Eddic Poetry

Two late eddic poems, Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, together called Svip-dagsmál (Sv), are hardly to be understood without reference to the ballad " Ungen Svejdal " (in about thirty separate recordings in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish). It is argued here that rather than the ballad being an offshoot of the eddic Sv (the usual assumption), both derive from a common source, an oral Norwegian fornal-darsaga (flourishing about 1300 or later). The story as realized in this *Svipdagssaga can be partially reconstructed by triangulation from the surviving Sv and ballads. This forms the basis for a reconsideration of the hero and narrative of Sv, especially through gender and genre analysis, and finally of the myth that informs the main narrative and of the distinction between that " myth " and the " mythology " of the Sv poet's elabo rations on the reconstructed story. Zusammenfassung: Zwei späte eddische Gedichte, Grógaldr und Fjölsvinnsmál, die zusammen Svipdagsmál (Sv) genannt werden, kann man ohne nähere Betrachtung der Volksballade " Ungen Svejdal " kaum verstehen; die Ballade existiert in etwa dreißig Varianten in Norwegisch, Dänisch und Schwedisch. Traditionell wird angenommen, dass man die Ballade von den Sv ableiten müßte; hierbei werden Gründe angegeben, dass beide aus einer gemeinsamen Quelle schöpfen, einer mündlichen fornaldarsaga, die in Norwegen etwa im vierzehnten Jahrhundert tradiert wurde. Die Geschichte, wie sie in dieser *Svipdagssaga realisiert wurde, kann man, wenn auch nur teilweise, durch Vergleiche von den noch existierenden Sv und den Balladen wiederherstel-len. Dies soll die Grundlage einer neuen Überlegung zu " Held und Narration " der Sv sein; die Auswertung bedient sich der Methoden der Gender-und Genre-Studien, um am Ende den Mythos der Hauptgeschichte der Sv zu charakterisieren und zwischen diesem " Mythos " und der " Mythologie " des Sv-Dichters, d.h., seinen weiteren Ausar-beitungen der zu Grunde liegenden gemeinsamen Quelle, zu unterscheiden. Svipdagsmál (Sv) came into existence only in 1860 when Sophus Bugge suggested that title for the two separate poems, Grógaldr (Gg) and Fjölsvinnsmál (Fj), which he had recently recognized as parts of the same literary whole.¹ Before that date and sporadically afterward, Gg and Fj were considered to be unrelated (or more precisely: before Bugge the question of their relationship was never raised), and practically all

Illustrations of attempts to recreate the Old Norse Eddaic forms fornyrðislag and (irregular/mixed) ljóðaháttr in Modern English verse based on famous stanzas from The Elder Edda.  *Revised...*
:I am now working (2020) on a large volume of verse-translations commissioned by a publisher, which has called for a serious fresh look at the originals after a few years of further thought and work, with the outcome of new renderings which leave these early soundings, prenticework essays in the craft, far behind. The need now is for close rendering of versification, style,  tone,  and verbal sense, yet for true translation, as far as can be intelligible in itself,  not a gloss or crib relying on crutches of notes.
RG

38
She saw a hall standing
hidden from sunlight
on Deadman’s Shore,
its door northwards:
adder-droplets
ooze through gutters 
down walls woven
of winding serpents.

39
She saw dragged under
drowning currents,
the oath-breakers,
outlawed killers,
troth-betrayers
with trusted wives;
there Nidhogg sucked
on gnawed corpses,
The Wolf ate men
—would you witness more, and what?

45
Brothers shall turn
banes to each other;
sisters’ children
sully kinship;
hard home and world,
whoredom widespread,
no man scruple
to murder neighbour;                  [re-ordered]
sword-age, axe-age
of sundered shields,
wind-age, wolf-age:
ere the world’s downfall.

