Woman: "Here for Baldr the mead is brewed, The shining drink, and a shield lies o'er it; But their hope is gone from the mighty gods. Unwilling I spake, and now would be still."

9. Othin: "Wise-woman, cease not! I seek from thee All to know that I fain would ask: Who shall the bane of Baldr become, And steal the life from Othin's son?"

10. The Wise-Woman: "Hoth thither bears the far-famed branch, He shall the bane of Baldr become, And steal the life from Othin's son. Unwilling I spake, and now would be still."

11. Othin: "Wise-woman, cease not! I seek from thee All to know that I fain would ask: Who shall vengeance win for the evil work, Or bring to the flames the slayer of Baldr?"

12. The Wise-Woman: "Rind bears Vali in Vestrsalir, And one night old fights Othin's son;

13. His hands he shall wash not, his hair he shall comb not, Till the slayer of Baldr he brings to the flames. Unwilling I spake, and now would be still."

14. Othin: "Wise-woman, cease not! I seek from thee All to know that I fain would ask: What maidens are they who then shall weep, And toss to the sky the yards of the sails?"

15. The Wise-Woman: "Vegtam thou art not, as erstwhile I thought; Othin thou art, the enchanter old."

16. Othin: "No wise-woman art thou, nor wisdom hast; Of giants three the mother art thou."

17. The Wise-Woman: "Home ride, Othin, be ever proud; For no one of men shall seek me more

18. Till Loki wanders loose from his bonds, And to the last strife the destroyers come."

About this reader

What is Scripture?

Scripture is a browser-based reader for sixteen sacred texts spanning multiple religious and literary traditions. It provides chapter-by-chapter navigation, full-text search across all works, word concordance with frequency analysis, verse-linked notes, text-to-speech, and deep linking to any chapter or verse.

Traditions Represented

The collection spans Abrahamic, East Asian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Finnish, and Norse traditions. It includes King James biblical text and Apocrypha, Pickthall's Quran, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Legge's Four Books, Tao Te Ching, and Book of Poetry, Chamberlain's Kojiki, West's Bundahishn, Kern's Lotus Sutra, Haug and West's Arda Viraf, Crawford's Kalevala, and Bellows' Poetic Edda.

The committed manifests and chapter files currently describe 121 books, 2,724 chapters, and 63,141 verse records. In poetry and prose works, a verse record can represent a line or paragraph rather than a canonically numbered scriptural verse.

Licensing

The application source is AGPL-3.0. Generated text downloads and their structured arrangement are CC BY-SA 4.0; the underlying historic source texts are treated as public-domain inputs. The corpus metadata therefore describes the distributed arrangement with its CC BY-SA license rather than the Public Domain Mark.

Concordance and Related Passages

The concordance is an exact-word occurrence index with linked records grouped by work. Related Passages is separate: a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) cosine-similarity index compares chapter vocabulary after stop-word removal and stores up to five cross-book matches above its threshold. It is a lexical discovery aid, not a claim of historical or theological equivalence.

Deep Linking

Every chapter and verse has a permanent URL. Chapter links follow the pattern /scripture/{work}/{book}-{chapter} (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1 for Genesis 1). Verse links append the verse number (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1:26 for Genesis 1:26). These URLs can be shared, bookmarked, or cited directly.

Accessibility

Scripture supports keyboard navigation throughout: Tab moves between controls, Enter activates verse actions, and arrow keys navigate chapters. The reading pane has a skip-to-content link. All overlays (search, concordance) are focus-trapped ARIA dialogs. Dynamic content regions use aria-live for screen reader announcements. Light and dark themes are available through the theme toggle. Verse numbers are visible to assistive technology. No flashing content or motion hazards.

Scripture is part of a suite of educational simulations at a9l.im. Explore particle physics with Geon, redistricting with Gerry, or cellular metabolism with Cyano.