Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 232

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Matthew James Driscoll
In 1967 Foster Blaisdell published an important article entitled ‘The Value of
the Valueless’,11 in which he criticised the tendency among editors of Old Norse
texts to assume that post-medieval paper manuscripts had no textual critical value,
and demonstrated that in some cases — he deals specifically with lvens saga and
Erex saga — late manuscripts could be shown to preserve readings more original
than those found in medieval vellums. But even Foster Blaisdell, I suspect, would
have dismissed Stock. Papp. 4to nr. 15 as valueless, since it is of little or no help
in producing a text of Skikkjurímur ‘as close as possible to the original’ - and that,
traditionally anyway, has been ‘the business of textual criticism’.15 German literary
scholarship has for some time now recognised the existence of something called
Uberlieferungsgeschichte,1 6 but the idea that the history of a text’s transmission
might be worthy of investigation does not appear to have occurred to many in
Old Norse-Icelandic circles.17
In any discussion of the textuality of pre-modern works it is necessary to bear
in mind the manner in which these works were composed and transnritted.
Rímur, it must be remembered, were intended to be heard rather than read, being
chanted or half-sung in a peculiarly Icelandic manner known as að kveða.
Performances of this kind were a staple of the kvöldvökur, or ‘evening wakes’,
which were held during the winter months on Icelandic farms from medieval
times until the beginning of the present century.18 One person, often the head of
the household, would recite while the others worked, carding and spinning wool,
etc. Guests were often asked to recite, and there were even professional or
semi-professional kvaðamenn, a colourful lot by all accounts, who made their
living going from one farm to another reciting rímur in exchange for room and
board. Rírnur co\Aá also be recited away from home, on journeys to and from the
14 ‘The Value of the Valueless: A Problem in Editing Medieval Texts’, Scandinavian Studies,
XXXIX (1967), pp. 40-46.
15 Paul Maas, Textual Criticism, tr. Barbara Flower (Oxford, 1958), p. 1, § 1. For a history of
modern textual criticism, see D.C. Greetham, TextualScholarship: An Introduction (New York,
1994), pp. 313-35.
16 See for example Kurt Ruh, ‘Uberlieferungsgeschichte mittelalterlicher Texte als methodischer
Ansatz zu einer erweiterten Konzeption von Literaturgeschichte’, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche
Prosaforschung: Beitrage der Wurzburger Forschergruppe zur Methode undAuswertung, ed. Kurt
Ruh (Tiibingen, 1989), pp. 262-72.
17 An exception to this is Jiirg Glauser, much of whose recent work may be said to be in this vein;
see e.g. ‘Spatmittelalterliche Vorleseliteratur und fruhneuzeitliche Handschriftentradition: Die
Veranderungen der Medialitat und Textualitat der isliindischen Marchensagas zwischen dem
14. und 19. Jahrhundert’, Text undZeittiefe, ed. Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ScriptOralia, LVIll
(1994), pp. 377—438, and ‘The End of the Saga: Text, Tradidon and Transmission in
Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Iceland’, Northem Antiquity: The Post-Medieval
Reception ofEdda andSaga, ed. Andrew Wawn (London, 1994), pp. 101—41.
18 The best general review of the material is by Hermann Pálsson, Sagnaskemmtun íslendinga
(Reykjavík, 1962). On the kvöldvaka in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see
Magnús Gíslason, Kvdllsvaka: En islandsk kidturtradition belystgenom studier i bondebefolkning-
ens vardagsliv och miljö under senare hdlfien av 1800-talet och börjati av 1900-talet (Uppsala,
1977).