The Odyssey of the Hávamál is an investigation into manuscript transmission, translation, and literary and critical reception of the Havamal, in German-Speaking countries. The Hávamál is an Old Norse poem preserved in the 13th century manuscript Codex Regius GkS 2365 in 4°. The first part of this study is concerned with the history of this manuscript. I analyze its paleographical and ecdotic aspects, and describe the main critical editions. The second part of the investigation examines the history of the poem's reception through political, cultural and literary appropiations from the first reference to the poem in the 17th century until the present. The main paradigms related to the Old Norse research studies will be observed and described, especially in relation to the Eddic poetry and specifically with the Havamal. The first paradigm begins in the 17th century and ends in the Second World War. During this time, the first edition and translation of the Hávamál in 1665 was part of a major cultural and political programme carried by the Danish crown. In addition, the Romantic movement in England and Germany awakened enthusiasm for Old Norse poetry and inspired the first translated versions of Eddic poems, as well as discussions relating to translating policies. By the end of the 19th century, positivist philological studies were applied to Old Norse texts. These were characterized by text-oriented approaches that employed the genealogical or stemmatic method. This paradigm was developed mainly by German researchers, who applied this methodology in order to study the original form of the Hávamál. The second main paradigm is related with the emergence of the literary studies in the 70s. After 1945, critical studies on the Hávamál were not participatory in cultural legitimation of certain political and nationalistic purposes. Studies of the poem became a problematic object of study in the Academia.

This paper constructs an overview of Snorri Sturluson’s impact, through Edda, on the cultural activity of mythology in vernacular poetries and narration. General evidence of impacts on eddic and skaldic poetries (§1) provides a frame for a series of illustrative examples, beginning with the relatively unequivocal cases of the rímur Lokrur (§2) and the late stanzas added to the eddic poem Baldrs draumar (§3). The kenning ‘mud of the eagle’ is examined in skaldic verse as an indication of Snorri’s reception in a contemporary context (§4), opening a three-part survey of cumulative evidence of influence on the eddic poem Lokasenna (§5–7). The possibility of influence as a model for the eddic poem Þrymskviða’s composition is suggested (§8), which would have analogues in saga prose (§9). Although details may be equivocated, Edda nevertheless emerges as a (sometimes contested) voice of authority in medieval Icelandic mythological discourses.

The Eddic poem Skírnismál depicts erotically associated suffering in several instances. The god Freyr is filled with pain and grief when he first lays eyes on the beautiful jǫtunn maiden Gerðr. Later in the poem, Gerðr is threatened with horrible punishments if she refuses to give herself to Freyr, and one of these punishments consists in unfulfilled desire. The present study examines the sorts of emotions that are in play in these instances and attempts to determine the origins of the ways in which these emotions are depicted. The study also focuses on whether, and if so in what way, the two cases of erotically associated suffering are related to one another.

Eddic poetry contains instances where the words 'reka' and 'reiðr' alliterate as if they had initial 'v', corresponding to an earlier stage of the language (10th century or earlier). Traditionally, this has been understood as a sign that the poems in question are old. The alternative possibility is that 12th and 13th century Icelanders could have used vr-initial words in poetry in imitation of archaic poems and East Norse dialects. I argue against this latter possibility. Icelandic poetry known to be from the 11th century or younger contains no examples of vr-initial words. Furthermore, the manuscript spelling of the words in question strongly suggests that the scribes were unfamiliar with vr-intial forms. Finally, the evidence from the vr-initial and r-initial forms aligns well with other dating evidence.

The present volume, Norðvegur, deals specifically with fornaldarsögur related material from Scandinavia, outside of Iceland. As the title,
Norðvegur, indicates, the subject matter is closely related to the sources described in the first volume, being the “branch” that travelled the way towards the North and perhaps in some cases, back again.

Sigurdrífumál is one of the eddic poems preserved in the manuscript GKS 2365 4to (Codex Regius) from the second half of the thirteenth century. The poem is defective in Codex Regius due to a lacuna, with one quire missing from the manuscript. In printed editions Sigurdrífumál consists of 37 verses but in Codex Regius the lacuna starts at the second line of the 29th verse. Fortunately, the remaining verses have been preserved in younger paper manuscripts and it is thus clear that the poem was
transcribed before the quire was lost. Sophus Bugge and Jón Helgason researched the preservation of the final verses of Sigurdrífumál for their eddic poetry editions, but neither scholar took account of the manuscripts in the National Library of Iceland, and thus failed to make use of Lbs 1199 4to. In fact this manuscript preserves details which seem to derive directly from Codex Regius and may thus be the oldest manuscript that includes the last verses in Sigurdrífumál. Thus, it is
suggested that the witness of Lbs 1199 4to should be taken into account in future editions of Sigurdrífumál.

Eddic poetry constitutes an important gateway into the pre-Christian legal universe of Scandinavia. This paper presents a broader, deeper discussion of how the thing functions in the eddic poems and the legal language and motifs that are used around this concept. It is argued here that eddic poetry can provide some insight into the ideal characteristics of Norse assemblies; indeed Norse assemblies in real time may have drawn from motifs and concepts in the mythology. Place-name and archaeological evidence is used to demonstrate that the population of Viking Age Scandinavia strived to reproduce the “ideal assembly site”, described in the poetry, in their own landscape.

