Gripla - 20.12.2008, Side 147

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þeir dvąlþvz iląndvm, þa var þar ar ok friþr, ok trvþv allir, at þeir
væri þes raþande, þviat þat sa rikis-menn, at þeir voro vlikir ąþrvm
monnvm, þeim er þeir havfþv set, at fegrþ ok sva at viti.66
The framework of Snorra-Edda is thus thoroughly learned and Christian,
and firmly in the tradition of classical and Catholic intellectual culture.
Snorri’s aim as a mythographer was not only to write a handbook in
skaldic poetry and background stories to kennings, but also to conceptu-
alize the past from a world-historic and Christian perspective. But in no
sense whatsoever is Snorra-Edda a religious work of pagan myths, and no
sources point in the direction of such an understanding among medieval
men. Only Snorri’s classic and well-known statement in Skáldskaparmál
may appear to hint at such an impression:
en ecki er at gleyma eþa osaɴa sva þesar frasagnir, at taka or
skald skapinvm fornar kenningar, þær er hǫfvtskald hafa ser lika
latit, en eigi skvlo kristnir menn trva aheiþin goð ok eigin asaɴyndi
[þesa sagna aɴan veg en sva sem her fiɴz ivphafi bokar.67
But this is, of course, a mere rhetorical comment, void of religious mean-
ing in itself and quite expected in a medieval treatise incorporating myths.
To interpret this passage, put down well over two hundred years after the
Conversion, as actual worries of Snorri’s that some of his audiences might
be or become pagan would be absurd. The core of the passage as a whole is
quite clear: The fact that the stories are untrue, and one should know that
they are, should not in and of itself lead to their dismissal, and therefore
also of the old kennings in skaldic poetry of which they form basis and the
skaldic auctores accepted.
There is no way of knowing through which works and authors exactly
medieval Icelanders were schooled in these learned traditions. Ælfric’s
homily De falsis Diis is preserved in a Norse translation in Hauksbók
from the early fourteenth century, but the translation itself may be from
as early as the twelfth century. Euhemerism is put to the fore:
66 Ibid., 6.
67 Ibid., 86.
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY