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of Völuspá.31 the implication is that himinjaðar was not a manuscript
witness, but something which was created (possibly inspired by the text
in H) there and then, as there is no strong evidence that other medieval
manuscripts were extant at the time. this also recalls the editorial deci-
sions to which the poem has been subjected, from the seventeenth century
to the present.
johan Fritzner’s dictionary adopted Bugge’s emendation and did
not provide entries for the two possible manuscript readings.32 Richard
Cleasby and Guðbrandur vigfússon’s An Icelandic-English Dictionary
adopted Bugge’s himinjöðurr and dismissed the manuscript’s texts:
himin-jöðurr, m. the corner, brim (jaðarr, jöðurr) of heaven, =
himin-skaut, Vsp. 5 (άπ-. λεγ.) this, no doubt, is the correct form,
not himin-jó-dýr (heaven-horse-beasts) or himin-jó-dur (heaven-
horse-doors).33
the manuscript text went from being rejected to being denounced. gering
and sijmons’s Kommentar rejected himen-jó-dýr and himen-jó-dyrr for being
‘unmöglich’ [impossible], although gering’s Wörterbuch, published earlier,
provided entries for both ‘himen-jó-dyrr (f. pl.) tür der himmelsrosse’
[doors of the horses of the sky] and ‘himen-jǫþorr (m.) himmelskante,
himmelsrand’ [edge of the sky, border of the sky].34
31 Ibid., lix/lxiii. faulkes, Two Versions, 2:78. See also Lieder der Edda, ed. Gering and sijmons,
3.1:8.
32 Fritzner, Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog, s.v. himinjöðurr: ‘himinjöðurr, m. Himmelrand =
himin jaðarr’ [himinjöðurr, m. edge of the sky = himin jaðarr].
33 Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary supplemented by
William Craigie (oxford: Clarendon, 1957), s.v. himin-jöðurr.
34 Die Lieder der Edda, ed. gering and Sijmons, 3.1:8; Hugo gering, Vollständiges Wörterbuch
zu den Liedern der Edda (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1903), s.v.
himen-jó-dyrr and himen-jǫþorr. R.C. Boer, Ferdinand detter and Richard Heinzel adopted
Bugge’s emendation, while Karl Müllenhoff considered the whole stanza an interpolation
and did not include it in his edition of the poem. see Die Edda, ed. R. C. Boer, 2 vols.
(Haarlem: Willink & Zoon, 1922), 2:5; Sæmundar Edda, ed. Ferdinand detter and Richard
Heinzel (Leipzig: Wigand, 1903), 13; Deutsche Altertumskunde V.I Ueber die Völuspá, ed.
Karl Müllenhoff, 5 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883–91), 5.1:92–93. Anne Holtsmark re-
marks that most scholars adopt himinjǫður, which she also adopts, but she analyses neither
this emendation nor the discarded manuscript text, see Forelesninger over Vǫluspá hösten
1949 ([oslo]: universitets studentkontor, 1949), 8.
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