Gripla - 01.01.1977, Page 39

EDDA
35
mál and Háttatal, which are accounts of poetic diction and metre, rather
than to the mythology of Gylfaginning.13
There are many Icelandic books that have acquired nicknames; some
originally related to particular manuscripts and were later applied to
the works they contain. Examples are Grýla, Syrpa, Rímbegla, Grágás,
Hungrvaka, Njála, Grettla, Landnáma, Hulda, Hrokkinskinna, Morkin-
skinna, Vatnshyrna.13 They originate from various periods, and as is
the nature of nicknames, the meaning of some appears transparent,
others are obscure; some of them, like Edda, are in the form of feminine
diminutives. Often they must have been applied as the result of some
now forgotten anecdote or remote association of ideas that it is now
only possible to guess at. The name Edda may be of this last kind. Many
attempts have been made to explain it from the seventeenth century on-
wards, but none is without difficulty. Explanations have been of two
kinds, either that the name of the book is a special use of the word edda
meaning great-grandmother, or that it is a homonym of that word,
derived from a different root and coined in the thirteenth century spe-
cifically to apply to Snorri’s work. Nowadays it is generally assumed
that there is some association with the word edda meaning great-grand-
mother, since it is at least certain that this word existed, though the
nature of the association has never been satisfactorily explained; the
ancient traditional lore the book contains is hardly such as a great-
grandmother might be expected to tell of, since there is no association
in Icelandic culture between old women and scaldic verse, unless the
12 If it is correct that in the middle ages edda was understood to mean ars
poetica’, the application of the name to the collection of poems in GkS 2365 4to
after its re-discovery by scholars about 1643 is clearly as inappropriate seman-
tically as it is historically, and the customary modern distinction of eddic or eddaic
poetry from scaldic is also unfortunate, since the term edd(a)ic ought properly to
refer to the sort of poetry dealt with in Snorra Edda', and the word skáld in Old
Icelandic meant ‘poet’ without any restriction based on style or subject-matter. But
it is a forlorn task to try to correct an error of nomenclature however conducive to
confusion when it has been hallowed by three centuries of usage, and no-one has
been able to suggest an alternative title for the collection of poems in GkS 2365
4to that has any hope of acceptance.
13 Björn of Skarðsá, in ‘Nockorar malsgreinar um þat hvaþan bokinn Edda hefr
sitt heiti’ (preserved in Sth. Papp. fol. nr 38, foll. 100 f. and elsewhere), lists the
names Skálda, Rímbegla, Hungrvaka, Rómferla, Grænspjalda ‘og aðrar fleiri’,