Gripla - 20.12.2012, Page 378

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viri alias eruditissimi, sententia, de eddâ ab edo derivandâ, refutatione non
eget” (finnur jónsson 1930 2, 103). It is not possible to assess Magnús’s
arguments as none were presented, and it might well be his problematic
status as a scholar that caused this etymology to disappear from view for
several centuries. In 1971 stefán karlsson revived the idea that edda could
be derived from edo in a short article in a festschrift for Halldór Hall-
dórsson’s 60th birthday. His reasoning is as follows: kredda is a loanword
from the oe crēda, which in turn is the vernacular form of Latin credo.
even if this english origin had been forgotten, the relationship between
oI kredda and Lat. credo was perfectly clear and a new word edda derived
from Lat. edo could have been created. unlike Magnús ólafsson, stefán
karlsson suggests that in this instance edo should be taken to mean “to
publish” or “to put into writing”, citing Isidore of seville’s phrase “Marcus
euangelium edidit”. that snorri knew the word kredda is certain, as it
occurs in Færeyinga saga, a work with which he was familiar, and it is
highly unlikely that his knowledge of Latin fell short of understanding
the verbs credo and edo. Moreover, the phrase cited from Isidor occurs in
a manuscript partly written in 1254 that contains a good deal of material
connected to the sturlung family.
As this 1971 festschrift for Halldór Halldórsson was published in a
single typewritten version, it is not surprising that stefán’s article made
little impact. However, the idea was taken up independently by Anthony
faulkes (faulkes 1977). He notes that various compounds or collocations
of edda are used in poems of the 14th century, and that in the phrase
“edda list” edda must mean “poetry” or “poetics”, and thus for these poets
edda must have meant “ars poetica”. faulkes then suggests that either the
term represents a special use of edda “great-grandmother” or a homonym
coined in the 13th century to apply to snorri’s work. As the Snorra-Edda
was the first work of its kind, there was no vernacular word available to
describe it, and thus one had to be invented — and who better to do so
than the author himself. faulkes cites the etymology proposed by Magnús
ólafsson and remarks that even if the meaning “to compose (in verse)” is
not common, it can be found, for example, in the second line of ovid’s
Amores. Accordingly, anyone with even the most cursory acquaintance
with the Edda would have come across it. finally, faulkes supports the
link with edo by pointing to the kredda-credo parallel.