This paper offers an accessible introduction to the theory of linguistic multiforms.  Linguistic multiforms are verbal systems that are distinguishable from formulae and can provide frameworks for longer sequences of text.  They provide an intermediate unit between the linguistic formula and theme as a unit of narrative content of Oral-Formulaic Theory (OFT).  They also provide an approach to shorter poetic forms that are more verbally stable in social circulation than the long epics on which Classic OFT was developed.  In addition, certain types of lexical variation only become understandable when multiforms are acknowledged.  Integrating multiform theory into OFT allows a broader range of verbal art to be analyzed within a unified framework. 

Multiform theory was initially developed for the analysis of the flexibility of length of text sequences in long epics, following which it has been developed and refined.  Focus in this article is on shorter forms of oral poetry that have not been conducive for analysis through Classic OFT owing to greater textual regularity in reproduction.  Multiforms of different formal types are illustrated through examples from Finno-Karelian kalevalaic poetry, Old Norse eddic and skaldic poetries, and North Russian bylina poetry.  The broader theoretical framework is nevertheless concerned with a general phenomenon of language that is also relevant to forms of discourse that are not poetically organized.

I. Vikinški staronordijski književni likovi BALDR & FREYJA & ODIN & PROROČICA ČAROBNICA VOLVA & TOR u PJESNIČKOJ VJEŽBENICI ANALITIČKE MITOLOŠKE ČITANKE. Primjeri namijenjeni sveučilištarcima slušateljima nacionalnih jezika s književnostima: danski (eng. D), islandski (eng. I), finski (eng. F), norveški (eng. N), švedski (eng. S).
Suvremeno hrvatsko pjesništvo s motivima iz korpusa staronordijske književnosti: poetessa Marisstella Octek (S.L. Čižmešija). Objavljeno u suvremenim književnim časopisima čiji su urednici RH učenjaci doktori znanosti o književnosti.
II. Učenjačka znanstvena knjiga sveučilišnih profesora Dora Maček & Hermann Palsson & Rudolf Simek o europskoj vikinškoj staronordijskoj mitologiji i književnosti poglavito o nacionalnoj srednjovjekovnoj islandskoj književnosti. Ocjenjivački tekst (prikaz / recenzija).
III. Zajedničko europsko rano srednjovjekovlje zapisano u kamenu, u kori stabala / drveća te na obrađenom i neobrađenom drvu. Zajedničko europsko srednjovjekovlje pisano u kršćanskim skriptorijima. Umjesto čitanja i iščitavanja novih akademskih prijevoda s književnopovijesnim analizama samo Kroatistička Digresija.
IV. Poetska Edda je duhovni sljednik (recidiv ritualnih) poganskih obreda magije a predstavlja niz tradicionalnih pučkih i dvorskih kazališnih izvedbi iz razdoblja sinkretizma. Snorrijeva Kršćanska Ekofilozofija (održivoga razvoja). Snorrijev odgojni politički pragmatizam pri uspostavi svojeg nacionalnog programa prosvjetiteljskog kršćanskog demokratskog republikanizma.
V. OČIŠTE
ISBN: 9781005637668  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1126598

The present volume is the first of four on the medieval Icelandic fornaldarsögur, a corpus of Old Icelandic sagas that were written mostly in the 13th and 14th centuries. The sagas deal with legendary and fictional heroes and are based on legends that were common to the Nordic and ultimately the Germanic peoples, and which had strong roots in oral tradition and the oral poetry of previous ages. Though many of these legends now survive primarily in narrative form in the fornaldarsögur, they can also be glimpsed in other literature, in archaeological finds, and in medieval art from the Scandinavian countries, Germany, France and the British Isles. The four-volume collection, Arfur aldanna I–IV, seeks to explore, firstly, the origins of this legendary material and how it spread throughout Northern Europe, and secondly, the Icelandic legendary saga corpus, in which this narrative material found its richest and most memorable representation.

The article argues for a continuous tradition of fornyrðislag poetry in Iceland stretching from the Eddic poems and past the Reformation. The youngest poems in the fornaldarsögur and the oldest of the sagnakvæði should be regarded as of similar age. Two poems are selected for a detailed study. On the basis of linguistic and metrical criteria, Gullkársljóð is dated to ca. 1350. This dating is further supported by the presence of formulaic elements which the poem shares with several old poems. Linguistic and metrical arguments place Hrafnagaldur after the Reformation. The mystical tone of the poem, its interest in magic and its serious perspective on the Norse gods fit well with 17th century Iceland when occult and antiquarian interests led to certain neopagan tendencies.

