Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 59

SIX NOTES ON THE INTERPRETATION OF HYMISKVIÐA
57
en ór beinom bigrg,
himinn ór hausi
ins hrímkalda ÍQtuns,
en ór sveita siór.
and mountains made from his bones,
heaven from the skull
of the frost-cold giant,
and out of his blood the sea.
This is the ástráð that the lovely lady-friend knew. It was known also to
scribes of the Snorra Edda: two MSS., in the prose version of the story of Þórr
and Hymir, replace, consistently, Hymir’s name with ‘Ymir’ (MS. W), or
‘eymir’ (MS. U; MS. T has ‘Ymir’ fitfully).15 The giant’s name, Hymir, may
indeed have been chosen by the poet to stir an echo of the primordial Ymir and
his ‘ancient skull’ for the purposes of his own story.16
In the great tangle of folktales with which — as von Sydow has shown17
— Hymiskviða has affinities, one motif stands out: the casting of an object —
an egg, or a cup — at a giant’s head. The egg or the cup holds in it the giant’s
life, and only the giant’s skull is hard enough to break it. Traditionally this
means that the giant dies: he has broken his own life. Hymir does not die, but
a shadow comes over him, a mouming for his ritual toasting cup, for an old
era ending, a pride and a pleasure gone —
‘knákat ek segia ‘I am not to announce
aptrævagi: everagain
þú ert, Qlðr, of heitt!’ “Ale! You are brewed!”’ (33/6-8)
And then he remembers his cauldron, and his optimism retums.
15 SnE 61-62, textual notes.
16 The image of the heavens as a giant’s skull is not confined, to ancient Eddic verse; it is used.
with elegaic power by Amórr jarlaskáld (bom c. 1012) in his drápa for Magnús, son of St
Óláfr Haraldsson: ‘No young prince as generous as he will ever sail ship beneath Ymir’s old
skull — imd ggmlum Ymis hausi’ (cf. Magnússdrápa 19).
More than two centuries later, the writer of ch. 86 of Egils saga tells of an attempt to break
a gigantic human skull, which was thought to be Egill’s, and was found beneath an old,
disused, altar. The priest, a sardonic wit, Skapti Þórarinsson, was curious to test its hardness,
and. stmck it with an axe; a white mark appeared on the skull, but no dint, no crack. Þórr’s
testing of Hymir’s infrangible skull must have been in the mind of the author of this anecdote
in Egils Saga, no doubt Snorri himself.
17 C.W. v. Sydow, Jatten Hymes Bagare, 113-150, Danske Studier 1915. The narrative parallels
from folktale are illuminating and indispensable for understanding the genesis of Hymis-
kviða. Von Sydow does not see why the poet diverges from the traditional folktale theme at
certain points, however, e.g. 142-143, and this necessarily hampers his argument. He takes
no account of the basic Christian theme that takes precedence in the poem over any folktale
roots.