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ity is involved in the reconstruction of the text according to ideas of an
older poem, there is not much variance among the scholarly editions used
today. this stability may be explained by the fact that the few extant texts
do not greatly differ from one another, but it may also be the result of the
long–lasting influence of Sophus Bugge’s 1867 edition, as well as Sigurður
Nordal’s edition and commentary, first published in 1923.4 the most
used edition for academic purposes, Hans kuhn’s revision (1962–68) of
Gustav Neckel’s edition (1914–27), is indebted to them and accordingly
also presents a reconstructed text.5 the work involved in producing a
reconstructed text of Völuspá from the extant texts requires scientific and
imaginative effort on the part of the editor, who cannot help but assume
a relation of some kind among the extant texts and make judgements of
value about them.6 the process by which a reconstructed verse is created
becomes part of the modern scholarly transmission of Völuspá and, as long
as it is visible to the reader, the reconstructed text can be of great value
for academic research. the risk of relatively stable texts such as Völuspá is
years after the introduction of Christianity [the year 1000]. On the other hand, one can
make only vague speculations as to what the poem was like during earlier periods’. See
also, Völuspá, ed. nordal, 23–25 and Judy Quinn, ‘Editing the Edda: the Case of Vǫluspá’,
Scripta Islandica 51 (2000): 72–73. there is scholarly consensus that all poems written in r
are copies from older manuscripts; see Else Mundal, ‘oral or Scribal Variations in Vǫluspá:
A Case study in Old Norse Poetry’, in Oral Art Forms and their Passage into Writing, ed.
Else Mundal and Jonas Wellendorf (Copenhagen: Museum tusculanum Press, 2008),
209–27; Gustav Lindblad, Studier i Codex Regius av äldre Eddan (Lund: gleerup, 1954),
247–53; frands Herschend, ‘Codex regius 2365 4to: Purposeful Collection and Conscious
Composition’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 17 (2002): 121–43 and references given there.
4 Norræn fornkvæði: Islandsk samling af folkelige oldtidsdigte om nordens guder og heroer, almin-
delig kaldet Sæmundar Edda hins fróða, ed. Sophus Bugge (oslo: Malling, 1867). Völuspá:
Gefin út með skýringum, ed. Sigurður nordal (reykjavík: Helgafell, 1923), 111. nordal’s
edition was reprinted and revised in 1952; all quotes in the present article are taken from
the latter.
5 Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, ed. Gustav Neckel, and rev.
Hans Kuhn, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Winter & universitätsverlag, 1962–68). neckel’s first
edition was published in 1914–27.
6 See Judy Quinn, ‘the Principles of textual Criticism and the Interpretation of old norse
texts derived from Oral tradition’, in The Hyperborean Muse: Studies in the Transmission
and Reception of Old Norse Literature, ed. Judy Quinn and Maria Adele Cipolla (turnhout:
Brepols, forthcoming 2015). Quinn reviews and discusses the principles of textual criticism
and editorial practices concerning Old Norse texts, especially the viability of stemmatics to
explain the variability of texts derived from oral traditions, such as Völuspá.
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