Gripla - 20.12.2015, Side 29

29
PAtRICIA PIRes BOULHOsA
sCRIBAL PRACtICes
ANd tHRee LINes IN VöLUSPÁ
IN CODEX REGIUS1
Völuspá is extant as a whole poem in two medieval manuscripts, Codex
Regius (Gks 2365 4to, ca. 1275–1300) and Hauksbók (Am 544 4to, ca.
1300–25) and some of its stanzas are quoted in full or in prose paraphrases
in three extant medieval versions of the Prose Edda.2 most scholarly edi-
tions of the poem offer a reconstructed text built from these manuscripts:
the base text comes from Codex Regius (hereafter r) with borrowings from
Hauksbók (hereafter H) and footnotes with textual variants from H and
the Prose Edda. Reconstructions of Völuspá may be aimed at recovering
lost older versions of the poem – be it a tenth-century oral composition, a
first recording in parchment in the thirteenth century or a common (and
older) text from the extant versions.3 Although some degree of subjectiv-
1 this article is based on my research for a Brazilian edition and translation of Völuspá, for
which I received the Snorri Sturluson Icelandic fellowship from the Stofnun Sigurðar
nordals, reykjavík. I was also kindly welcomed by the Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í
íslenskum fræðum where I worked from June to August 2007. I am indebted to all schol-
ars and staff of both institutes, but especially to Haraldur Bernharðsson, marteinn Helgi
Sigurðsson, and guðvarður Már gunnlaugsson, who patiently helped me with questions
raised directly in this article. I am also grateful to Paul Bibire for his patience with my
questions. A version of this article was submitted and accepted for publication in Mediaeval
Scandinavia in 2007.
2 these manuscripts are Codex Regius (Gks 2367 4to, ca. 1300–50), Codex Upsaliensis (dG
11 4to, ca. 1300–25), and Codex Wormianus (Am 242 fol., ca. 1350). For editions, see fn 18
below. unless otherwise stated, the datings of all manuscripts mentioned in this article are
taken from Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog: Registre (Copenhagen: Den arnamagnæanske
kommission, 1989).
3 for example, Lars Lönnroth, ‘the founding of Miðgarðr (Vǫluspá 1–8)’, in The Poetic
Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology, ed. Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington (new
York: routledge, 2002), 5: ‘the Icelandic text which is given on the preceding pages, and
which provides the basis for my translation [neckel and Kuhn’s edition], is to be seen as a
reconstruction. It may be supposed that the reconstruction gives a fairly good picture of the
poem as it generally was performed on the farms of Icelandic chieftains some two hundred
Gripla XXVI (2015): 29–55
GRIPLA XXVI. - 12.12.B.indd 29 12/13/15 8:24:27 PM