Gripla - 01.01.1979, Page 208

ANTHONY FAULKES
THE PROLOGUE TO SNORRA EDDA
An Attempt at Reconstruction
The only medieval manuscripts that preserve any part of the prologue
to Snorra Edda are the Codex Regius (GkS 2367 4to, R), Codex
Wormianus (AM 242 fol., W), and Codex Upsaliensis (DG 11, U). Part
of it is also in Codex Trajectinus (Utrecht MS no. 1374, T), a paper
manuscript written about the end of the sixteenth century which is
believed to be a copy of a medieval manuscript no longer extant. All
other manuscripts that contain the prologue are thought to be derived
from one of these four. Of these four manuscripts, only two contain the
beginning of the text; the first leaf of R is now lacking, so that the
extant text begins at the point corresponding to Edda Snorra Sturlu-
sonar (ed. F. Jónsson, K0benhavn 1931 = SnE) 4/26, and in T the
text begins at SnE 2/13; it is likely that the scribe could not decipher
the first page of his exemplar. The text of the prologue in U seems to
have been abridged, like other parts of Snorra Edda in this manuscript;
the text is much more concise than in the other manuscripts, and in
some places hardly makes sense as a result. In W the prologue includes
two long passages and one shorter one that are not in the other manu-
scripts at all. Partly for this reason, and partly because they contain a
lot of material derived from Biblical and Classical tradition that seems
out of keeping with the rest of the text, these passages are thought to
be interpolations.
Most modern editions of Snorra Edda have a text based on R, with
the beginning of the prologue supplied partly from T and partly from
W (omitting the presumed interpolations). But it is clear that neither
these manuscripts nor U provide a very reliable basis for a text of the
prologue, which as well as being the worst-preserved part of Snorra
Edda, is also one of the most interesting parts; and it would be a little
more satisfactory if we could at least reconstruct what was on the first
leaf of R.