This article examines the folklore links between Northern Europe on the one hand and the Caucasus and/or Central Asia on the other. Two of the parallels (“wind knots” and “ambush in a pit” motifs) represent the combinations of narrative episodes that are seemingly not attested in the intermediate area or the rest of the world. Together with other correspondences of this kind, these motifs may be relics of a tradition that once existed in the Pontic steppe. The third of the parallels under consideration is the statement found in folklore texts of different genres (charms, riddles, etc.) and saying that the stone or mountain has no roots. This motif is attested in Turkic, Balto-Slavic and Balto-Finnic traditions, as well as in the “Prose Edda”. Its distribution is likely due to the massive transfer of elements of folklore from Central Asia to Europe, which occurred after the third century AD.

Old Norse poetry and the society that generated the earliest examples thereof (roughly the Northern Germanic speaking area from c. 800 CE onwards) can generally be viewed as oral in nature, and recently the idea of the performance aspect of the Old Norse poems has been re-actualised by Terry Gunnell. What I propose to examine in this paper is the possible ritual framework behind these oral performances, which consisted of both the ritual space of a Viking Age hall and the ritual content of the performed Old Norse poems. By utilising archaeological material – mainly helmet-masks and halls – and applying Roy A. Rappaport’s ritual theory to the poems Grímnismál (‘Grímnir’s Sayings’) and Eiríksmál (‘Words about Eiríkr’), I will argue that not only were the poems meant for oral performance, likely in a hall, but that they may also contain ritualised 'performatives' and produce 'high-order meaning' creating social and moral obligation towards the group through the transformative performativity of ritual performance and participation. These transformative ritual features may be crucial to the creation and maintenance of group coherence in and the transmission of pre-Christian Nordic religion.

Okay, for some reason I picked a maximally boring title for this piece. But I think it's actually quite an exciting article if you're interested in either a) the origins of the Eddic poems and the dating of Eddic poetry or b) early Germanic syntax.

This paper evaluates the limited evidence of a particular Old Norse poetic form called stikki, identified, or potentially identified, in only five sources. These sources are critically reviewed in order to assess what, if any, generalisations can be made about stikki poetry.

Suvremeno hrvatsko pjesništvo s motivima iz korpusa staronordijske književnosti: poetessa Marisstella Octek (S.L. Čižmešija). Objavljeno u suvremenim književnim časopisima čiji su urednici RH učenjaci doktori znanosti o književnosti. Učenjačka znanstvena knjiga sveučilišnih profesora Dora Maček & Hermann Palsson & Rudolf Simek o europskoj vikinškoj staronordijskoj mitologiji i književnosti.
I. Vikinški staronordijski književni likovi BALDR & FREYJA & ODIN & PROROČICA ČAROBNICA VOLVA & TOR u PJESNIČKOJ VJEŽBENICI ANALITIČKE MITOLOŠKE ČITANKE. Primjeri namijenjeni sveučilištarcima slušateljima nacionalnih jezika s književnostima: danski (eng. D), islandski (eng. I), finski (eng. F), norveški (eng. N), švedski (eng. S).
Suvremeno hrvatsko pjesništvo s motivima iz korpusa staronordijske književnosti: poetessa Marisstella Octek (S.L. Čižmešija). Objavljeno u suvremenim književnim časopisima čiji su urednici RH učenjaci doktori znanosti o književnosti.
II. Učenjačka znanstvena knjiga sveučilišnih profesora Dora Maček & Hermann Palsson & Rudolf Simek o europskoj vikinškoj staronordijskoj mitologiji i književnosti poglavito o nacionalnoj srednjovjekovnoj islandskoj književnosti. Ocjenjivački tekst (prikaz / recenzija).
III. Zajedničko europsko rano srednjovjekovlje zapisano u kamenu, u kori stabala / drveća te na obrađenom i neobrađenom drvu. Zajedničko europsko srednjovjekovlje pisano u kršćanskim skriptorijima. Umjesto čitanja i iščitavanja novih akademskih prijevoda s književnopovijesnim analizama samo Kroatistička Digresija.
IV. Poetska Edda je duhovni sljednik (recidiv ritualnih) poganskih obreda magije a predstavlja niz tradicionalnih pučkih i dvorskih kazališnih izvedbi iz razdoblja sinkretizma. Snorrijeva Kršćanska Ekofilozofija (održivoga razvoja). Snorrijev odgojni politički pragmatizam pri uspostavi svojeg nacionalnog programa prosvjetiteljskog kršćanskog demokratskog republikanizma.
V. OČIŠTE

