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work which ultimately renders it meaning. Scholarship on Snorra-Edda in
later decades has chiefly run the course marked out by the larger implica-
tions of Baetke’s thesis: the focus is not on whether Snorra-Edda is a prod-
uct of classical and medieval European and Christian learning but rather on
the question on which learned classical and medieval works exactly Snorri
did cut his teeth, and how exactly and to what extent they are put into
service within the Edda. Similarly, the focus is not as much on whether
Snorra-Edda is a holistic work (although to what extent is certainly still
debatable) as it is on the finer points of overall organization, ideology, aim,
and purpose, the elements binding the work together as a whole. In any
case, the Prologue has been given back to Snorri.5
Let us step back to Kuhn’s syncretism and the second problem, that of
cultural and religious context. A base assumption on which much of his
argument rests, and is of particular interest for the present study, is that the
presence of mythology is in and of itself an evidence for pagan sentiment.
In other words: mythology and religion are assumed to be inextricably
intertwined and inseparable. There is another and closely related histo-
riographical tradition which also revolves around the idea of mythology
and religion being two sides of the same coin: the ritual-behind-the-myth
tradition. Largely an exercise in cyclical argumentation the myth-ritual
tradition has declined steadily since around and after the mid-twentieth
century, finding few but loyal advocates today.6 Many and complex fac-
5 In addition to Walter Baetke, see, e.g., Byrge Breitag, “Snorre Sturluson og æserne,” Arkiv
för nordisk filologi 79 (1964): 117-153; Anthony Faulkes, “The Genealogies and Regnal Lists
in a Manuscript in Resen’s Library,” Sjötíu ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977
I, eds. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi,
Rit 12 (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977): 177–190; Ursula and Peter Dronke,
“The Prologue of the Prose Edda: Explorations in the Latin Background,” Sjötíu ritgerðir
helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977 I , eds. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson,
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, Rit 12 (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar,
1977): 153–176; Anthony Faulkes, “Pagan Sympathy: Attitudes to Heathendom in the
Prologue to Snorra-Edda,” Edda: A Collection of Essays, eds. Robert J. Glendinning and
Haraldur Bessason, The University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies 4 (Manitoba: University
of Manitoba Press, 1983): 283–314.
6 The focus has for the most part been on eddic poetry. Link between Skírnismál and
ritual are argued in Magnus Olsen, “Fra gammelnorsk myte og kultus,” Maal og minne
(1909): 17–36; among what might be called the radical or fundamentalist arm of the
tradition are, e.g., Bertha S. Phillpotts, The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama
(Cambridge: University Press, 1920); Anne Holtsmark, “Myten om Idun og Tjatse i
Tjodolvs Haustlǫng,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 64 (1949): 1–73; Einar Haugen, “The Edda
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY