An. Edition and Coinmentary. by Carolyn Ann Pearce, BA a Thesis
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Griïïinismàl : An. Edition and Coinmentary. by Carolyn Ann Pearce, B.A. A thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of London in candidature for the degree of Master of Philosophy. Royal Hollov/ay College, (University of London), Englefield Green, Surrey. March 1972 ProQuest Number: 10096427 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10096427 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 In that strange island Iceland,...where of all places we least looked for Literature or written memorials, the record of these things was written dovm. (Thomas Carlyle) Abstract. This thesis offered for the degree of Master of Philosophy is about Griranismal, an Eddaic mythological poem. Tv/o versions of the text have been prepared from the manuscripts. One is a diplomatic text while facing it is a version based on thirteenth\forms of the language. Variant readings are given in footnotes. The introduction supplies information on the contents and history of the two manuscripts containing this poem, discusses their possible age and provenance, and examines style and metre. Further, problems of possible interpolation are considered, as are the literary aspects of the poem. The plot of Grimnismal is traced through the poem while the various motifs in the prose framework are related to other literary works or to folklore. Finally, the introduction considers the paleography and orthography as well as the vocabulary of the poem while the linguistic relationship of the poem with its prose is examined. The commentary attempts to provides etymologies and explanations of the many proper names in the text and to identify the people, animals and places mentioned therein. References to both the introduction and the coimnentary and a translation complete the apparatus. Acknowledgements The author wishes to ocpress her gratitude to Dr. M. VVakelin for advice and guidance during the preparation of this thesis and to the Department of Scandinavian Studies, University College, for invaluable help and the use of their library. Thanlcs are also due to my husband Robert and my parents for encouragement and support. The receipt of a University of London Scholarship is gratefully acknowledged. Table of Contents. INTRODUCTION 6 i) General Introduction 7 ii) Grimnismal 35 iii) References 54 GRÏIIiriSîiÆL 60 i) Introduction 61 ii) Texts 62 iii) Abbreviations 104 iv) Commentary 107 v) References 210 APPENDIX 219 i) Translation 220 Bibliography 228 INTRODUCTION 7 INTRODUCTION General Introduction The Manuscripts. There are only two MSS older than the seventeenth century which contain a collection of mythological and heroic poems, knov/n by various titles, Sæmund*s Edda, the Poetic Edda or the Elder Edda ( a short discussion of the use and validity of these titles follov/s later). The first, and most important, MS in size and content is Codex Regius No. 2365, 4to (hereafter often abbreviated as R). It is composed of forty-five leaves, which are divided into six gatherings. The first five cont|5\a^ eight leaves and the last only five. The pages of the MS are approximately nineteen centimetres long and thirteen centimetres wide.^ The total number of written pages is 90 and the MS is obviously complete at beginning and end. There is a gap between the fourth and fifth gatherings which must represent a missing eight leaves, since both the fourth and fifth are complete. This lost gathering dealt with the Sigurd stories, as may be seen by a comparison the text with the prose Vplsungasaga, which deals with the same legends but supplies more material than thal given in R. The MS was written by one man whose handwriting, 2 according to Gustaf Lindblad, corresponds best with 8 that in a fragment of a Heimskringla MS, Kringla (Stockholm KB perg 9 fol), and hand A of the legal Stadarholsbok (Am 334 fol) which are believed to have been copied by the same scribe. However, the scribe of Codex Regius is not the same man and there has been no other example of his handwriting found in the extant Old Icelandic documents. Although the MS is certainly the work of one man, yet it varies a great deal in writing and in the use of certain letter types. Lindblad remarks on this : "Sjâlv har jag sârskilt fStst mig vid de varierande typema av storbokstâver, de varierande v/y typerna..., och de vâxlande huvudformema av fbrkortningstecknet fbr ok. " ^ This last indeed seems remarkable, that the scribe of R should be so inconsistent, in contrast to most other MSS, even in his representation of very common words. Such facts do not help us to form any conclusions about this writer, yet scholars such as Ludwig Wimmer and Finnur Jonsson^ have praised him for his learning and his plain but beautiful style. They refer to examples in the MS of "den lethed, hvormed skriveren forstar at overvinde kalligrafiske vaijkeligheder.” Lindblad also says of him: "Han har tydligen en viss estetisk lâggning.’*-^ This, however, is about all that is certain of the scribe of Codex Regius. The date of the MS can now be set at ca. 1270 on paleographic and orthographic grounds, which have been the objects of thorough research by Gustaf Lindblad, and this can be confirmed to some extent by the MS’s correspondence, paleographically, with Kringla and Stadarholsbok A, which date almost certainly to between 1265 and 1280. With regard to place of origin there is little to suggest where the MS could have been written. Lindblad^ finds some north-western Icelandic character istics present, but this is not enough to prove that it came into existence there or that the scribe came from that area, since these characteristics may derive from an older MS^ The MS is not a direct copy from oral traditions. Certain features point to copying from an older MS, or MSS. This may be seen, for example, in the occurrence of a half strophe twice in strophes 9 and 10 in Grimnismal, v^fhere the first time it is abbreviated in the MS and the second time written out in full. This is obviously a reversal of that in the original, as tie scribe’s correction marks confirm. Furthermore, a definite paleographic and orthographic boundary may be recognized between the two main sections of the work, the mythological and heroic poems, as well as noticeable differences between individual poems, which have been recorded by Lindblad. This seems to indicate the existence of several MSS, previously containing single poems or small collections, which have been gathered together either immediately before the Codex Regius was written, or perhaps before the model on which R is based was v/ritten. It is impossible to be more definite than this with regard to MSS which no longer exist and whose only traces can be faintly perceived in a later extant vellum. The immediate source for the Codex Regius (here after referred to as the original or *R) cannot be older than the beginning of the thirteenth century 7 according to Lindblad . His results seem the soundest o and most convincing, although Finnur Jonsson believed 10 R to be copied from a MS dating from ca. 1200 or somewhat earlier and D. A. Seip^ presented a case for the original poems being Norwegian and supposed them to be transcribed at the end of the twelfth century. Lindblad does not deny that there must have been a general Norwegian influence on the poems but xian find no definite proof of a Norwegian linguistic basis. It seems reasonable to assume that the MSS of the poems are Icelandic,what ever the origins of the poems themselves. The fragment of a M8!y v^hich contains part of the same poem collection in a slightly different form, is preserved in MS Am 748 I, 4to (hereafter often abbrev iated as A), of the Amamagnæan collection in the University Library of Copenhagen. The MS as a v/hole is composed of twenty-eight leaves in four gatherings but only the first six leaves contain Eddaic poems. The beginning of the vellum is lost and the first surviving leaf begins within Harbardsljog. Three complete poems are preserved which are also found in Codex Regius: Skimismal, Grimnismal and Hymiskvida# Part of Vaf- ÿrugnismàl and the first lines of the prose introduction to Vq lundarkvida also survive, besides a poem which does not appear in R, Baldrs draumar. The rest of the MS contains: Snorri Sturluson’s Edda and some other pieces, but it is clear from the contents of the first six leaves, that more of the Edda poem collection originally was present and it is possible that this included the heroic poems as well. The MS is younger than Codex Regius and from linguistic forms is thought to have been copied down in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. It is not copied from R but possibly derives from the same 11 original. Its differences from R clearly overrule any possibility of copying but where the two MSS diverge it is likely that first one, then the other, may preserve the more correct version. That they both stem from the same original seems verified by such evidence as strophe 44 in Grimnismal, where in 1.6 both have jegis and in 1.7 both have œgis.