Gripla - 20.12.2011, Page 98

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the rainbow, is properly recalled in the Old English epic poem on Genesis
preserved in the Junius manuscript (Genesis A 1535b-42),91 but no exegeti-
cal hint is given there of an allegorical treatment of the matter. This can be
easily attributed to the poem’s general setting out, but it is worth pointing
out that no rainbow allegory is found within the Anglo-Saxon homiletic
production, one would expect more inclined towards elaborations of bibli-
cal items in a figurative sense. The only occurrence of the appearance of
the rainbow after the flood within the corpus is actually found in one of
Ælfric’s (ca. 950–ca. 1010) Catholic Homilies, namely Sermon I, 1 De
initio creaturae, where almost one-third of the whole recollection of the
Noah’s flood episode is in fact dedicated to the rainbow topic, but where,
as I said, no exegetical addition occurs.92
On the other hand, some allegorical interpretations of the rainbow can
be found in the Early Middle High German religious poetry, for instance
in Himelrîche (composed around 1160 in the monastic milieu of Windberg,
Bayer),93 which in this respect has been mentioned by Wolfgang Lange
among the possible relevant analogues of our Old Icelandic text,94 but
which in fact proves to be an excursus elaborating on the vision of God in
Apoc. 4, 3, based on standard school learning. Here, the rainbow is said to
be composed of the four elements, and its name (Iris) is given an etymologi-
cal explanation, while the two elements of water and fire lead the poet to
the familiar view of the two forms of world destruction, one past and by
water, that is, Noah’s flood, the other still to come and through fire, that
91 Cf. The Junius Manuscript, ed. by George Philip Krapp, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records:
A collective edition 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 47–48. The ‘Junius
Codex’ is properly manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11 (sc 5123); it is dated to
the tenth-eleventh century.
92 Cf. Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies. The First Series. Text, ed. by Peter Clemoes, Early English
Text Society, S.S. 17 (Oxford-New York-Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 185, ll.
195–200. We have to wait until the Middle English poem on Genesis and Exodus to find
some such exegetical hints, but these are based on Petrus Comestor’s Historia scholastica
(cf. above, note 41 and its context), so no special treatment of the topos is to be expected.
93 Cf. Helmuth de Boor, Die deutsche Literatur von Karl dem Grossen bis zum Beginn der höfischen
Dichtung, 770–1170. Mit einem bibliographischen Anhang von Dieter Haacke (München:
C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 19646), 192. The relevant passage in Himelrîche is
4, 12–6, 28, part. 6, 1–16; for the edition of the text, cf. Friedrich Maurer, Die religiösen
Dichtungen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts. Nach ihren Formen besprochen und herausgegeben I
(Tübingen: Niemeyer Verlag, 1964), 365–395.
94 Cf. Lange, Studien zur christlichen Dichtung, 257, note 1.