Rezensionen 111 dic Family Saga” [Diss. Univ. of Iowa 1972]; ro Steinsland. Det hellige Gertraud Schillinger, Das Lachen in den bryllup og norrøn konge- isländischen Familiensagas und in den ideologi: En analyse Liedern der Edda [Diss. Freiburg; Freiburg av hierogami-myten i im Breisgau: n.p., 1962]). The crowning G Skírnismál, Ynglingatal, Háleygjatal example of indifference to previous scholar- ship, however, is surely the following pro- og Hyndluljóð. Oslo: Solum, 1991. nouncement, one of the book’s most ridicu- 366 pages. lous moments: “At this point there arises a difficult question which, to my knowledge, For the reader who is not a native speaker has not been asked in the modern study of of Scandinavian, Gro Steinsland gives a Iceland. This distinction between fact and rather bald summary of her findings in this fiction, the one upon which the bookpro- doctoral thesis on pages 348–52. Her con- sists placed so much weight, wasn’t it clusions are bold, even shocking; non- always a bit too simple?” (47). Scandinavians may be tempted to spare An opportunity for professional inter- themselves three hundred and twenty pages disciplinary cooperation was missed here. of argumentation and dismiss them out The contributions could have used less hype of hand. They should not. Gro Steinsland’s and more hard work; Gísli Pálsson’s valiant analysis of Skírnismál, Ynglingatal, Há- effort to transform congress proceedings leygjatal, and Hyndluljóð is tightly argued, into a scholarly anthology was thwarted in calling on a wealth of sources, mythological, the end by the uneven quality of the mate- historical, and legal, and on archaeological rial. In one respect, the volume’s conference and iconographical evidence to delineate origins could have been put to advantage: her central thesis: that the “sacred mar- namely, if the Reykjavík discussions had riage” myth contained in Skírnismál should been taken into account more conscien- be understood in the context of Norse ideas tiously in the revised papers or been re- of kingship; that the marriage between god ported on in a special addendum. (I would and giantess results in a new type of being, have been interested especially in seeing the prototypical king; that the contradic- Helga Kress’s challenge to Jenny Jochens tions embodied in the ancestry of the royal reflected in the anthology somehow.) But lineage make the king peculiarly subject to this chance was missed, too. fate, as evidenced by Ynglingatal’s fascina- tion with the bizarre deaths of the kings of Marvin Taylor the race; and that, after Ragnarok, the new ruler prophesied in Hyndluljóð is neither Christ nor some version of Baldr, but a hy- postasis of Heimdallr, freed from the ruler’s destiny as the apparently fatherless son of nine giant mothers. Gro Steinsland mod- estly suggests that her findings are of con- sequence particularly for the “sacral king- ship” debate, but her thinking ranges far more widely and interestingly. Det hellige bryllup is a closely argued and complex work; fortunately its thesis for- mat encourages summarizing conclusions to each part of the exposition. The argument emerges gradually, thus in the early pages of the book the reader has to take on trust cer- tain assertions which are proven later. Some, such as the reference on page 85 to “the remarkable antagonism between Óðinn and Freyr in the poem” (scil. Skírnismál), alvíssmál 3 (1994): 111–13 112 Rezensionen are not in the end justified, and the reader between Skírnismál and Genesis, where the needs to keep a sharp eye on these. suggestion of influence remains a possibility, It is the analysis of Skírnismál, then, signalled by “kan” (170). which forms the basis of the argument. Where I found myself unable to concur Freyr’s taking over of the highseat — his fully with Gro Steinsland is in the causal apparent power to wield (or have Skírnir connection she makes between the ancestry wield) the wand (gambanteinn), eleven of the king and the strange, unmotivated apples, and the ring Draupnir — marks him deaths which the Ynglingar suffer in Yngl- as a kingly candidate, for these objects are ingatal. This is grounded in the contradic- the insignia of royalty — a surprising con- tory divine and giant energies which the tention, but nevertheless with some ground- king incorporates: “the king dies, tragically ing in iconography. The marriage between and inexplicably, because he embodies a god and giantess is in itself anomalous: mythological antagonism of cosmic dimen- so many elements of the legally constituted sions” (203). While it is clear that the motif ceremony are missing that any child would “marriage to a foreign woman” and the not be deemed legitimate. The union should death motif are causally related in some be seen as a kind of hieros gamos, but not verses of Ynglingatal, the author’s use of one stemming from fertility ritual; rather the the Baldr myth as an interpretative key does god and giantess symbolize king and (con- not really help. It seems likely that Baldr quered) land, hence the elements of coer- must die because he is — in a perhaps pri- cion and threat in the wooing of Gerðr, marily etymological sense — a king, and the elements to which Gro Steinsland, unlike king must die: fate and death thus irrupt many commentators, gives full weight. The into the world of