Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 31

II Scholarly prehistory
11
casibus indita sunt plurima, ut Edda profitetur, ex ejus fabulis (ratio)
reddi potest, nec etiam plurium, qvæ ibi occurrunt, appellationum.6
(From the poems of the ancients, and also from certain titles of the
Anses, and especially Woden, and indeed of other things also, it ap-
peareth that there hath been another older Edda, or book of stories,
put together by the Anses themselves or their grandsons, which hath
perished, and of which our Edda is, as it were, an epitome; for very
few of these many names, which are applied to Woden on account of
divers adventures of his, as Edda itself declareth, can any account be
given from the stories contained therein, yea, nor even of the names
of many others, which are therein to be found.)7
Old Norse Euhemerism, as it is found chiefly in the Prologue to Snorri’s
Edda and Ynglinga saga, is well known (cf. Weber 1991). In this context
it is particularly relevant to point to a passage in the Third Grammatical
Treatise by Olåfr hvftaskåld. The conception behind this Nordic adapta-
tion of classical treatises of grammar and rhetoric by Olåfr hvftaskåld is
that Old Norse poetic forms share a common origin with classical rheto-
ric; Olåfr thought that OSinn and his fellow æsir had introduced the clas-
sical poetic forms into Scandinavia:
I jressi bok må gerla skilja, at gll er ein listin skåldskapr så, er rom-
verskir spekingar nåmu f Athenisborg å Griklandi ok sneru sfban f
låtfnu-mål, ok så ljo5a-håttr e5a skåldskapr, er 05inn ok a5rir Åsfa-
menn fluttu norSr higat f norbrhålfu heimsins ok kendu mgnnum å sfna
tungu Jress konar list, svå sem fteir hgffiu skipat ok numit f sjålfu Åsfa-
landi.8
(In this book it can be clearly seen that it is all one art form, the poetic
form which was leamt in Athens by the wise men of Rome and later
translated into the Latin language, and the form of verse or poetry that
6 Ed. Faulkes 1979: 420-21, cf. p. 456. Cf. further GuSbrandur Vigfusson in Corp. Poet.
Bor. (1883), vol. 1: xvii-xxxvii, where there is a vivid presentation of the revival of Ice-
landic philology, and Sijmons 1906: lxxxii-cvii.
7 Transi. in Corp. Poet. Bor. (1883), vol. 1: xxxi.
8 Ed. Finnur Jonsson 1927: 39; cf. ed. Bjom Magnusson Olsen 1884: 60.