Gripla - 20.12.2012, Page 377

375
AnDReA De LeeuW vAn Weenen
AnotHeR InteRPRetAtIon of tHe
WoRD EDDA
“bók þessi heitir eDDa. Hana hefir saman setta snorri sturlu sonr.”
so begins the uppsala manuscript DG 11 of the work usually referred to
as the Prose Edda or Snorra-Edda. the implication is that the name Edda
refers to the work itself rather than to this particular manuscript. As no
explanation for the term is offered, we may assume that it was already
present in the exemplar, or that the work was known by this name to the
scribe. It may even be the title assigned to the work by the author.
over the centuries various hypotheses have been proposed as to the
meaning and origin of the word edda/Edda. some found favour, at least
for a time or at least with some scholars, while others have proved less
persuasive. I will not go into the details of the hypotheses or follow the
trails they left in scholarly discussion, as most of them were critically
evaluated not long ago by Anatoly Liberman (Liberman 1996). He rejects
the idea that Edda could refer to the content of the work and dismisses
most hypotheses on linguistic grounds.1 His three conclusions are: 1.
“Edda is most probably not a word reflecting the content of snorri’s book”,
2. “Whatever Edda meant, the word must have been clear to snorri’s
contemporaries”, and 3. “Whatever the origin of Edda, it was invented as
the title of one particular book, more or less, we can assume, at the spur
of the moment.”
Liberman, however, does not discuss the oldest etymology for Edda,
proposed by séra Magnús ólafsson in the introduction to his edition of the
Laufás-Edda: “edda dregst af ordi Latinsku edo eg yrki e(dur) dickta.”2
this etymology was firmly rejected by Árni Magnússon: “Magni olai,
1 Edda cannot be related to óðr, as i-umlaut would have resulted in ǿ, not e. Nor can Edda be
derived from oddi in a phonologically correct way. that Edda could have the same meaning
as the noun edda “great-grandmother” is rejected for semantic reasons.
2 AM 758 4to f. 1r.
Gripla XXIII (2012): 375–380.