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it would be ‘inappropriate to see fire as “nourisher of life” at the very mo-
ment when it swallows the world’.32 Presumably influenced by Hallberg, a
number of other scholars have subscribed to the view that aldrnari denotes
askr Yggdrasils. to be sure, Ólafur Briem is indecisive as to the meaning of
aldrnari ‘eldur eða askur Yggdrasils’, but Paul Schach is adamant that ‘the
life sustainer’ refers to the ‘world tree’, and Gísli Sigurðsson comments
confidently on the word: ‘sá sem nærir lífið, askur Yggdrasils’.33 While
Hollander entertained this possibility as an alternative to ‘gutting fire’ in
a footnote in his English translation of the Poetic Edda, andy orchard has
no qualms about rendering aldrnari as ‘the world-tree’ in his.34 Last but not
least, the idea is adopted by Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason in their
new edition of the Edda.35 they are of the opinion that ‘fire’ is an unlikely
interpretation in the context of this stanza on the grounds that a word with
this meaning would not be expected to occur with the preposition við.
Moreover, they state that it would be awkward if ‘fire’ occurred three times
within the same half stanza (eimi, aldrnari and hiti). they claim that the
concept of askr Yggdrasils is more appropriate in the context.
there are dissenting views, however. ursula Dronke, a proponent of
fire hypothesis, as we have seen, discards the view that the word denotes
askr Yggdrasil on the following grounds:
It seems improbable that aldrnari should refer to the world tree,
whose role in the poem as a measurer, a time-keeper, ends with its
groan of age in [stanza] 45.36
Dronke’s counterarguments must be given considerable weight as the im-
age described in the stanza she quotes is not easily compatible with the in-
terpretation that askr Yggdrasils burns up in Ragnarök. In this connection,
however, it should be kept in mind that, as Larrington cautions, the fate of
askr Yggdrasils during the events of Ragnarök is in fact quite unclear.37
32 Hallberg, “Elements of Imagery,” 63.
33 Eddukvæði, ed. by Ólafur Briem (reykjavík: Skálholt, 1976), 90; Paul Schach, “Some
Thoughts on Völuspá,” 106–107; Eddukvæði, ed. by Gísli Sigurðsson, 16.
34 Hollander, The Poetic Edda, 11. andy orchard, The Elder Edda. A Book of Viking Lore
(London: Penguin, 2011), 13.
35 Eddukvæði, ed. by Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn ólason, vol. 1, 305.
36 The Poetic Edda III, 151. the reference is to stanza 45 in Dronke’s edition, Ibid., 19.
37 Carolyne Larrington, The Poetic Edda, 269.
ALDRNARI