the gods as harbingers of union results in offspring — Fjolnir, the Ragnarok. But Gro Steinsland’s contention first-mentioned king of Ynglingatal, whose that Baldr must die because he has the mis- parents are given as Freyr and Gerðr by fortune to number giants in his paternal Snorri, and Snorri alone. Thus the king is ancestry, despite the juxtapositions cited created: that the kingly ancestor must be from Hyndluljóð 30, seems to this reviewer the product of a transgressive god-giantess unwarranted. In the end, the necessary con- union is confirmed by Háleygjatal, where nection between giantesses and fate argued the divine ancestors are Óðinn and Skaði. for here rests almost entirely on the obscure Thus far, the arguments are highly persua- giant maidens of Voluspá 8, whom the sive: the interpretation of the hieros gamos author charges with bringing the fate system myth as political and social is an advance into existence. both on previous religio-historical interpre- The final section of the book, in which tations of the school of Magnus Olsen and the secret cause of the death of Baldr, out- more recent “literary” readings of Skírnis- lined above, and the mysterious ruler who mál as medieval love poem. Reading the will come after Ragnarok are discussed, is Poetic Edda in the context of the sover- of great interest, not only in the context eignty topos is perhaps an incipient trend of the ideology of the (sacral?) king, but in eddic studies, signalled by Svava also in broader areas: the Norse concepts of Jakobsdóttir’s investigation of the motif in mythic time and the positive, enabling role Hávamál (“Gunnlöð og hinn dýri mjöður,” of the giant woman at certain phases in Skírnir 162 [1988]: 215–45). Though Svava’s mythic history. The giant woman embodies essay was published too late for the author creative as well as destructive aspects: “the to consider in the current work, nuanced giantess’s [scil. Hyndla’s] deepest secret is reference is made here to possible Celtic that the basis of existence is formed on parallels. Throughout Gro Steinsland is women’s creativity and giant energy — as scrupulous in distinguishing contentions past-Heimdallr the urbeing was, so shall which she regards as proven (“the proto- the future be” (282). The book ends with a typical king is the son of a divinity and rather upbeat view of the new world order: a giantess,” 23) and those which are not, the future ruler’s qualification as transcen- as in the excursus examining the parallels dent figure is, in effect, to be related to alvíssmál 3 (1994): 111–13 Rezensionen 113 no one, to have no conflict-filled geneal- eter A. Jorgensen, editor and ogy, and hence to be related to everyone. translator. Valla-Ljóts saga: I suspect that this unifying figure conforms The Icelandic Text Accord- more closely to a late-twentieth-century ing to MS AM 161 fol. audience’s aspirations than to those of a PBibliotheca Germanica: Series nova, genealogy-obsessed contemporary audience. Not every reader will be able to assent volume 1. Saarbrücken: AQ-Verlag, wholeheartedly to the conclusions of this 1991. 120 pages. stimulating book; though much is suggested, only a limited amount can be proven. How- A bilingual edition is really two books, not ever, in opening up eddic poetry to political one, which is both its strength and its weak- and social rather than religious and arche- ness. Although in some bilingual editions typal investigation, Gro Steinsland’s book only the translation represents original is likely to change the way many of us think work, in this volume by the American Ger- about the mythological poetry of the Edda manic scholar Peter Jorgensen both “books” and the way in which its myths interact with are original contributions to Old Icelandic Norse history. studies. The volume also contains three introductions, “The Edition” (11–20), “The Carolyne Larrington Saga” (21–35), and “The Translation” (37– 40), which are brief but to the point and well written, an index to the characters, and a bibliography. No extant manuscript of Valla-Ljóts saga is older than the seventeenth century. AM 161 fol. is one of the two from which the rest apparently derive and which them- selves seem to stem from a common source. The differences are minor and have already been registered in the apparatus to Jónas Kristjánsson’s diplomatic Samfund edition (1952) of the other major manuscript, AM 496 4º, but since 161 fol. has not been edited as a whole since 1830, the present edition is welcome. Jorgensen follows the spelling and punctuation of the manuscript exactly, in- cluding dieresis and the special forms a and o. Otherwise, modern letter forms are used, allographs are disregarded, and abbrevia- tions silently expanded. But letter forms, allographs, and abbreviations are described carefully in the first introduction. The state- ment on page 15, though, that d, which represents etymologically d and ð, “always has a rounded ascender” is not completely accurate, since the ascender is occasionally straight: “Gudmundur,” “haffde,” “villde hann” (ms. p. 86); “brodur minn” (ms. p. 90). A check against a facsimile made available to me by the Arnamagnaean Insti- tute in Copenhagen showed that Jorgen- sen’s edition is reliable. I found only one, insignificant discrepancy: “illt” on page 94 alvíssmál 3 (1994): 111–13