Gripla - 01.01.1977, Page 38

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GRIPLA
the list of heiti for son).9 Thus it is likely (in spite of the unsatisfactory
preservation of these passages) that the compiler of this part of Skáld-
skaparmál understood ái and edda to be words for great-grandfather and
great-grandmother, though it may be that he only knew the words from
Rígsþula and there is no independent confirmation of the meaning of
either word in other sources. None of the texts that have the word edda
as a heiti for woman indicates any connection with the name of the
book, and this may mean that the name was only applied to it later, or
that there was not felt to be any etymological connection between the
two usages. Edda is used as a personal name in Bósa saga (probably
written in the fourteenth century) without there being any association
either with the name of the book or with the words in Skáldskaparmál
and Rígsþula.10
In medieval Iceland, therefore, Edda could be used as a personal
name in stories of legendary times, and also as a common noun meaning
great-grandmother, though neither usage seems to have had very wide
currency. By the end of the thirteenth century it had also come to be
used as the name of Snorri Sturluson’s treatise on poetics. Then in
poems from the fourteenth century and later phrases such as ‘reglur
eddu’, ‘eddu list’ are used, and appear quite frequently.11 In the first
phrase edda could still mean Snorri’s treatise, but in the second it must
mean ‘poetry’ or ‘poetics’ in general. It is clear that for these writers,
edda meant ‘ars poetica’, and when it was used as the name of Snorri’s
book must have been understood to relate principally to Skáldskapar-
9 Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, p. 188; Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, Codex Wor-
mianus, ed. Finnur Jónsson, K0benhavn og Kristiania 1924, p. 104. Ái appears
also in the þula of heiti for man in Edda Snorra Sturlusonar 1931, p. 199.
10 Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, ed. C. C. Rafn, Kaupmannahöfn 1829-30, III
208.
11 Amgrímur ábóti Brandsson, Guðmundar kvœði (1345), verse 2: ‘Rædda ek
lítt við reglur eddu’ (Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. Finnur Jónsson,
Kpbenhavn og Kristiania 1912-15, A II 348); Árni ábóti Jónsson, Guðmundar
drápa (fourteenth century), verse 78: ‘Yfirmeisturum mun eddu listar allstirðr sjá
hróðr virðast’ (Skjaldedigtning A II 429); Eysteinn Ásgrímsson (died 1361), Lilja
verse 97: ‘Eigi er glþggt þó at eddu regla undan hljóti at víkja stundum’ (Skjalde-
digtning A II 394); Hallr prestr, Nikulásdrápa verse 4: ‘Skil vegligra(r) eddlu (sic)
reglu’ (Islenzk miðaldakvœði II, ed. Jón Helgason, Kaupmannahöfn 1938, p. 418).
There are many further examples from rímur in Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ed.
G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford 1883, II 560-61 (see also I xxvi-xxvii).