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to the anonymous thirteenth-century Líknarbraut, its author possibly a
cleric,52 to the fourteenth-century Maríudrápa,53 and to Leiðarvísan, pre-
served in fifteenth-century manuscripts but dated to the twelfth.54
The manuscript tradition is also illuminating in this respect. A handy
example of peaceful coexistence in manuscripts is found within the group
of Snorra-Edda manuscripts: AM 757a 4to contains Skáldskaparmál,
the so-called Litla-Skálda, a section of Fenris úlfr, Þulur, and Ólafur
hvítaskáld’s skaldic-laden Third Grammatical Treatise along with Heilags
anda vísur, Leiðarvísan, Harmsól, Gyðingavísur, Líknarbraut, and Maríu-
drápa. AM 757a 4to is not the only Snorra-Edda manuscript to contain reli-
gious poetry: Just after Rígsþula and Ókennd heiti in the largest medieval
Snorra-Edda manuscript, Codex Wormianus, a fifteenth-century hand has
added Maríuvísur.55
But the classic narrative of justification still holds two cards up its
sleeve. The first is claimed to show that the conversion to Christianity
caused a lull in use of mythologically-based kennings for some one-and-
a-half centuries. The second that knowledge, transmission, and use of
mythology and mythologically related material, and thus also mytholog-
ically-based diction, only returned when learned methods of justification
and excuse had been successfully acquired and employed. It is to these two
that we now turn, the latter first.
AM 655 IX 4to, dated to the mid-twelfth century. AM 673b 4to is believed to be a copy.
The drápa itself is fragmentarily preserved, totaling fifty-nine stanzas out of probably
seventy-eight in the original. Hermann Pálsson and Rudolf Simek maintain that the drápa
“könnte schon um 1150, sicherlich aber vor 1180 verfaßt worden sein”; “Placitus drápa,”
ed. Jonna Louis-Jensen, Plácidus saga, ed. John Tucker, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ B:31
(Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1998), 93–123; John Tucker, “Placitus saga,” Medieval Scandinavia,
ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York, et al.: Garland, 1993), 504–505; Chase, S. J., “Christian
Poetry”, 75; Hermann Pálsson and Simek, Lexikon der altnordischen Literatur, 281.
52 Die Geistlichen Drápur, 11–20, 47–53; Chase, S. J., “Christian Poetry”, 75.
53 Die Geistlichen Drápur, 32–43; Martin Chase, S. J., “Christian Poetry”, 75.
54 Die Geistlichen Drápur, 4–11; Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning IA, 618–626; Reidar Astås,
“Leiðarvísan,” Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York, et al.: Garland, 1993),
390.
55 An overview of the main Snorra-Edda manuscripts is given in, e.g.: Guðrún Nordal, Tools
of Literacy, second chapter (41–72).
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY