Gripla - 2019, Blaðsíða 102
GRIPLA102
It remains to be suggested what changes could be made in scholarly
practice and translation in light of the above findings. If the risar and
jötnar in the Old Icelandic sagas and in the wider corpus are to be under-
stood, then the dismissal of the term “giant” – or at least an acknowledg-
ment of the problems involved in its use – is an important first step. As
the preceding discussion has indicated, there is little value in the term
“giant” or in related terms such as Riese and jætte in scholarly discourse, as
these represent imprecise modern projections. I propose that in academic
papers and books on Old Norse-Icelandic texts, the terms risi and jötunn
are adopted for the purposes of clarity and accuracy. It is less simple to
arrive at a solution in the case of translations produced for non-academic
audiences, as readers may not understand the meaning of and distinction
between the Old Norse terms. Considering that translations cannot, by
their nature, capture all of the nuances of the original language, it may be
necessary to retain “giant” and related terms in such texts, even if such a
solution is not ideal. The complications involved in the translation of the
words risi and jötunn could be outlined in explanatory notes.
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
M A N U S C R I P T S
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, Reykjavík
GKS 2365 4to (Codex Regius, Konungsbók Eddukvæða)
GKS 2367 4to (Codex Regius, Konungsbók Snorra-Eddu)
Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab,
Københavns Universitet, København
AM 544 4to (Hauksbók)
Universiteitsbibliotheek, Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht
Traj 1374 (Codex Trajectinus, Trektarbók)
P R I M A R Y S O U R C E S
Anonymous Stanzas from Snorra Edda. Ed. and trans. by Kari Ellen Gade,
Margaret Clunies Ross and Matthew Townend. In Poetry from Treatises on
Poetics, Part I. Ed. by Kari Ellen Gade. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian
Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, 512–534.