ISBN: 9781005637668    https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1126598

This article on the ljóðaháttr poem Grímnismál explores the possibility that pre-Christian Nordic rituals featured oral performances of such Eddic poetry containing ritualized performatives, crucial to the formation and upholding of pre-Christian Nordic religions and to the group identity formation in Viking Age warrior bands.

This paper offers fresh insights into Hesiod’s Works and Days by comparing it to the Eddic Hávamál, a didactic poem far removed in terms of geography and date, but compellingly close in subject matter, construction and transmission. This paper finds parallels between the poems in the methods of teaching and in what is being taught, focusing on the shared theme of self-sufficiency (both intellectual and practical). It finds parallels in structure, as Hávamál is, like the Works and Days, made up not only of precepts and maxims but also elaborate mythological sections, and is associated with catalogic elements which may be original or later accretions, just like Hesiod’s Days, or the Catalogue of Women, or the Ornithomanteia. This paper also traces parallel scholarly trajectories, summarising the strikingly similar histories of scholarship on the two poems.
Finally, this paper finds parallels in the transmission of the poems, as both are rooted in the oral tradition but poised at that crucial juncture: the advent of writing. Despite the striking similarities between the poems, this paper refrains from any suggestion of a straight channel of reception but rather interprets the parallels as a reflection of comparable societies, or at least societies at comparable points in their developments. Archaic Greece and Viking Scandinavia might not be exactly parallel cultures, but they evidently share certain cultural concerns: as agrarian societies with strong family and household structures, polytheistic religions and honour codes, they offer similar advice in similar formulations through similar didactic strategies. Such similarities may encourage us to think in terms of the shared characteristics of transitional products. If we exclude direct reception we are left with a cultural constant: the transmission of wisdom. And with recurring elements such as gnomic language, myth and catalogue, we are also left with constant expressions of that wisdom.

This paper presents the history of editing the monumental three-volume edition of eddic poetry, published by the Arnamagnæan Commission in Copenhagen from 1787 to 1828 (volume 2 appeared in 1818). This was the first ever critical edition of the majority of the poems of the Poetic Edda, and it took over four decades to complete, involving two generations of Icelandic scholars working in Copenhagen. The paper focuses on the challenges of editing this corpus of mythological poetry, in the absence of a defined place for it in the Christian literature of the time, and the first entanglement of this fabled poetry with continental ideologies from preromantic rationalising scepticism to cultural nationalism, comparative historical linguistics and romantic delerium. Reviews are used throughout to document the early reception of the edition, and to recover its contemporary critical assessment. The paper also relates the main contents of the introductions to each of the three volumes, and describes the practical difficulties posed by the eventful history of the period, as far as this can now be recovered. Brief portraits are given of both the obscure and celebrity scholars of Icelandic origin, to whom we owe the accomplishment of these all but forgotten tomes. Tomes that were highly influential on the reception of the Poetic Edda, but are now largely eclipsed by more recent work because of their repellent scholarly medium of Neo-Latin Kunstsprache. Through giving an account of the history of this edition, the author of this paper also aims to delineate some of the background for the rise of Old Norse Mythology as an academic discipline.

The Old Norse Svipdagsmál is a composite piece of eddic poetry which comprises two complementary poems, Grógaldr and Fiǫlsvinnzmál. These two poems date to the 13th century, but they are only preserved in late paper manuscripts (17th-19th century). The text transmitted in the manuscripts shows several signs of corruption, and many aspects of its form and content have been subject to debate. Among other concerns, some incongruities have been pointed out regarding the progression of the core section of Fiǫlsvinnzmál (sts 7-42). Möller (1875) attempted to resolve these apparent structural anomalies by revising the arrangement of twelve stanzas (sts 13-24). Through a detailed structural analysis of the poem, this article shows that Möller’s proposal is not entirely satisfactory, and proposes a new arrangement of stanzas 9 to 40 which removes the oddities inherent in the original sequence. The structure of the rearranged sequence follows a neat and plausible pattern and appears quite consistent with the poet’s taste for symmetry and numerological references which is apparent throughout the poem.